Alternative Development Strategies For The Post 2015 Era

The global economic crisis of 2008-2009 exposed systemic failings at the core of economic policy making worldwide. The crisis came on top of several other crises, including skyrocketing and highly volatile world food and energy prices and climate change. This book argues that new policy approaches are needed to address such devastating global development challenges and to avoid the potentially catastrophic consequences to livelihoods worldwide that would result from present approaches. The contributors to the book are independent development experts, brought together by the UN to identify a development strategy capable of promoting a broad-based economic recovery and at the same time guaranteeing social equity and environmental sustainability both within countries and internationally. This new development approach seeks to promote the reforms needed to improve global governance, providing a more equitable distribution of global public goods. The contributors offer a critical evaluation of past development experiences and report on their creative search for new and well-thought out answers for the future. They suggest that economic progress, fairer societies and environmental sustainability can be compatible objectives, but only when pursued simultaneously by all.

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on bloomsburycollections.com. Attention is increasingly being paid to the conceptualization of the sustainable development agenda that should guide global development efforts beyond 2015. New trends are shaping the international environment, suggesting that the world emerging from the recent economic and financial crisis will probably be very different from the one we have known so far. The emerging issues demand new concerted responses and new international efforts, which will have to be framed by new rules and more democratic and inclusive mechanisms of global governance. Global Governance and Rules for the Post 2015 Era provides a unique assessment of global rules and governance, a reflection of how global rules have been shaping development experiences and outcomes, an identification of the shortcomings of current global governance mechanisms and innovative suggestions for reforming and improving them. The various chapters analyse whether current rules and governance structures enables the building of effective responses against international problems and promote a fair distribution of development opportunities among countries. This book is a timely contribution to the discussions on a new global development agenda undertaken under the leadership of the United Nations. It reflects the outcome of a research programme by a group of independent development experts brought together by the United Nations Committee for Development Policy (CDP), a subsidiary body of the Economic and Social Council. It will be of interest to policymakers worldwide, experts of international agencies, scholars, students and the wider public.

This timely book documents and analyses the seriousness of growing national inequality in different regions around the world. It argues that the treatment of inequality in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is wholly insufficient due to their failure to recognise the growing difference between the income of work and the income of capital and the super rich, and the strain this places on a country’s social fabric.

This book addresses practitioners in development cooperation as well as scientists and students who are interested in the interaction of human rights and development issues. In the practice of development cooperation, linking poverty reduction programs with human rights is mainly achieved using so-called “Rights-based Approaches to Development.” In this context the right to an adequate standard of living (including access to food, water and housing), the right to health and the right to social security are of particular importance – human rights that will play a key role in the design of the Post-2015 Development Agenda, which is currently being negotiated as a framework to succeed the Millennium Development Goals. The book provides an overview of the main international legal standards that are relevant for the protection of social rights, while also analyzing the content of those rights. Moreover, it informs readers on the current debates surrounding the extraterritorial obligations of donor countries and the duties of transnational corporations and international organizations (e.g. the World Bank and WTO) with regard to the implementation of social rights in the Global South.

This comprehensive Encyclopedia is an indispensable resource in the area of law and development. Bringing together more than 80 entries, the Encyclopedia spans a variety of approaches, contextualised histories, recent developments and forward-looking insights into the role of law in development. It is an invaluable reference point for scholars seeking to engage with issues at the intersection of law and development from both within and outside of the legal field, as well as a thorough but succinct overview for post-graduate students.

This handbook informs the reader about how much progress we, the human race, have made in enhancing the quality of life on this planet. Many skeptics focus on how the quality of life has deteriorated over the course of human history, particularly given World War II and its aftermath. This handbook provides a positive perspective on the history of well-being. Quality of life, as documented by scientists worldwide, has significantly improved. Nevertheless, one sees more improvements in well-being in some regions of the world than in others. Why? This handbook documents the progress of well-being in the various world regions as well as the differences in those regions. The broad questions that the handbook addresses include: What does well-being mean? How do different philosophical and religious traditions interpret the concept of well-being within their own context? Has well-being remained the same over different historical epochs and for different regions and subregions of the world? In which areas of human development have we been most successful in advancing individual and collective well-being? In which sectors has the attainment of well-being proven most difficult? How does well-being differ within and between different populations groups that, for a variety of socially created reasons, have been the most disadvantaged (e.g., children, the aged, women, the poor, racial, ethnic, and sexual minorities)?

Heralded as a success that mobilized support for development, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) ushered in an era of setting development agendas by setting global goals. This book critically evaluates the MDG experience from the capabilities and human rights perspectives, and questions the use of quantitative targets as an instrument of global governance. It provides an account of their origins, trajectory and influence in shaping the policy agenda, and ideas about international development during the first 15 years of the 21st century. The chapters explore: • whether the goals are adequate as benchmarks for the transformative vision of the Millennium Declaration; • how the goals came to be formulated the way they were, drawing on interviews with key actors who were involved in the process; • how the goals exercised influence through framing to shape policy agendas on the part of both developing countries and the international community; • the political economy that drove the formulation of the goals and their consequences on the agendas of the South and the North; • the effects of quantification and indicators on ideas and action; and • the lessons to be drawn for using numeric goals to promote global priorities. Representing a significant body of work on the MDGs in its multiple dimensions, compiled here for the first time as a single collection that tells the whole definitive story, this book provides a comprehensive resource. It will be of great interest to students, researchers and policymakers in the fields of development, human rights, international political economy, and governance by numeric indicators.

A highly original book that provides policy solutions for development challenges, framing them with insightful and inventive allegories.