We want your insights on the critical and emerging trends for sustainable development. Please answer the questions below:
- What do you think are critical long term, future shifts that are transforming how we think about development?
- In that future, what role should organizations like UNDP play?
- What outcome should UNDP achieve to make an impact in this future?
- What would contribute positively to achieving that outcome?
- What events and responses would stand in the way of such an outcome?
After this consultation is closed on 16 October, we will capture the key insights we learned in a synthesis document that will be made available on this platform. We will also host a webinar to reflect back what we have heard and learned from you. Stay tuned!
If you have any questions about this consultation, please e-mail: strategic.plan@undp.org
Please check the latest weekly Summary pinned to the top of the discussion to catch up on the latest topics and threads.
Final Summary Reflection
Dear colleagues,
This global conversation drew in a wide and inspiring range of reflections from many of UNDP’s partners and friends around the world. It provided a glimpse of what we believe the coming years will bring, and the role that UNDP could play in helping countries and communities navigate such futures in sustainable, inclusive and equitable ways. Below are a few reflections from the rich discussion. This is not a comprehensive summary – one is being prepared and will be shared with all of you in the days to come. Rather it is a snapshot of some of the main themes and takeaways that our moderation team have captured.
Critical long-term shifts transforming how we think about development
Many contributors highlighted the myriad risks and challenges we see in the world ahead; from rising geopolitical tensions and a weakening of multilateralism to the growth of autocracies and an erosion of support for human rights. From ever-growing inequalities and a sharp increase in poverty – exacerbated by the differentiated impact of Covid-19 – to a rise of protest movements and activism which may create space for more equitable economic structures to emerge. Underlying these are the continuing climate emergency, growing recognition of biodiversity loss and ecosystems collapse as our second systemic emergency and widespread, protracted conflicts hindering progress, with continuing urbanization and long-term demographic shifts altering the geographic patterns of human activity.
Within the development sector contributors mentioned the decline in development funding, the dismantling of systems of international agreements and the aggravation of geopolitical power conflicts as challenges.
Yet positive signals emerge also. Opportunities to transform our social contracts and governance systems on the back of much stronger citizen engagement – manifested in many places by protest and activism but potentially evolving to more structured engagement with the tools and platforms of governance. The potential (while mindful of the risks) of digital tools to connect, mobilize and transact in transformative new ways. The rise of climate-positive technologies such as renewable energy and smart infrastructure. And a greater ability and willingness from developing country governments to finance and direct their own development pathways using domestic fiscal resources and the capacities of the private sector.
Taken together these trends point to a future with increasingly complex, multidimensional challenges, which will require very different solutions from UNDP
So what role should organizations like UNDP play in these futures?
Commentators called firstly for a clear return to the core values and norms that UNDP espouses. To build an organization with a clear, human-centered approach and agenda for development with a strong normative focus, anchored on a brand and ethos that embodies trust and integrity. For organizations like UNDP to advocate for and demonstrate the value of multilateralism and collaboration over exclusion and nationalism, and to take a future-focused, longer-term view of sustainable human development.
There was a strong ask for future-focused development solutions that help countries and communities leverage the potential of the future while minimizing the challenges; ranging from digital solutions with strong governance embedded in a rights-based approach, to solutions for green, circular economies and approaches to build multi-level governance systems for more diverse and urban populations.
“There is still a role in an increasingly interlinked world for an overall development integrator that is based on human rights and putting the most vulnerable at the centre of decision making but there is also a case for UNDP to focus on its unique role in promoting governance and accountability and daring to encourage alternative policies based on approaches like those of feminist economists.” Frances Guy, UNDP gender advisor
Our normative, human-centered approach needs to be embedded in a stronger engagement with power asymmetries, building on tools like gender and intersectionality analysis to help create truly inclusive social protection and governance systems at all levels.
“When the discussion is framed around “vulnerable groups”, the focus is on an apparent laundry list (women, youth, the elderly, ethnic and religious minorities, disabled and LGBTI communities), rather than the constellation of institutions, policies, norms, behaviors that created inequalities or disenfranchisement in the first place. This serves to distract not only from root causes, but also from individual agency. Leave No One Behind should be a partnership to change the systems and conditions that impose barriers and expose individuals, communities and ecosystems to hazards and risks.” Jessica Zimerman
There was a call to continue UNDP’s focus on innovation and the future – for UNDP to be the global innovation lab, focusing on key immediate challenges such as Covid, climate and connectivity. By leveraging our global reach and local capacity, UNDP can help countries to bridge the growing gaps in human progress around the world.
“In this world, some people live in the year 2055 and others are still in the 1800s. From telehealth to no access at all, from Mixed Reality to no electricity, from self-driving cars to walking four hours for water, from obesity to hunger. UNDP's most important contribution is to allow people, communities and regions to travel in time and to enable the most sophisticated approaches and mechanisms to meet the most natural and human behaviors.” Alejandro Pacheco, DRR
In these and many other aspects, there was a continued reminder that UNDP’s potential rests on its ability to convene and connect, to be an innovator, advocate, partner and integrator – including with the public, private and financial sectors as well as with the rest of the United Nations system and the broader development fraternity.
What outcomes should we focus on?
A strong message emerged to ensure a continued focus on the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs; not just in the individual goals but in promoting and delivering the integrated, universal, indivisible vision that the global community created in 2015. Within this indispensable frame, there were calls for UNDP to focus more on the risks, crises and shocks that derail progress; to build stronger anticipatory capacities and greater flexibility to refocus and respond where needed, and to continue our work to strengthen resilience in the face of multiplying risks and hazards.
To do this, we are told that UNDP will require greater investments in systems thinking and portfolio approaches, in anticipatory governance capacities and to leverage the data and insight we hold in more effective ways. Providing evidence-based, data-driven solutions not only at national levels but increasingly at subnational and local levels where so many critical choices are made.
To achieve this, there were also strong recommendations made on the internal transformations UNDP will need to accomplish; to strengthen the racial and ethnic diversity in a gender-balanced workforce, and to strengthen knowledge distribution with truly networked learning and technical capacities as the Global Policy Network was created to do. An agile UNDP is called for; with flatter decision-making structures, more flexible financial resources and partnership and programming instruments and a new mindset and model that combines “heads, hearts and hands”.
This vivid and challenging portrait of the world ahead will provide us with many insights and inspirations as we begin the process of designing our next Strategy in the months to come. On behalf of all our Moderators and colleagues, let me thank the many people who have contributed to this discussion over the last weeks. All your contributions have been invaluable, and will be re-read and reflected upon as we continue our journey together.
With best wishes;
Joseph D’Cruz
Special Advisor, Strategic Planning and Innovation,
UNDP