In this second CDP Issue Brief, Sabina Alkire discusses the potential of data to catalyze poverty eradication and explains the importance of multidimensional poverty measures alongside monetary measures. She makes five pragmatic recommendations for the Second World Summit on Social Development (WSSD2) that would empower actors, improve the cost-effectiveness of interventions and make progress visible.
In the first number of the new CDP Issue Brief Series, Carlos Lopes looks at the challenges confronting global trade in 2025. The current trade landscape presents an increasingly complex and uncertain picture. A succession of shocks over the past 15 years has profoundly altered global trade dynamics, exposing vulnerabilities in supply chains, shifted policy priorities, and fueling geopolitical frictions. Addressing these challenges requires coordinated policy responses and a renewed commitment to multilateral cooperation to ensure inclusive economic growth.
This Policy Note compiles perspectives from the Committee for Development Policy (CDP) and its members on different dimensions of a globally just transition to low-carbon and environmentally sustainable economies. It includes the central messages of the debates on just transition during the CDP’s 2023 plenary meeting, on which the Committee reported to the Economic and Social Council, as well as pieces, individually authored and selected by CDP members, on ecologically sustainable industrialisation, breaking fossil fuel dependency, the potential and risks of carbon border adjustment mechanisms, the special challenges of middle-income countries (MICs) in securing a just transition; solutions…
This paper discusses the escalating external debt distress and financial constraints faced by many least developed countries (LDCs) and other developing countries, particularly in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic, rising interest rates, high food and energy prices and currency depreciation. It stresses the importance of a comprehensive financing strategy to address the large scale of investment needs of developing countries. The paper underscores the urgent need for short-term solutions such as multilateral financing and debt renegotiation to tackle the current debt crisis, while simultaneously establishing long-term solutions to prevent future debt crises. It calls for improvements in…
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This paper presents an assessment of the Voluntary National Review (VNR) experience from 2018-2022 as an instrument of peer learning in the implementation of the UN 2030 agenda. It highlights the key findings of the annual studies by the CDP of the VNR reports submitted to the High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) from 2017 to 2021. The VNRs have been successful as a process that has fully engaged Member States. The substantive content of the reports and the review process could be strengthened by: providing more analytical rather than descriptive information; focusing on achievements, challenges, and lessons learned; reflecting on the challenges of the transformative ambition of the 2030…
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The adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015 represents a landmark achievement that redefined development to integrate environmental, social and economic objectives and as a universal challenge. It was not only the culmination of the work of determined norm entrepreneurs across decades, many of whom are from the Global South, but also a global consensus on the radical action needed to save the future of humanity. It has been embraced by stakeholders worldwide and generated a multitude of initiatives to respond to the challenge. Nonetheless, the road to implementing the transformational, integrated and universal Agenda has…
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This paper is the fifth in a series of annual analyses of voluntary national reviews (VNRs) conducted by the Committee for Development Policy (CDP) and examines the VNR reports presented at the 2021 High Level Political Forum (HLPF). It consists of an introductory chapter with general conclusions and recommendations for consideration by governments and other stakeholders participating in future VNRs; and follows with a short series of authored thematic chapters. The document revisits issues addressed in the previous editions, such as the pledge to leave no one behind, inequalities, gender equality, COVID-19 and pandemic preparedness, and SDG 17, but also adds a new chapter on the…
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The fourth in a series of annual analyses of voluntary national reviews (VNRs) by the Committee for Development Policy (CDP), this paper analyses the 2020 reports. It consists of an introductory chapter with general conclusions and recommendations for consideration by governments and other stakeholders participating in future VNRs; and a short series of authored thematic chapters. The document revisits issues addressed in the previous editions, such as the pledge to leave no one behind, inequalities, gender inequality, COVID-19 and pandemic preparedness, and SDG 17, and includes new topics of analysis, such as how countries have treated the issue of structural transformation and sustainable…
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The global COVID-19 pandemic is plunging the world into a socio-economic and financial crisis of an unprecedented scale, in addition to the acute health crisis. Many of the gains achieved under the banner of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are under threat. The crisis has exposed and exacerbated vulnerabilities and inequalities in both developing and developed countries, deepening poverty and exclusion and pushing the most vulnerable even further behind. This is a watershed moment. A sustainable, equitable and peaceful future hinges on the right national and international policy decisions. This policy note assembles analysis by members of the United Nations Committee for…
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Voluntary national reviews (VNRs) are an important innovation as a United Nations process for follow up to the adoption of development agendas. This is the third annual review by the Committee for Development Policy (CDP) that provides a systematic content analysis of the VNRs presented to the HLPF. It includes a broader analysis than in the previous years, including a stock taking of lessons learned in the CDP analyses as well as related studies and makes recommendations for strengthening the VNR process. The paper also analyses the VNRs presented in 2019 with regard to how countries addressed the key principle of leaving no one behind and partnerships as well as the sustainable…
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