EDITORIAL: Achieving the SDGs through Eco-sufficiency

By Leida Rijnhout, Friends of the Earth Europe

Our current level of overconsumption in Europe is plundering the Earth’s resources at a faster rate than they can be regenerated. As a result, environmental and social breakdowns are visible. The number of murdered environmental defenders is increasing every year. This is because the overexploitation of natural resources is affecting more local communities, especially in the global South. As a result, Friends of the Earth Europe organised the conference “Eco-sufficiency: moving beyond the gospel of eco-efficiency” to bring together EU policy makers, academics and activists to discuss how to transition the EU away from a consumption-driven economy.

This conference challenged the mainstream approach of economic growth as a solution for everything, including to tackle environmental and social challenges. We need to rethink fundamentally our economic and political system to have people, planet and human rights again at the core of our strategies.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, if we interpret and implement it well, is a framework to achieve this paradigm shift towards a more fair and green economy. Tackling inequality also means closing the gap between the extremes of ecological overshoot and material poverty. We have to define a distribution mechanism to achieve a fair share for everyone to achieve human wellbeing without compromising ecosystem stability and the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

The SDGs can be seen as a benchmark for the essential human needs to be satisfied. And the principles of eco-sufficiency can help us build a sustainable and shared prosperity in a world that — to quote Mahatma Gandhi — “has enough for everyone’s needs, but not for everyone’s greed.”

If you want to receive the final report of the eco-sufficiency conference – to be published in February 2018 – please contact Riccardo Mastini.

Will the CAP continue to fail to deliver on sustainability?

By Gabor Figeczky- IFOAM Organics International

A couple of weeks ago, the European Commission adopted a Communication on the Future of Food and Farming, setting out the EU’s direction for the future Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). IFOAM – Organics International believe that the Communication lacks strategy to realise the Commission’s wider intentions to shift towards more sustainable growth models under the next EU Budget.

It also doesn’t prioritise the expansion of sustainable farming systems, such as organic farming, which can help to lead the way towards an ambitious implementation of Agenda 2030 in the European agriculture sector.A lot has changed since 1962, the year that the CAP was first introduced.

While the CAP has tried to catch up with continuous changes in European food and farming through several rounds of reform, it has resoundingly failed to adapt. The SDGs remind us about the many challenges of which several are also visible in Europe: EU child obesity figures are shocking, crises are hitting the farming sector every few months, population decline in rural areas continues unabated, the effects of climate change are becoming increasingly dramatic and biodiversity is disappearing before our very eyes.

With CAP representing almost 40% of the EU expenditure and the Commission proposing a more results-orientated budget post-2020, spending money largely on income support with a limited positive impact on sustainability cannot be justified. EU leaders should ensure in the upcoming EU budget discussions that future CAP payments are grounded on farmers delivering a wide range of public goods based on a whole farm system approach.

The next CAP reform is a huge opportunity we should not miss to promote a full transition towards more sustainable farming in Europe. However, if the current 2-pillar structure is upheld, spending most of the funds in the first, while with more ambitious sustainability schemes remaining voluntary in the 2nd, the next reform risks maintaining the status quo and not giving the necessary impulse to prioritise sustainability.

How we’ll get Universal Health Coverage for All by 2030

By Katie Gallagher, European Patients’ Forum

The European Patients’ Forum has published this month a Roadmap, which sets out actions that decision makers need to urgently consider in order to achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC) for all patients in the EU by 2030. In contrast with SDG 3, disparities in access to healthcare in Europe are increasing despite that universal health coverage is a well-recognised goal for all healthcare systems in the EU. This basic right is not yet a reality for all patients in the EU. There is also a factsheet that gives an overview of the Roadmap.

In line with EPF’s 2017 Campaign on Access to Healthcare, this roadmap provides decision makers with recommendations to achieve UHC for all patients in the EU by 2030. It calls on Member States and the EU to commit to a long-term vision where equity of access and UHC is a reality for all, as described in SDG3 on ensuring health lives and promoting well-being for all at all ages. This Roadmap urges EU institutions and Member States to:

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Provide to all patients, regardless of which country the live in or their country of origin.
Commit to based on outcomes and added value.
Ensure the delivery of healthcare products and services that are , together with the healthcare industry.
Promote and implement access to a ensuring that the package of services covered by the healthcare system is tailored to the needs of patients.
End the discrimination and stigma that patients face and make sure that no population is excluded.

In this Roadmap, the European Patients’ Forum also emphasises the importance and need to establish a transparent, inclusive and collaborative working process for the implementation of UHC as well as inter-sectoral action for health to achieve UHC and significantly improve quality. of life and care for patients.

A reformed EU budget for a sustainable European future

By Klara Hajdu, CEEWeb

The future EU budget should cut wasteful spending, increase coherence and put sustainability at its heart. The People’s Budget campaign, which is backed by SDG Watch Europe, calls for specific reforms to bring the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) in line with sustainable development, including ambitious implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals. A people centred budget can hold the key to many of the challenges facing Europe.

We call on the European Commission and finance ministers to apply a new methodological approach for the future EU budget: sustainability proofing along a set of sustainability principles. This would be in line with the preliminary report of the High-Level Expert Group on Sustainable Finance established by the EC. Sustainability proofing could be realised by improving tools already available. One example is to apply a better definition of the European value added, which takes into account all dimensions of sustainable development. Another is the expansion of the partnership principle to all major internal funding streams. In addition, targeted sectoral measures are also needed, such as phasing out environmentally harmful subsidies, creating a financial instrument for establishing a European network of green infrastructure and earmarking money for social inclusion.

Sustainable development should not be an empty cliché in the EU budget context, and the People’s Budget campaign proposes concrete ways on how to give it meaning. Simplification should not be a pretext to allow inefficient spending that serves contradictory objectives or investments that do not serve the public good.

“Young People in Partnership: SDGs in Action” – an update from Ireland

By Carmel Irandoust, World Vision Ireland

What are the Sustainable Development Goals (#SDGs)? How do they relate to you? To Ireland? To the World? Why have them? Questions you may have asked yourselves but never thought of voicing or just never thought of asking because you didn’t even know they existed! Whatever the case may be… welcome! These are some of the questions we tried to answer when World Vision Ireland gave its very first workshop for the SDG Module taking place in the midst of SDG WEEK at University College Dublin.

Between 35 and 40 students attended the SDGs workshop, some very aware of what the global goals were and some not at all… so we needed to approach the workshop in a creative, informative and inspiring way as well as prac-ti-cal! We tried to keep it simple, straightforward and effective.

The workshop was threefold:

1/ We began the workshop with a short fun multiple-choice quiz, to engage participants and to test their knowledge on the SDGs. We then gave a presentation on Agenda 2030. This involved looking first at the intergovernmental negotiations and processes out of which Agenda 2030 merged (while keeping it light!). We used videos and examples to look at the 17 Goals. We then looked at Agenda 2030 itself, the five P’s for Sustainable Development, along with the Principles behind the Agenda. Real life examples and a fantastic video was used to break-down what this all actually means for people around the world in their everyday lives. Finally, we focused in on Ireland, looking at the SDG Index report and Ireland’s achievement to date. This session ended with information on the Make Europe Sustainable for All Project, and information on events and upcoming plans – which all participants were very keen to hear about!

2/The plan for the workshop was to inform, engage and inspire. We had just informed them. Next, we wanted to engage them in the goals themselves through an activity. Participants were split into groups and each given an envelope containing 5 targets, from across all Goals. The task was to match targets to their correct goals. Some were easy and straight-forward, but other targets, that cross-cut several goals involved more debate and deliberation. By the end, we were all a lot more familiar with the goals and targets!

Next, we needed to inspire!

3/ Time was then dedicated into looking at the relevance of Agenda 2030 as a roadmap for all peoples and most importantly a roadmap for our own lives. What is that WE can do? We looked at the power of young people themselves and their ability to be active agents of change in their respective societies. We inspired ourselves with the example of young people in some of the most challenged areas such as Syria and South Sudan (WV Programmes), who have been striving to implement the global goals in their lives even if they don’t call it that way… particularly with a focus on SDG 16 Peace, Justice and Institutions and the UNSC Resolution 2250 (Youth, Peace and Security Agenda).

We chose this goal because we wanted to inspire our young people and illustrate that even if one may think that this goal can only be achieved “outside of Ireland” much can be done here actually. The example of the young people of Galway we have been working with this past year was used and their interest in focusing on “supporting refugees” as a theme for the year and how they actively tried building relationships between host communities and refugees themselves. Pictures, stories were used. Finally, we ended up with a passage from the President of Ireland about the SDGs and we asked three questions for people to explore in small groups. And we gave a list of three or four concrete ways of how one could become an SDG advocate in his/her own life.

A few concepts came out from this workshop:

Universal participation and true partnership are required for this Agenda 2030 to succeed. By universal we mean EVERYBODY: children, young people, elderly, businesses, etc…
Young people are at the forefront of this agenda and we need them to take ownership of it and drive it forward. Partnership is key for bringing these goals to life. We need to partner up with young people!
These are not only goals but means, tools, which will empower a population to take ownership of its moral, educational, social, economic, intellectual and environmental development and build peaceful and sustainable societies.
“We are all developing countries in this international framework.” Irish President Michael D Higgins
Ireland must continue to play a pivotal role about the SDGs just like it did at the international level. We have a greater responsibility to bring them to life.
The SDGs are a newer version of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we need to do justice to them and bring it back as well as the dignity and humanity of the citizens of the world.

Here are some of the comments from students who participated in the workshop:

“I really enjoyed the lecture… It’s important we make this accessible for the common person and this lecture would.” “Really enjoyed the interactive approach of relation the SDGs to our personal lives. If there are some evidence of governments implementing real policies to work towards the SDGs and show concrete progress.” “It inspired me to actively work towards achieving the SDGs.” “It inspired me to do more.” “Very engaging, very interesting, inspirational and educational.” “I thought it was very informational and I liked that students could voice their opinions.” “Really excellent presentation. Especially getting us to examine how we can become SDG advocates in our individual lives. Mix of two speakers and short films combined with group reflections worked well. Well done!”

World Vision Ireland is a child-focussed overseas aid agency. Active in Ireland since 1983 and part of World Vision International, it is the largest privately funded NGO in the world. World Vision provides short and long-term assistance to 100 million people worldwide and has over 40,000 staff members working in 100 countries. For six decades, World Vision has been engaging people to work towards eliminating global poverty and its causes and most importantly engaging people to serve and to attend the needs of the children of the world. We believe every child has the right to a safe environment, access to clean water and food, healthcare and education to build a brighter future. Committed to the most vulnerable, World Vision work with people of all cultures, faiths, ages and genders to achieve transformation. They do this through three main pillars: Relief and Development, policy advocacy and change, and partnerships with a variety of actors.

SUSY Map – Mapping the Social & Solidarity Economy Initiatives all over Europe

SUSY or Sustainable and Solidarity Economy is a project which brings together and shows examples of the solidarity economy. The SUSY online platform maps social and solidarity enterprises and is live and updated with more than 1,200 cooperatives, social initiatives, co-working spaces, food and agriculture initiatives, self-organized and self-managed efforts and any other type of initiative that arises from the sector of the solidarity economy all over Europe.

Fair Trade Hellas, a SSEDAS-SUSY partner (“Social & Solidarity Economy as Development Approach for Sustainability in the European Year for Development 2015 and beyond”, co-funded by EuropeAid funds) of among 26 CSOs from 23 European countries that are collaborating to promote and enhance the idea of solidarity for the past 3 years, is also part of the SUSY map and showcases the fair-trade movement in Greece.

The SUSY map exhibits through several filters different categories of the solidarity economy that have emerged due to various economic, environmental and social challenges, that not only provide necessary and alternative solutions but also show that different paths are feasible.

Some categories include finance, active citizenship, fair trade, housing, social inclusion and empowerment, recycle – upcycle – re-use. All can be found here: http://www.solidarityeconomy.eu/susy-map/

The SUSY map also includes some new functionalities via the 17 SDGs, where each goal is correlated with each initiative, showing how the social and solidarity economy directly contributes and moves hand in hand with the SDG achievement. According to the Fair Trade Hellas project coordinator: “People involved and interested in solidarity-based initiatives can network and interact, and we can share and open up the idea of the solidarity economy to more and more people. By collecting and sharing these examples, we aim to gain new insights into the solidarity economy. We hope to enable reflection and discussion in order to discover and embark on more and more future opportunities and possibilities for the solidarity economy. At the same time – like other initiatives in the solidarity economy – we are building links with political decision makers to increase their support for an alternative way of doing things”.

Fair Trade Hellas is a non-profit, non-governmental organization founded in June 2004 with the aim of promoting the fair trade movement. Through its employees and volunteers, it promotes and implements non-formal educational activities and awareness campaigns about alternative and fair economies and supports responsible consumerism through global education activities, advocacy and publishing relevant materials. Moreover, it implements several actions aiming at civic engagement of citizens towards a more sustainable and fair world. Last but not least, Fair Trade Hellas distributes fair trade products and handicrafts through the recently developed e-shop.