Executive Summary
On February 10, 2015, a workshop was held at UN headquarters in New York City to highlight a variety of innovative, ‘commons-based’ approaches for financing development of the Post-2015 Agenda. During the event, representatives from each of the sponsoring organizations shared their practical experience and unique perspectives on ways of ending poverty in all its forms and by engaging the innovation, knowledge and expertise of the civil society around the world.
This commons approach to financing sustainable development includes the development of Social and Solidarity Economies (SSE), Shared Societies, the Sharing Economy, Cooperatives, the Internet, and other innovative means of developing, managing and equitably sharing commons resources.
These focus on methods of financing by and for people and communities at the grassroots level and are a crucial aspect of the larger paradigm shift now occurring socially, economically and environmentally throughout the world. But in order to live up to their full potential of providing important and urgently needed innovative sources of financing for sustainable development, they will need to be better supported by governments and the UN system.
Developing a Financing Strategy for Achieving the SDGs
It is widely recognized that the international community needs to greatly increase the level of financing that is made available to achieve the SDGs and transition to a truly sustainable future. One of the best means for doing so is through the use of New and Innovative Means of Finance.
The presentations given in this workshop provide a strong argument for UN Member States, with the assistance of the Financing for Development (FfD) office, to develop a matrix of supportive mechanisms, policy actions and means of finance that governments can choose from in order to significantly increase FfD without in any way diminishing the need for ODA.. Civil society initiatives and other innovative means of (delete:finance as a means) (people to people financing) can unleash the potential of individuals and communities in which top-down financing can not and should be prominently included as an important means of providing valuable resources for financing sustainable development.
Each community, country and regional government (Delete should then be urged)will then have the opportunity to choose from among a range of quantifiable options, developed through the FfD process and listed in the matrix, to develop a sufficient financing strategy to be able to achieve all of the SDGs and their other sustainable development (plans) (delete efforts).
Employing Innovative Means of Financing
The Leading Group on Innovative Financing for Development has done tremendous work on identifying such new and innovative means of finance. Some twenty countries have already set up such things as a tax on airline CO2 emissions, air ticket levies that support and fund health initiatives, pre-financing mechanisms based on loan guarantees such as the GAVI Matching Fund for fighting Tuberculosis, blended financing, development of an international currency transaction tax, and public-private partnerships based on financial incentives from the public sector that reward successful innovations of the private sector - such as in the field of health care; etc.
In Doha the Leading Group called for a change in scale in implementing innovative financing mechanisms for development. We suggest that all countries ought to begin to use such innovative means of financing; they should be greatly scaled up and rolled out around the world; and this ought to be included as a major outcome of the FfD and Post 2015 processes.
Taking Advantage of the Social and Solidarity Economy
The Social and Solidarity Economy has a great potential, providing a useful complement to the market economy. It includes self-management, solidarity lending, local exchange trading systems, fair trade organizations, worker cooperatives, give-away shops, and trade unions etc. — thus creating an economy for the common good. It can help to ensure that everyone is on board, creating a sense of a shared agenda and of ownership—the number one condition to build a lasting consensus on sustainable development. The post-2015 agenda is a great opportunity for taking this new economy forward; thus we need to think hard about how these innovative ways of doing development can deliver and how we can best support them.
For example, during the Workshop it was agreed that we should develop, and the UN Member States support, an action plan dedicated to the development of a Social Solidarity Economy and Innovative Means of Financing for Development that is based on:
The development of local currencies which reflect a specific link between people with a common purpose;
Access to credit as a scarce resource that needs to be further developed - along modes of regulation, legal rights, and determination of the role and responsibilities of banks, cooperative banks and social finance;
The funding of strategic operations defined and developed by the community either for tangible assets such as food, energy and land or for intangible assets like training, education, and the web.
Providing Value through Creating a Shared Society
The essential elements for creating a Shared Society can provide powerful tools for creating a sustainable society. For example, providing universal access to the Internet offers an excellent means for governments to overcome the economic disadvantages faced by sections of society that are discriminated against and ensure equal access to opportunities and resources. Providing and making use of universal access to the internet can enhance communications, power innovation, increase knowledge-sharing, enable capacity-building and provide free education.
Web access can also enable governments to dialogue with all segments of society— an accomplishment that a number of countries, including Rwanda, one of the poorest countries in Africa, have already managed. The Internet enables governments to set up online portals allowing people to give their opinions about issues that affect them and to poll constituents about how well government is meeting their needs.
Government support for local cooperative enterprises such as community banks, micro-finance institutions, and credit cooperatives that fund development and build capacity at the community level also provide more equal access to opportunities and resources. By using financing mechanisms such as development funds, long-term low-interest loans and favorable taxation policies, governments can enable even the poorest sectors of their societies to build capacity and increase financial resilience.
Providing Education for a Shared Society
Education can also provide the opportunity for children to develop the knowledge, skills, and capacities needed to become productive, engaged members of society and to learn the values of a shared society such as understanding and respecting others. Three distinct types of education are urgently needed to support this and should thus be implemented as a part of the Post 2015 agenda and processes in all educational systems, beginning at the earliest levels:
• Education in peaceful conflict resolution and the Eight Action Areas of the Culture of Peace teach children as young as eight years old to understand and respect others and is already being done in many schools around the world.
• Technology-related education helps children master the technological systems that power twenty-first century society and needs to begin at an early age.
• Sustainability-related education is needed to build into our education system at all levels an awareness of and accountability for peoples’ impact on Earth Systems and highlight the positive contributions people are making to sustainable development.
Valuing Natural and Human Capital as well as Financial Capital
The Club of Madrid is right in suggesting that we need to encourage the creation of a shared vision of society at the local and national level. In the new paradigm, where balanced sustainable development is the goal, an equal valuing of all forms of capital becomes an essential requirement—valuing human capital and natural capital equally to financial capital.
Some ways that governments can provide support for these additional forms of capital include establishing:
• Tax incentives for business cooperatives that share resources and profits.
• Incentives and support for socially responsible communities, such as Eco-villages, Transition Towns and Sarvodaya communities.
• Incentives for local living economies that grow, source, and buy locally, thus creating resilient communities even during economic downturns.
• Local currencies that foster sharing and community development.
• Time-based labor exchanges that reward volunteer efforts.
• Support for environmental efforts that preserve natural habitats.
• Support for methods to calculate the value of intact ecosystems—in terms of carbon sequestration, biodiversity, and species preservation.
Much can also be done in the sphere of government to promote the value of the Earth as a treasured legacy rather than as simply a ‘disposable resource.’ Legal structures must be strengthened at all levels and further developed at the global level to steward earth resources responsibly. Those who harm the earth must be held legally accountable.
Since the mid-1970’s humanity has been eating into the Earth’s natural capital rather than, as previously, consuming the annual self-regenerating interest. We are now exceeding a number of natural boundaries and living beyond the carrying capacity of the earth. It is thus essential that the international community agree to recognize and respect the intangible value and natural or common heritage of our earth system as a whole and maintain it in a healthy manner as a part of the Post 2015 Development process.
Recognizing and Supporting Cooperatives as a Means
to Finance and Invest in Sustainable Development
The UN should recognize co-operatives as a well-suited model to finance and implement sustainable development and thus establish the policy conditions for national governments, co-operatives and other stakeholders to create an adequate legal, economic and social environment that will allow co-operatives to start and/or develop and to be an active participant in the implementation of national strategies to deliver the SDGs under the Post 2015 Development Agenda.
Even though co-operative enterprises contribute every day and in almost every sector of the economy towards achieving sustainable development goals, there are still obstacles that prevent them from reaching their full potential. A major constraint in many countries is the poor enabling environment: either due to restrictive laws and regulations stemming from the legacy of state control or, in some cases, the complete absence of a co-operative legal framework.
Such organizations need a robust enabling environment with solid prudential regulation, protecting democratic member control and ownership, autonomy, as well as voluntary and open membership. Further, such a framework must be simple and transparent concerning its registration, auditing and reporting processes.
Unleashing the full potential of co-operatives requires, among other measures:
Recognition that the generation and equitable distribution of wealth, the creation and maintenance of sustainable enterprises and jobs at the local level, and the concern for the surrounding community are specific characteristics of co-operatives that makes them well suited to deliver on sustainable development goals.
Inclusion of specific targets and indicators related to the promotion and development of co-operatives in member countries, in accordance to the definition, values and principles referred above.
Access to specific implementation measures and programs including funding; these programs and measures should be adapted to the specific characteristics of co-operatives and respect their specific business model, by which, inter alia, the share capital must be owned and democratically controlled by their members.
The Value of Taxing Land Value
One of the best means for raising funds to provide social services, invest in infrastructure and to provide for basic human needs, particularly in urban areas, would be to take taxes off of buildings and to place them on the value of property or land instead - thus land value taxation. This policy and practice was included in UNHabitat's founding mandate and in the outcome document from Habitat II. It could provide an enormous amount of money for infrastructure development and the provision of basic services, which results from the rapidly increasing value of land, particularly in urban areas, as development processes occur. It has been estimated that land value is rated to be as much as a third of GNP.
Under such policies taxes on labor and productive capital can and should be reduced or eliminated entirely and instead the unearned income and surplus profits accruing to the commons of surface land and natural resources should be recycled back to the community to pay for goods and services needed by society as a whole. Support for such policies should be included as an important and innovative means of financing in the FfD agreement.
Measures to Finance a Commons Approach to Sustainable Development
The Commons Cluster drafted and has been distributing a paper at the UN that is entitled and puts forward many "Measures to Finance a Commons Approach to Sustainable Development". A commons approach basically means that there are both gifts of nature as well as other commonly developed resources that rightfully and inherently belong to and thus ought to be collectively managed and the benefits coming from them equitably shared by all of us.
The Commons Cluster is thus calling on the UN Member States to create an international (High Level or UN) Panel of Experts to develop recommendations for creating a commons-based economy and implementing a Commons Approach to Sustainable Development - such as was discussed during this workshop.
We also suggest that the Trusteeship Council be revitalized to establish a Global Resource Agency for cooperatively managing our shared or common global resources - such as was recommended as being needed by the Rio+20 UN Task Team on the Global Commons. And that this be included to provide an important Means of Implementation for achieving the Post 2015 Development Agenda.
Through such a Global Resource Agency a rental fee, which could fund multilateral programs and existing institutions, could be placed on the development or use of many transborder commons including:
• carbon emissions
• deep ocean fishing
• sea-bed mining
• offshore oil and gas
• international oil trading
• satellite parking spaces
• use of the electromagnetic spectrum
• internet
• toxic wastes
• etc.
Phasing Out Harmful and Un-Sustainable Subsidies
The International Institute for Sustainable Development has also called on all governments to support and sign on to a Pledge to Phase Out Fossil Fuel Subsidies that undermine sustainable development. This would include a transparent, annual reporting and review process; technical and financial assistance for developing countries; common research and analysis; and Secretariat support. Such an agreement is urgently needed and must be included as an outcome of the Post 2015 and Financing for Development processes as a primary means, and in order to be able to provide sufficient resources, to be able to achieve the SDGs and Post 2015 Agenda.
Such support and agreements are also needed to phase out subsidies dealing with forests, fisheries, water, and agriculture as well. A global protocol, convention, or some type of a partnership initiative; implementation and review processes; and a secretariat thus needs to be established to assist all countries in fulfilling the commitment to phase out all harmful and unsustainable subsidies as well.
Supporting Community Based Development
Several thousand ecovillage communities, along with Millennium Villages, the Small Grants Program and the Equator Initiative are demonstrating how an integrated, multi-sectoral community based approach to sustainable rural and impoverished urban development can greatly scale up the ability to provide basic services and meet basic human needs. For example these communities often provide new access to such things as renewable energy, clean water, sustainable agriculture, affordable and biological waste treatment, access to internet and communication technologies, healthcare and educational opportunities, etc.
The Global Ecovillage Network suggests that the international community support and fund the development of a global network of regionally based resource and service centers, coupled with training programs, where-in each of the regional centers would provide support, services, resources and training programs to multiple local villages and communities in the area.
Such a global network could provide a great means to support capacity and infrastructure development, educational opportunities, and technology transfer in rural and impoverished urban communities around the world; and it should thus be adopted and included as a primary Means of Implementation for achieving the SDGs and other sustainable development agreements.
The Important Role of the Internet in Supporting Sustainable Development
It is crucial that access to ICTs in general, and the internet in particular, is mainstreamed and up-scaled throughout the goals proposed by the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals, including SDG 17 on means of implementation.
As we all know, information and communications technologies in general are an indispensable enabler for sustainable development. The transformative role they play in the promotion of economic growth and creation of opportunities for business is very obvious in developed countries, where access is cheaper and widespread. However, the social and economic gains stemming from their phenomenal global expansion still elude the poorest populations of the world, who are precisely the ones who could benefit from it the most.
Internet access is key in mobilizing resources to finance sustainable development, particularly when related to Science, Technology, Innovation and Capacity Building. We call on the UN Member States to adopt a stand-alone chapter on STI and capacity building in Addis Ababa, so as to more fully support the structural and systemic impact of ICTs on development, as the FfD process already does when it deals with trade, debt, global governance and other systemic issues.
As stated in the Tunez Agenda, which the General Assembly has committed to fully implement, we must also focus our attention on measures to enhance the involvement of the UN in overcoming the lack of effective financial mechanisms to support the development of ICTs, especially its infrastructure.
The development of an open, inclusive, diverse and development-oriented information society, with the internet at its core, depends on the establishment of democratic decision-making processes which, through enhanced global coordination in the intergovernmental and multi-stakeholder levels, can ensure that the web continues to be free, secure and equitable for all.
A Concluding Note, the Internet and Providing Access to Information
It is critical that we include financing by people and communities from the bottom up in the FfD agreement because a paradigm shift is becoming apparent socially, economically and with regard to the environment. People are developing and using ways of ending poverty that rely not on power and ownership but on caring, sharing and community: barter, alternative currencies, open source and general public licensing.
Instead of buying an encyclopedia people together are building a Wikipedia. Instead of limiting the attendance of prestigious universities to a few who can afford to pay, UC Berkeley, Harvard and MIT are placing their coursework on the Internet for all to use and professors are lecturing to tens of thousands of people for free. Instead of paying for expensive patents, technology is made available for free or for very little.
When it comes to the environment, here, too, people play a crucially important role. It is the combined actions of all people that determine whether we live within those planetary boundaries that support human life, or not.
Thus the contributions of the commons, social solidarity economies, shared societies, cooperatives and universal access to the Internet must become a central topic in both the Final Agreement adopted in Addis Ababa and in the work of the High Level Political Forum as it oversees the global agenda for sustainable development from now until 2030.
We also call on the UN Member States to provide the means to develop Universal Access to the Internet and to support the development of an Online Global Platform on Sustainable Development that includes three primary sections:
I. The first would enhance international cooperation and coordination-- a sort of market place dedicated to sharing education, know-how, technology transfer, and goods and services that support and enable sustainable development.
II. The second section would promote networking, information sharing, knowledge transfer, and technical assistance, and be dedicated to acquiring the tools and know-how to become socially responsible and also accountable for one's ecological footprint. It would be a learning center for all.
III. The final section would be devoted to governance and would be a further development of the global consultations on the SDGs and Post 2015 process. This section would connect individuals and organizations with Member States via the United Nations in a consultative process on how best to deal with challenges and make the transition to a sustainable future.
As the Online Global Platform brings people, organizations, governments and the UN together increasingly, its synergetic action will create an ever more powerful engine for economic growth directed at the well-being of all people and nature.