International High Level Symposium
Human development and welfare society
in the light of post-2015 agenda
ALGIERS’ DECLARATION
Palais des Nations – Club des Pins, 09-10 JUIN 2014
The international high level symposium on « Human Development and Welfare
Society in the light of post-2015 Agenda” organized by the Algerian Economic and
Social Council
– CNES – in partnership with the United Nations Development
Programme - UNDP -, was held on 09 and 10 June 2014 in Algiers, Palais des
Nations.
The delegations that participated in the symposium are:
– The European Economic and Social Committee - CESE -, President Mr. Henri
MALOSSE.
– The African Union for Economic and Social Councils - UCESA- President Mrs
Aminata TALL, President of the Economic, Social and Environmental Council of
Senegal.
– The regional Representative of ONUSIDA
Economic and Social Councils and Similar Institutions: Morocco, Mauritania,
Niger and Senegal.
– Institutions and bodies in charge of statistics and evaluating public policies on
the : Burkina Faso, Libya, Morocco, Niger, and Tunisia.
– Resident Representatives of the UNDP / Coordinators of the SNU of Morocco,
Niger and Senegal.
Have also participated in the Symposium experts from the Human Development
Report Office (HDRO) and the various institutions of the UN system ( ILO, FAO,
UNFPA, WHO, UN Women, UNAIDSU, UNESCO’s Institute for Statistics, UNICEF),
representatives from the Arab States UNDP Office, the World Bank and the African
Bank for Development as well as international and national academic researchers
(Oxford University, FEMISE, INSD, CREAD).
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Principles
The participants :
– Concerned by the inequal results obtained globally in the achievement of the
MDGs and the delays registered in the Sahel-Saharan region, namely in the fields
of poverty, health care and living conditions in general;
– Considering the obstacles in the way of the effective achievement of the MDGs
in the Sahel-Saharan region and the highly demanding conditions to reach a
sustainable development required for the shifting from the Millenium Development
Goals (MDGs) into Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs);
– Based on their own experiences, participants have been discussing the
possibility of a potential renewal of the concept of human development and,
therefore, aiming at creating greater synergy among different actors in the
evaluation of human development, both nationally and internationally, with a view
to achieving the MDGs and transmuting them into SDGs in the post-2015 agenda.
In this perspective, the participants :
– Support the necessity to learn lessons from and capitalize on the experience of
the Millenium Development Goals acquired during the last 15 years;
– Call for the States to play fully their role of leadership and coordination of a
human development that should be fair and sustainable;
– Reaffirm the necessity to build a new project around a more efficient system of
good governance based on the respect of human rights;
– Recognize the necessity to move to an inclusive sustainable development,
aiming welfare and suppressing the structural causes of all forms of inequalities
and disparities (between genders, generations, categories, territorial), based on a
qualitative growth;
– Favour the necessity of a shared, but differentiated, responsibility as for regional,
continental and international solidarity;
– Call for the fostering of the role of the organized civil society in the process of
human development and its real participation in elaborating the principles of global
decision-making;
– Recall the importance to give more attention to the issue of climactic changes
and their impact on the environment and on States economies, including security;
– Support the necessity to continue improving food and nutritional security.
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Recommandations
On the basis of these principles, the participants have adopted the following
recommendations :
1. Concerning opportunities and challenges
1.1 – Put the stake of sustainability and equity into the heart of the post-2015
agenda;
1.2 – Reinforce countries’ resilience, namely African ones, to face economic,
financial and natural crises through investing in the mechanisms of prevention and
management of risks and disasters, as well as in the initiatives designed to adapt to
climate changes and through the strengthening of forecasting capacities ;
1.3 – Strengthen national capacities pertaining to statistics for the measurement and
evaluation of the performance and efficiency of public policies for development –
national and infranational – and promote the share and impart of data to the users.
1.4 – Promote a more responsible development towards natural ressources through
the strengthening of capacities and management systems of natural resources, by
facilitating access to these resources, looking after the preservation of their quality
and improving the services;
1.5 – Promote a culture of decision making based on scientific argument and
collective concertation;
1.6 – Implement the conditions pertaining to the promotion and respect of cultural
diversities and encourage their widespreading;
1.7 – Include the demographic dynamics as a factor and a dividend of sustainable
human development, especially through its forms of expression in terms of migration
and youth;
1.8 – Improve the coherence of human development policies nationally, regionally
and globally.
2. Concerning the deepening of human development measures
2.1 – Strengthen the strategies of fighting against poverty in its multidimensional
aspects;
2.2 – Give priority to equity and social social inclusion and evaluate the progress
achieved as regards all of availability, accessibility and good quality services;
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2.3 – Work for the structural transformation of economies and guarantee a
sustainable and inclusive growth, directed towards the human being, the promotion
of decent job, reduction of inequalities, namely those pertaining to gender, and the
promotion of Public-Private partnership;
2.4 – Create the adequate conditions for economic diversity through improving the
business environment and through the enhancement of the private sector, the
transformation of the informal sector, the improvement of distribution and the reinvestment of wealth;
2.5 – Target excellence in the fields of education, vocational training and higher
education and strengthen the human capacities by improving the quality of teaching
during lifetime, while taking care of a better matching of training and job market;
2.6 – Take in charge the concept of welfare, including indexes of environment quality
(air, water and sanitation etc.) and the intensity of energy consumption;
2.7 – Promote within the human development index (HDI) the implementation of
adequate local policies;
2.8 – Ensure access to universal and fair qualitative healthcare by improving mother
and child health, and include the objective of eliminating the HIV/AIDS in the post2015 agenda;
2.9 – Promote man-woman parity and the autonomization of women by improving
the progress achieved in woman’s contribution to political life and development,
taking into account domestic and care work in the context of an extensive GDP.
2.10 – Promote peace and security as the levers of social stability and growth and
support the efforts aiming at their preservation;
2.11 – Strengthen measures and promote political and economic good governance
locally and nationally;
2.11 – Develop technology capacities and facilitate technological transfer, namely as
concerns statistical data;
2.13 – Take into consideration, within public policies, the rights of persons to specific
needs and the rights of migrants.
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3. Concerning the financing of the new framework for post-2015
development
3.1 – Break off with the concept of development directed to external initiatives and
opting for another paradigm set on internally-based initiatives and founded on
national appropriation;
3.2 – Intensify efforts to increase aid efficiency and set up a world participative
partnership, renovated and strengthened, on a new and fair basis;
3.3 – Promote mutually favourable partnerships while ensuring the control and
coherence and adapting international aid and assistance to national and regional
priorities;
3.4 – Strengthen global shared responsibility and solidarity system towards regions
that are vulnerable to natural and economic disasters;
3.5 – Strengthen partnerships for development, especially multilateral partners, the
triangle cooperation and South-South cooperation.
3.6 – Promote innovation and a greater participation of private financing (national
and international) of development.
4. Concerning national mechanisms for the implementation of
the new framework for post-2015 development
4.1 – Promote harmonized approaches for following up and evaluating national
policies of development, based on standardized methods and practices and develop
participatory methods;
4.2 – Strengthen national systems of evaluation and follow up of progress in the field
of human development and promote impact studies, as an instrument for improving
public policies;
4.3 – Foster national and regional capacities of measurement and reactivity, and
systemize studies perception of poverty, as well as material and spiritual happiness;
4.4 – Favour the desagregation of data banks on the infranational level, especially
the gender desagregation, develop adequate tools of measurement and appraisal;
4.5 – Improve communication and coordination, namely in exchanging statistical
data with the UN System.
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The
participants have been pleased with the inclusion in the “Algier’s Declaration
for a Reinforced Solidarity for the benefit of Peace and Prosperity”, adopted at the
end of the XVII Ministerial Conference of the Non-Aligned Countries Movement,
held in Algiers on 28-29 May 2014, of a coordinated position of Southern countries
on post-2015 development agenda;
They give thanks to the Algerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for having
formulated the proposal of presenting the conclusions of the Symposium
before the instances of the United Nations system and recommend, in
particular, to insist upon the message delivered as for the principles of the
present Declaration.
The participants have also endorsed the position adopted on that occasion
according to which “ the post-2015 development agenda should include the
eradication of poverty in developing countries as a central goal through an
adapted implementation of of all pillars of sustainable development such as
affirmed in the Rio+20”.
The participants have also supported the African common position in
perspective of the post-2015 agenda.
The participants have mandated Algeria, as President of the Joint Coordination
Committee on ministerial level between Non-Aligned Countries and the 77
Group, to present the results of the “International High Level Symposium on
Human Development and Welfare” to the Ministers of Foreign Affairs during
the meeting of the said Committee that shall be held in September 2015 in
New York, on the eve of the convening of the General Assembly of the United
Nations on the post-2015 development goals.
Finally, the participants pay homage to the full commitment and the efforts of
the Algerian authorities as well as to the support of the United Nations,
considering all the facilities and commodities provided for the staying of the
delegations, allowing thus the full success for the Symposium.
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