Getting to the Real Sticky Stuff: Peace and Politics in the Post-2015 Agenda

By John Filson

By now you have heard about the Post-2015 Agenda that will replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) next year. Through the United Nations, countries agreed on the eight MDGs in the year 2000, resolving to address the challenge of global poverty through a common set of goals. These included crucial areas such as hunger, child mortality, gender equality, HIV/AIDs, and others.

The “Post-2015 Agenda” is the shorthand term for the new set of Goals that countries will agree upon when the MDGs expire in 2015. For the last several years UN Member States and advocates all over the world have been talking about what the new set of Goals should be. Many of us believe the time has come for the world to address not only the symptoms of chronic poverty, but also its root causes. These include factors such as economic and political exclusion, a tolerance of corruption, repression of cultural identities, lack of effective systems for justice, and other drivers of instability. These conditions create not only poverty but also deeply-rooted animosity and political conflicts that prevent societies from being able to develop.

Naturally, it can be a faux pas to bring up such topics in the polite company of diplomats. It’s like asking some governments to agree that their leadership is unjust and corrupt and therefore illegitimate. But how else can we make genuine progress toward the world we want? Aren’t we tired of always treating the symptoms of broken social systems without really getting to the roots of the problem?

One feature of the new set of Goals is the concept of universality. Countries should not tell other countries what to fix unless they are prepared to make the same changes themselves. This novel idea may cool the enthusiasm of some governments to demand painful structural reforms they themselves would also have to make.

But it is also the basis for strong push-back recently from countries like Brazil, China, Russia, and many conflict-affected states. Their argument is something like this: “First of all, we are not against peaceful societies and appropriate governments. But it is not your place to tell us how to run our countries. We don’t tell you how to run yours. And if you want to talk about structural factors, then we should be discussing global drivers of poverty and conflict like extractive trade regimes, sanctions, over-consumption, and military aggressions in violation of international law. Why are you only willing to talk about domestic factors?”

They have a point. For those who are advocating for peace and governance-related targets, the new Post-2015 Goals is an historic opportunity to make real change in the world we cannot possibly squander. But from the perspective of governments on the receiving end of such advocacy, Powerful nations are again demanding sweeping changes without the ability or willingness to change their own behaviors in a global system that keeps stoking the fires of poverty and violent conflict.  

Change is hard. And real change is really hard. Much of the Post-2015 conversation among UN Member States and civil societies has focused on technical aspects of sustainable development like setting appropriate indicators to measure progress and collecting reliable data. But the Post-2015 process is really about politics and power. Nobody wants war or poverty. But the world is the way it is because the way we collectively live, make money, provide safety, and share a crowded planet constitutes a system that keeps things this way.

The Post-2015 Agenda is indeed an historic opportunity we absolutely must not miss. 2016, 2017, and each year after that are also crucial opportunities. We must continue building the global consensus that perverse poverty and horrific violence are not acceptable in the life of our species. But when we start using words like structural, systemic, and root causes, we have to realize that it means fundamental changes in the ways of doing things we are all accustomed to. If we are not ready for that, then it’s not appropriate to raise expectations about a better life for those who carry the heaviest burdens. But if we are, then let’s take this opportunity to have a real conversation.

To learn more about the Post-2015 process, read the most recent expert analysis on the Post-2015 process from peacebuilding NGO Saferworld, including a briefing note about the external stresses that fuel poverty and conflict. Also see how the new set of Goals has evolved by reading the UN Secretary General’s High Level Panel Report on the Post-2015 Agenda from 2013, and the more recent Outcome Document of the UN’s Open Working Group on the Sustainable Development Goals. Finally, add your voice to civil society’s conversation about the Post-2015 Agenda at: WorldWeWant2015.org.

John Filson is the Senior Program Manager for Policy at the Alliance for Peacebuilding based in Washington, D.C. He oversees AfP’s Policymaker Engagement program in Washington, which seeks to provide policymakers with peacebuilding approaches to foreign policy issues. John helps AfP serve as a conduit between civil society peacebuilding experts around the world and the U.S. policymaking process, and ensure the voice of local practitioners struggling to prevent war in their neighborhoods becomes part of policymaking conversations in Congress, the State Department, USAID, and the broader policy community. His work includes hosting civil society delegations from overseas, organizing discussion events on critical themes, and collaborating extensively with issue-based coalitions in Washington and overseas.

John brings more than a decade of peacebuilding and development experience to AfP’s policy programs, including years of hands-on work in the Middle East and Latin America. From 2007-2009, he lived with uprooted communities in Northern Iraq as the Iraq Program Manager for Mennonite Central Committee, working closely with Iraqi civil society leaders to provide support and resources for their development and community reconciliation efforts. John has lived and worked in support of local peacebuilders in Nicaragua, Guatemala, Ecuador, Malawi, Hollywood, and Jerusalem. He holds an MA in International Peace Studies from the Kroc Institute at the University of Notre Dame. He speaks Arabic and Spanish.