Side event organized by the Post-2015 Human Rights Caucus
Sponsored by the Permanent Mission of Denmark to the UN
Monday 23 March, 1:15-2:30pm, Conference Room A, UNHQ
this invitation can be downloaded in pdf format here
One of the main ‘lessons learned’ from the MDGs is that the indicators chosen to measure progress towards the post-2015 sustainable development goals will either uplift or undermine the entire agenda. Given that there is almost unanimous agreement that the agenda should be founded in human rights, and many of the OWG goals and targets overlap significantly with human rights standards, it stands to reason that the indicators we choose to monitor these efforts should be informed by human rights practice and sensitive to human rights imperatives.
Therefore, the members of the Post-2015 Human Rights Caucus wish to highlight the need for an innovative and holistic indicator framework that will create the right incentives and environment to pursue transformative, rights-based sustainable development. The event will aim to stimulate human rights-informed debate about how to measure the SDGs and accompanying targets. Topics will include: how to measure some key human rights concerns such as discrimination and inequality; the need for qualitative, process and capacity indicators rather than just quantitative outcome indicators; how to ensure the indicators chosen are tied to the most transformative elements of the targets (as opposed to the damaging tendency to ‘treasure what we can measure’ rather than vice versa); and how we can ensure that the indicators respond to and honour the social, environmental and economic elements of the SDG agenda. We will also present concrete suggestions for rights-based indicators and highlight existing experience with human rights monitoring and indicators that can usefully inform and inspire the post-2015 efforts.
The event will be based around a moderated discussion followed by Q&A, with speakers including (final list TBC):
- Moderator: Kate Donald, CESR (and co-convenor of Human Rights Caucus)
- H.E. Mr. Erik Laursen, Deputy Permanent Representative of Denmark to the UN
- Craig Mokhiber, Chief of Development and Economic & Social Issues Branch, OHCHR
- Savio Carvalho, Amnesty International (and coconvenor of Human Rights Caucus)
- Antonia Wulff, Education International
- Tessa Khan, Asia-Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development
- Bill Orme, Global Forum for Media Development
- Marianne Mollmann, International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission
For further information, please contact Kate Donald at kdonald@cesr.org.