National consultations for the post-2015 MDG agenda project, Commonwealth Perspectives are nearing completion. The last in the series takes place in Samoa from 21-24 January.
The Foundation will then finalise all 14 national reports and have first drafts of cross-cutting thematic articles ready for the ‘Advancing the Post-2015 Sustainable Development Agenda’ civil society meeting on 20 March in Bonn, Germany and the UN High Level Panel meeting in Bali, Indonesia at the end of March. The aim of the national consultations is to validate and enhance a series of preliminary reports on civil society experience in contributing to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
With 13 consultations complete initial findings are varied. Consultations in Africa have revealed that the MDGs are an integral part of common discourse between government, civil society and the private sector, whereas in the Caribbean MDGs appear not to have taken hold as a mainstream framework. A consistent message from across the Commonwealth has been that greater civil society input is needed in the formulation of new structures to reach development goals, and also that these structures facilitate a closer working relationship between government, civil society and the private sector.
