Labour law and ILO

PROJECT
ON
The post 2015- Development agenda

BY : TO:
Porush Jain Ms. Umang
Roll No. : 209/19
B.Com.LL.B(Hons)-D
Sem. : 10th

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Acknowledgment
I would like to express my gratitude to my Labour Law and International
Laboue organisation teacher Ms. Umang Garg, and to the Director , Prof. (Dr.)
Shruti Bedi, for providing me with the opportunity to do this project and to do
research on the topic of The Post 2015 development agenda. This project has
helped me a lot in doing research and I got to learn many new things from it
about the topic and the subject. I also want to thank my teacher, friends and
family to help in doing this project.
I hope this project serves it purpose and is worthwhile to all the readers

Porush Jain

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Index

Sr. No. Particulars Page no.

1 Introduction 4
2 Historical Background 5-6
3 Millennium Development Goals 7-9
4 The Post 2015 development agenda 9-11
5. Sustainable Development Goals 11-17
6. Bibliography 18

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INTRODUCTION

The process of arriving at the post 2015 development agenda was Member State-led with
broad participation from Major Groups and other civil society stakeholders.

There has been numerous inputs to the agenda, notably a set of Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs) proposed by an open working group of the General Assembly, the report of an
intergovernmental committee of experts on sustainable development financing, GA dialogues
on technology facilitation and many others. The General Assembly called upon the Secretary-
General to synthesize the full range of inputs and to present a synthesis report before the end
of 2014 as a contribution to the intergovernmental negotiations in the lead up to the Summit.
The United Nations has played a facilitating role in the global conversation on the post 2015
development agenda and supported broad consultations. It also has the responsibility of
supporting Member States by providing evidence-based inputs, analytical thinking and field
experience.1

On September 25, 2015, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs) as the blueprint for a global partnership for peace, development,
and human rights for the period 2016 to 2030. The 2030 agenda follows on the heels of the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), adopted in 2001, which set the international
development agenda for the period 2001 to 2015. This article uses a human rights lens to
demonstrate that the MDGs and the SDGs have not addressed full employment and decent
work in a manner that is consistent with the Decent Work Agenda of the International Labour
Organization and international human rights legal obligations of the UN member countries.
It concludes that the new 2030 development agenda sadly aligns with market-based
economic growth strategies rather than the realization of the human rights to full employment
and decent work for all.2

1
www.sustainabledevelpoment.un.org/post2015
2
Journals.sagepub.com/doi/full

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HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

For almost 100 years, the International Labour Organization (ILO), the UN specialized agency
on work, has focused on eliminating poverty and improving the lives of workers and their
families. The ILO (2001) has long recognized that “the best way to avoid a life of poverty is
to find decent work”. Indeed, work is instrumentally valuable as a means to gain income to
meet needs for food, clothing, housing, education, and health care. Work is also intrinsically
valuable as it provides opportunities to acquire knowledge and skills, form friendships,
integrate into the community, and achieve self-realization. Studies indicate that unemployment
causes loss of self-confidence, poor health, disruption of family and social relations, and social
exclusion, and has also been associated with suicides, imprisonment, alcoholism, drug
addiction, and child abuse. Not all work, however, contributes positively to human
development. Many jobs do not pay enough to meet basic needs. Work may also be boring,
dangerous, or demeaning. It is decent work—that is, work that respects the human rights of the
worker—that is a necessary component of a strategy to eliminate multi-dimensional poverty,
as well as a key aspect of human dignity.

Since the turn of the Millennium, the elimination of global poverty has been a top priority of
the international community. In 2000, the leaders from 189 nations committed, in the United
Nations Millennium Declaration, to work together for poverty eradication, human rights, and
global peace. Toward these ends, the Declaration was translated the following year into eight
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and 18 targets that aimed to unify governments,
international organizations, foundations and civil society to focus expertise, efforts and
funding on achieving these targets in the areas of poverty reduction, education, gender
equality, health, and other aspects of human development. Yet, the original 2001 MDG
framework failed to take into account a key element of poverty elimination and human
development, namely, full employment and decent work. Although a new target on full
employment and decent work was added to the MDG framework in 2007, it was late in the
MDG process and had several shortcomings.

The MDGs expired in 2015, and the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) established
for post-2015 agenda appear more promising. Goal 8 of the SDGs calls for full and productive

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employment and decent work for all, and some of the targets for this goal set a deadline of
2030. Additional targets and indicators for Goal 8 also have some positive features, including
links to the ILO monitoring mechanisms.

The Post-2015 Development Agenda was a process from 2012 to 2015 led by the United
Nations to define the future global development framework that would succeed the Millennium
Development Goals. The SDGs were developed to succeed the Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs) which ended in 2015. The gaps and shortcomings of MDG Goal 8 (To develop
a global partnership for development) led to identifying a problematic "donor-recipient"
relationship. Instead, the new SDGs favour collective action by all countries.

The UN-led process involved its 193 Member States and global civil society. The resolution is
a broad intergovernmental agreement that acts as the Post-2015 Development Agenda. The
SDGs build on the principles agreed upon in Resolution A/RES/66/288, entitled "The Future
We Want". This was a non-binding document released as a result of Rio+20 Conference held
in 2012.

The lists of targets and indicators for each of the 17 SDGs was published in a UN resolution
in July 2017

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 The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)

Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) are the product of the Millennium Summit of
September 2000. At this summit world leaders adopted the UN Millennium Declaration,
committing their nations to a new global partnership by adoption of Millennium Declaration
by the General Assembly of the United Nations. This summit committed to reduce extreme
poverty and setting out a series of time-bound targets, with a deadline of 2015. These “time
bound targets” are now known as the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs). According to
United Nations MDG are “quantified targets for addressing extreme poverty in its many
dimensions-income poverty, hunger, disease, lack of adequate shelter, and exclusion-while
promoting gender equality, education, and environmental sustainability. They are also basic
human rights-the rights of each person on the planet to health, education, shelter, and
security.”The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have helped in bringing out a much
needed focus and pressure on basic development issues, which in turn led the governments
at national and sub national levels to do better planning and implement more intensive
policies and programmes. MDG’s have played a big role in improving the social indicators
in India. India has achieved the target of reducing countries poverty levels by fifty percent
by Dec, 20153

The MDGs consists of eight goals, all these goals target various developmental and human
rights issues. The eight (8) Goals are as under:

• Goal 1: eradicate extreme poverty and hunger;

• Goal 2: achieve universal primary education;

• Goal 3: promote gender equality and empower women;

• Goal 4: reduce child mortality;

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• Goal 5: improve maternal health;

• Goal 6: combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases;

• Goal 7: ensure environmental sustainability;

• Goal 8: develop a global partnership for development.

Goals of MDGs are inter-linked with each other, like improving the sanitation levels will
reduce child mortality as well as improve the maternal health; it will also help in combating
the malaria etc. Similarly improvement in education levels as well as it will also improve
gender equality as well as help in empowerment of women. Special emphasis has been given
to the effectiveness of Statistics in monitoring development process at national and
international levels, by specifying measurable indicators for the targets in the Millennium
Development Goals.

MDGs Accomplishments

The United Nations says the MDGs – a set of eight goals with 21 targets – led to
achievements including:

• more than halving the number of people living in extreme poverty, to 836 million
in 2015 from 1.9 billion in 1990

• gender parity in primary schools in the majority of countries

• reducing the rate of children dying before their fifth birthday to 43 deaths per 1,000
live births from 90

• a fall of 45% in the maternal mortality ratio worldwide

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 • some 37 million lives saved by tuberculosis prevention and treatment, over 6.2
million malaria deaths averted, and new HIV infection rates down by around 40%

• access to improved sanitation for 2.1 billion people

In 2015, a final report was handed over to the UN, stating the positive impact of the
Millennium Development goal based on the eight factors and also on the maternal mortality
rate.

The Post 2015 development Agenda

The UN System Task Team

The current UN development agenda is centred on the Millennium Development Goals

(MDGs) that were officially established following the Millennium Summit of the UN in 2000.
The MDGs encapsulate eight globally agreed goals in the areas of poverty alleviation,
education, gender equality and empowerment of women, child and maternal health,
environmental sustainability, reducing HIV/AIDS and communicable diseases, and
building a global partnership for development. The MDG's overall target date is 2015.

At the 2010 High Level Plenary Meeting of the UN General Assembly to review progress
towards the MDGs, governments called for accelerating progress and for thinking on ways to
advance the development agenda beyond 2015. After the 2010 High Level Plenary Meeting,
the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has taken several initiatives. He has established a UN
System Task Team, launched a High Level Panel of Eminent Persons and appointed Amina J.
Mohammed as his own Special Advisor on Post-2015 Development Planning.These processes
are complemented by a set of eleven global thematic consultations and national consultations
in 88 countries] facilitated by the United Nations Development Group (UNDG).

The UN System Task Team was established by the Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to support
UN system-wide preparations for the Post-2015 UN Development Agenda. It comprises 60
UN agencies, as well as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. In June 2012,
it published the report “Realizing the Future We Want for All” which serves as an input to the
work of the High Level Panel. On 31 July 2012, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed

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27 civil society, private sector, and government leaders from all regions of the world to a High
Level Panel (HLP) to advise him on the Post-2015 Development Agenda

The HLP's work is guided by 24 framing questions .It held its first meeting on 25 September
2012 on the margins of the annual high level debate of the UN General Assembly and it
submitted its recommendations on how to arrive at an agreement on the post-2015 agenda to
the Secretary-General in May 2013. The terms of reference of the HLP include the
consideration of the findings of the national and thematic consultations at regional and
national levels.

High-level panel's report

On 30 May 2013, the High Level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda released “A
New Global Partnership: Eradicate Poverty and Transform Economies through Sustainable
Development,” a report which sets out a universal agenda to eradicate extreme poverty from
the face of the earth by 2030, and deliver on the promise of sustainable development. The
report calls upon the world to rally around a new Global Partnership that offers hope and a
role to every person in the world.

In the report, the Panel calls for the new post-2015 goals to drive five big
transformation shifts:

1. Leave No One Behind. After 2015 we should move from reducing to ending extreme
poverty, in all its forms. We should ensure that no person – regardless of ethnicity,
gender, geography, disability, race or other status – is denied basic economic
opportunities and human rights.

2. Put Sustainable Development at the Core. We have to integrate the social, economic
and environmental dimensions of sustainability. We must act now to slow the alarming
pace of climate change and environmental degradation, which pose unprecedented
threats to humanity.

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 3. Transform Economies for Jobs and inclusive growth. A profound economic
transformation can end extreme poverty and improve livelihoods, by harnessing
innovation, technology, and the potential of business. More diversified economies,
with equal opportunities for all, can drive social inclusion, especially for young
people, and foster sustainable consumption and production patterns.

4. Build Peace and Effective, Open and Accountable Institutions for All. Freedom
from conflict and violence is the most fundamental human entitlement, and the
essential foundation for building peaceful and prosperous societies. At the same time,
people the world over expect their governments to be honest, accountable, and
responsive to their needs. We are calling for a fundamental shift – to recognize peace
and good governance as a core element of well-being, not an optional extra.

5. Forge a New Global Partnership. A new spirit of solidarity, cooperation, and mutual
accountability must underpin the post-2015 agenda. This new partnership should be
based on a common understanding of our shared humanity, based on mutual respect
and mutual benefit. It should be centered on people, including those affected by
poverty and exclusion, women, youth, the aged, disabled persons, and indigenous
peoples. It should include civil society organizations, multilateral institutions, local
and national governments, the scientific and academic community, businesses, and
private philanthropy.

Sustainable Development Goals

In January 2015, the General Assembly began the negotiation process on the post-2015
development agenda. The process culminated in the subsequent adoption of the 2030 Agenda
for Sustainable Development, with 17 SDGs at its core, at the UN Sustainable Development
Summit in September 20154

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The Sustainable Development Goals are a set of seventeen pointer targets that all the
countries which are members of the UN agreed to work upon for the better future of the
country. The documentary screened at the Rio+20 conference – “Future We Want”
presented the idea of a post-2015 development agenda. Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs) is an intergovernmental agreement formulated to act as post-2015 Development
agenda, its predecessor being Millennium Development Goals.

It is a group of 17 goals with 169 targets and 304 indicators, as proposed by the United Nation
General Assembly’s Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals to be achieved
by 2030. Post negotiations, agenda titled “Transforming Our World: the 2030 agenda for
Sustainable Development” was adopted at the United Nations Sustainable Development
Summit. SDGs is the outcome of the Rio+20 conference (2012) held in Rio De Janerio and
is a non-binding document5

The 17 goals under the Sustainable Development Goals are as mentioned below:

1. End poverty in all its forms everywhere

2. End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote
sustainable agriculture

3. Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all stages

4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning
opportunities for all

5. Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls

6. Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all

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7. Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all

8. Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and

productive employment and decent work for all

9. Built resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable

industrialization and foster innovation

10. Reduce inequalities within and among countries

11. Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable

12. Ensure sustainable consumption and production pattern

13. Take urgent actions to combat climate change and its impact

14. Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources

15. Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably
managed forests, combat desertification and halt and reverse land degradation and
halt biodiversity loss

16. Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide
access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive
institutions at all levels

17. Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for
sustainable development

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Purpose of Sustainable development Goals
The purpose of the SDGs is to encompass the following topics seen as critical to humanity
and the planet:

People: An end to hunger and poverty, encouraging equality in a healthy

environment.

Planet: Improve the management of natural resources by protecting the planet.

Prosperity: Ensuring we all have fulfilling lives and that any developments are made in
harmony with nature.

Peace: Building societies that are free from fear and violence.

Partnership: Mobilising a global partnership to build a brighter future, together

Implementation and support

Implementation of the SDGs started worldwide in 2016. This process can also be called
"Localizing the SDGs". Individual people, universities, governments, institutions and
organizations of all kinds work are working separately but one or more goals at the same time.
Individual governments must translate the goals into national legislation, develop a plan of
action, and establish their own budget. However, at the same time, they must be open to and
actively searching for partners. Coordination at the international level is crucial, making
partnerships valuable. The SDGs note that countries with less access to financial resources
need partnerships with more well-to-do countries.

The co-chairs of the SDG negotiations each produced a book to help people to understand
the Sustainable Development Goals and how they evolved. The books are: "Negotiating the
Sustainable Development Goals: A transformational agenda for an insecure world" by
Ambassador David Donoghue, Felix Dodds and Jimena Leiva and "Transforming
Multilateral Diplomacy: The Inside Story of the Sustainable Development Goals" by
Macharia Kamau, David O'Connor and Pamela Chasek.

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New opportunities for sustainable development
As noted, the SDG framework has been designed to address today’s challenges. While some
trends, such as human-induced climate change or social exclusion, are moving in the wrong
direction, other development trends offer reasons for hope. We live in an “a time of immense
opportunity,” with the end of extreme poverty in sight. There have been tremendous
technological advances that have led to improved development outcomes, particularly in the
key fields of health, energy, nanotechnologies, systems design, and especially information
and communications technologies (ICTs), which have dramatically improved global
interconnectedness and opened vast new opportunities for productivity advances across the
world economy. The SDG agenda sets out five key opportunities for development that is

(i) inclusive, (ii) universal, (iii) integrated, (iv) locally-focused , and (v) technology-driven.

Inclusive Development

“All stakeholders, acting in collaborative partnership, will implement this plan SDG Agenda.”
The SDGs will engage multiple stakeholders at all levels of society to actualize the agenda. No
one is left behind or left out, as “governments, international organizations, the business sector
and other non-state actors and individuals must contribute.” Participatory processes will allow
stakeholders to give voice to the needs and interests of the people they represent, enabling
better-planned and better-informed initiatives.

Locally-Focused Development

Local authorities and communities are responsible for the realization of the goals at local
scales, recognizing in particular interdependent relationships between urban, peri-urban, and
rural areas. The Rio+20 follow-up document, Key Messages and Process on Localizing the
SDG Agenda, notes that “many of the critical challenges of implementing the SDG Agenda
will depend heavily on local planning and service delivery, community buy in and local
leadership, well-coordinated with the work of other levels of governance.” A bottom-up
approach can be successful in achieving transformational sustainable pathways through direct
contact with communities, which informs national-level policy decisions. Cities will be
particularly important to this process. By 2050, the world’s urban population is projected to
grow by 2.5 billion people, to over 70% of the world living in cities, with approximately 90%
of the growth expected to be in the developing regions of Asia and Africa. Cities are the locus

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of worldwide consumption and production. The contribution of cities to global output is
expected to rise to three-quarters in 2050[1.28]. Placing attention, investment, and innovation
in cities will bring the world closer to the SDGs.

Technology-driven Development

Rapid technological change, particularly in ICT and data, but also in material science,
manufacturing (e.g. 3D printing), genomics, and other areas, is deepening the integration of the
world economy and enabling breakthroughs in productivity across the economy, with a
significant potential to speed the pace of global development and economic convergence. Of
great note for the SDGs is the current “data revolution,” characterized by an explosion of
available data resources and rapidly evolving technologies for analyzing those data. One key
lesson learned from the MDGs is that a lack of reliable data can undermine governments’
ability to set goals, optimize investment decisions, manage development processes, and
measure progress. Drawing from this MDG experience, in 2014 UN Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon advocated for the harnessing of the current data revolution in support of sustainable
development. New technologies also offer tremendous opportunities to deliver public services,
including healthcare, education, and basic infrastructure to more people at lower cost. E-
government can offer new approaches to manage the complex and dynamic relationships
between institutions and stakeholders with diverse objectives and competencies, assess and
integrate initiatives at different governance levels, and support synergies to meet different goals

Universal Development

The MDGs set out goals mainly for developing countries, to which rich countries added
assistance through finances and technology. In contrast, the SDGs are “universal goals” that
apply to all countries and “involve the entire world, developed and developing countries alike”
“taking into account different national realities.” Countries are asked to build on current policy
instruments and frameworks to meet the goals and targets, taking into account differences in
national contexts and development levels. Achievement of any of the SDGs will require
concerted global efforts to achieve all of them. The 2030 Agenda is not about what the rich
should do for the poor, but what all countries together should do for the global well-being of
this generation and those to come.

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Integrated Development

The SDG Agenda moves away from approaches to development and promotes the integration
of the economy, environment, and society. The SDGs are “integrated and indivisible and
balance the three dimensions of sustainable development.” The success of one leads to the
success of all. Included in this is the need for good governance and strong social networks,
which translates into a framework focused on “people, planet, prosperity, peace and
partnerships ”For example, a country’s ability to combat hunger is directly connected to its
agricultural system, its strategy for rural development, economic and income growth,
management of natural resources, level of infrastructure, natural disaster mitigation plans,
and the health of its population, requiring that many actors work together across and outside
of government.

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References

• https://sdg.guide/chapter-1-getting-to-know-the-sustainable-development-goals-
e05b9d17801

• https://www.imf.org/en/Topics/SDG

• https://www.impaakt.com/blog/what-are-the-sustainable-development-goals

• https://sdgs.un.org/goals
• https://www.undp.org/content/dam/undp/library/corporate/brochure/SDGs_
Booklet_Web_En.pdf

• https://iasexamportal.com/magazine/csm/october-2015/millennium-
development-goals-and-india

• https://www.in.undp.org/content/india/en/home/post-
2015/mdgoverview.html

• https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2158244016649580

• https://www.slideshare.net/WHO-EMRO/from-the-millennium-development-
goals-to-sustainable-development-goals-in-the-post2015-development-agenda

• https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015

• https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2158244016649580

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