The Role of BRICS in the Post-2015 Development Agenda

  2013/12/2 source：

On 28-29 November 2013, Shanghai Institutes for International Studies and German Friedrich Ebert Stiftung co-hold a conference titled “Drivers for a New Global Partnership? – The Role of BRICS in the Post-2015 Development Agenda” in Shanghai. Participants from developing and developed countries as well as international organizations discuss the achievements and shortcomings of current global development agenda and future trend of global partnership.

November 28

In the opening remarks, Mr. Chen Dongxiao, SIIS President pointed out that it has been one emerging trend that the global focus on MDGs had transferred to the middle income countries challenges. He further outlined three key words for the post-2015 development agenda, which were development, diversity and equality. He said that “making cake bigger firstly” rather than “dividing cake firstly” was China’s main thinking after the CPC 18th Party Congress 3rd Plenary Session. He also expressed that the universal model for development did not exist according to China and other developing countries experiences. Relations between developed and developing countries should be equal partners, he added.

In the beginning of speech, Ms. Catrina Schläger, Resident Director of Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Shanghai, recalled a joint meeting with SIIS about North-South relations thirty years ago. But as she said, current world including China had changed tremendously. The MDGs successfully has reduced poverty in the South, especially in middle income countries. Development in China and India contributed greatly to achievement of the MDGs on poverty reduction. She also raised concerns about the improvement of economic and social inequality in middle income countries as a direction for next stage. For example, Brazil is the only country among BRICS, whose domestic inequality is down in recent years. She further pointed three scenarios ahead for BRICS in the global development agenda, prolonged MDGs, Engaging South-South cooperation and engaging universal agenda such as combined the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

In the opening remarks by Zhang Dan, Counsellor from the Department of International Economic Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of PRC, she stressed the point that poverty reduction should be put in the center place for development agenda. There are 1.2 billion people still living in extreme poverty conditions. Developing countries are also facing a few challenges including energy security, food security, climate change, trade protectionism and urbanization. She stressed that common but differentiated responsibilities should be remained in the SDGs. Developed countries need continue to make commitments on ODA and the North-South cooperation should continue to play central role, she added. After the BRICS summit, leaders from those countries vowed to reduce poverty and help other countries such as the least developed countries (LDCs) on human development. According to IMF statistics, BRICS countries contributed about 50% global economic growth after 2008 global financial crisis. It’s a great contribution for poverty reduction with such their huge populations. She concluded that the South-South cooperation could not be viewed as a replacement of North-South cooperation. Although China is a middle income country now, China still belongs to the category of developing country.

1. How to achieve new global partnership
Liu Hua, Deputy Director-General of UN Association of China introduced the role of Chinese civil societies in the Post-2015 development agenda. She raised three great challenges on achieving the MDGs, huge gap in development aid, rising trade protectionism and more funds needed for essential medicine. For post-2015 development agenda, she stressed the principles from Chinese NGO perspective. The agenda needs to remain North-South cooperation as major channel and pursue for fairness and diversity. When answering a question about Chinese NGO views on climate change, she said that climate change is one of key topics for post-2015 development agenda. Tsinghua University and Ministry of Environmental Protection have built up a network on this issue.

Professor Xue Lan, Dean of Tsinghua University School of Public Policy, talked about an action agenda for sustainable development to address global governance failure. Professor Xue mentioned five global governance gaps, namely knowledge gaps, norms gaps, policy gaps, institution gaps, compliance gaps. In order to resolve global governance failures, Professor Xue introduced actions and achievements made by UNSDSN (Prof. Xue is one of the co-Chairmen). He suggested that the world need build platform for cross-disciplinary/region/sector dialogues on the topic. According to him, developed countries need to regain the trust of developing countries by renewed commitments in international development through development aid and technology transfer. One participant asked a question about picking most key one among five gaps. Professor Xue replied that it’s hard to pick one. He agreed the view that now power structure is so fragile that it’s not easy to build a powerful organization like WTO. He added the developed world should change its consumption culture as a way to deal with the climate change.

Zhu Juwang, Chief of Small Islands Developing States, Oceans and Climate Change Branch, United Nations Division for Sustainable Development shared his views on post-2015 sustainable development agenda. He said MDGs focus on the basic service, but MDG is not ready for emerging challenges such as environment. Thus SDG is the core of post-2015 development agenda. He stressed the principle for SDG that it should consider specific national conditions. He further discussed different SDG views between Africa and other parts of the world. He mentioned strong consensus among nations such as poverty eradication, promoting sustainable development and one set of universal goals. In a response to question related to Common But Differential Responsibility (CBDR), he stressed the actual needs of developing countries on financial resources. He also warned that the deadlock of current climate change negotiation might let developed countries choosing another approach.

2 The role of BRICS in a new global partnership
Dr. Carlos Roberto Sanchez Milani, Research fellow from Brazil Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico, talked about Brazil’s role in the international development cooperation system. In the beginning of his speech, he compared different geographic focus in the development cooperation of South Africa, Brazil, China, India, Mexico and Turkey. As he described, Brazil paid much attention on Latin America, Africa and Portuguese speaking countries. He also pointed out 9 main challenges for Brazil’s efforts on development cooperation. The list includes consolidate statistics, political objective, norms and principles, actors and agenda, reorganization or new agency, policy coordination, transparency and accountability, civil society participation and legal framework.

Prof. Bava from Jawaharlal Nehru University shared Indian perspectives on this topic. She mentioned BRICS were shaping a new political discourse. BRICS countries emphasized that achieving the MDGs should remain at the core of global development of UN system. As she mentioned, New Delhi had declared that the focus of the post-2015 development agenda should be the eradication of hunger and poverty, besides priority being given to ensuring food security and universal access to modern energy services.

Mr. Zondi provided his thoughts on the implications for Africa. Since Africa has the least capacity to meet most goals, Africa welcomes BRICS’ strong development discourse and waits to see agenda of BRICS development bank. In terms of new global partnership, he stressed the view that it should be built upon existing partnership on the basis of CBDR.

3 Expectations toward BRICS in a post-2015 development agenda
Fahmida Khatun, a scholar from Bangladesh compared economic data of BRICS and OECD countries. Although BRICS countries grew rapidly these years, BRICS countries’ share in total export & import share is still much less than developed world. She said the BRIC countries could play increased role in ODA, FDI and Trade. She also stressed the importance of climate change finance for LDCs. Most LDCs are victims of climate change that they need financial resources for adaptation programs. Dr. Hildegard Lingnau from the OECD talked about OECD reflections. As an international organization, the OECD contributes in its own way as a supporter for MDGs. She listed ten major challenges outlined by NYU professor Evans including increasing ODA, launching a new clean technology facility, establishing a global partnership on data and accountability. Roberto Bissio from Social Watch in Uruguay pointed a few rules that undermine development such as Intellectual Property Right (IPR), agricultural agreement in WTO, BITs and financial liberalization. He claimed that Gates Foundation and UN Foundation based in the United States drive the post-2015 agenda behind the scene through donation to the UN. Dr. Zhang Chun from SIIS made a short speech about leadership role of BRICS. He said that BRICs should take proactive, humble and sensitive leadership in the post-2015 global development agenda.

November 29

November 29 was the second and last day of this conference. And the panel was in the form of an Open Panel Discussion Session titled "Finding Common Ground in the Interest of Poverty Eradication and Sustainable Development".

Dr. Thomas Fues from German Development Institute talked about development agenda for industrial countries. He pointed out that industrial counties should realize 0.7% ODA target. He suggested that developed world should respect the different nature of South-South cooperation. As for climate change issue, he encouraged the western countries implementing low-carbon trajectories at home. Dr. Chee Yoke Ling from Third World Network stressed historical responsibility and “Common But Differential Responsibility” (CBDR) in the UN, especially in the climate change area. She criticized the United States did not respect the principle of CBDR. Now the developed world is walking away from legal binding agreement to nationally determined contributions. In the discussion, Brazilian scholar pointed disconnection between Geo-economics and Geo-politics. Now country coalitions varied on different topics. Russia Vice Counselor in Shanghai said that BRICS group means uniqueness in the global economic governance. BRICS is one of Russia’s foreign policy priorities, he added. Russia wishes BRICS group playing more important role in the global development. Indian scholar mentioned India has made long time efforts on environmental protection. She also pointed manufacturing transition to the South creating the blue sky for the North. Dr. Yu Hongyu from SIIS said that multipolar order changed the foundation of global governance. He stressed the importance of equality in the climate change talks. Scholar from South Africa talked about the struggle of development concepts and unfair international system. 

In the closing remarks, Ms. Catrina Schläger, Resident Director of Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (Shanghai), shared three observations. First is about leadership. If the current discourse is still controlled by old powers, it should be challenged by the BRICS. She also pointed that finding common ground is important. Additionally she mentioned the obligations of high income countries.

In conclusion, Dr. Yang Jian, Vice President of SIIIS, quoted from a Chinese leader that China has already achieved 90% of its development goals, but 10% remaining tasks are more difficult to achieve. Professor Yang added that digital solution would be extra powerful tool for development. Last month he attended a conference in Seoul about cyberspace security. He said representatives from Africa discussed ICT as a tool to fight against poverty, boost education and health care through Internet. He pointed the public goods should be provided not only by international organizations, but also by private sectors from western countries and emerging economies. Firefox set a great example for open source software.

Both of the closing remarks expressed the thanks to all the participants and to the Logistical support staffs from both SIIS and FES. And Ms Catrina Schläger and Dr. Yang Jian both thought the conference was very successful.（By: FAN Lijun, ZHU Ming）