Sustainable Development Programme

Background

The Millennium Declaration and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) saw the world community commit to a set of clear and measurable targets for sustainable development. The MDGs form a logical development framework for realising the Foundation's sustainable development objectives. The development challenges facing the Commonwealth are ever increasing. Over 60 percent of the 40 million people living with HIV and AIDS worldwide are from Commonwealth countries as are over 50 percent of the world's children who have no access to primary education.

In 2002, the Commonwealth Heads of Government met in Coolum, Australia, and reinforced their determination to: "Work to eliminate poverty, to promote people-centred and sustainable development, and thus progressively to remove the wide disparities in living standards among us…" Guided by this vision, the Foundation supports the work of civil society in poverty alleviation and the achievement of sustainable development.

The Foundation will target and concentrate on programming and grant making in three MDG sectors:

  • Health - focusing on HIV and AIDS;
  • Education - targeting gender equality in access to education;
  • Climate change and disaster risk management and mitigation;

About the Programme

The Sustainable Development Programme will add value to civil society-led initiatives in these three sectors by:

  • Strengthening the institutional and technical capacity of civil society organisations (CSOs) and their networks to implement programmes and influence sustainable development debates and processes;
  • Increasing networking, knowledge sharing, and dialogue among CSOs and between government, civil society and the private sector;
  • Strengthening existing partnerships and developing new ones for action to achieve a greater impact on sustainable development;
  • Promoting best practices and standards that emerge from the Sustainable Development Programme through the use of toolkits, case studies, manuals, handbooks and study visits.

Activities

Activities for 2006-2008 include:

  • Supporting the establishment of a pan-Commonwealth Network on HIV and AIDS;
  • Production of a report on the role of civil society in combating HIV and AIDS in Asia, Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific regions;
  • Commissioning national-level monitoring of progress in attaining the MDG goal of achieving gender equality in access to education;
  • Advocating the inclusion of sustainable human settlements issues when highlighting challenges posed by climate change and disaster;
  • Convening regional workshops for young Commonwealth journalist on the MDGs;
  • Convening a regional Caribbean meeting on climate change for civil society;
  • Facilitating regional and national capacity building initiatives for CSOs working in the area of HIV/AIDS;
  • Publishing of a report on gender equality in education in the Commonwealth;
  • Facilitating civil society led strategies aimed at containing the AIDS pandemic via the pan-Commonwealth Network;
  • Partnering with Commonwealth civil society to implement the UN Habitat agenda which sets a global plan of action that includes working towards achieving sustainable human settlements;
  • Facilitating civil society participation in Commonwealth ministerial meetings, including the 2008 Commonwealth Health Ministers Meeting (CHMM) in Geneva

Outcomes

Expected outcomes include:

  • Greater adoption by government and civil society of sustainable strategies and policies to help achieve the MDG goals by 2015;
  • Increased advocacy and lobbying towards governments, international organisations and the private sector to scale up sustained action to make achievement of the MDGs a reality;
  • Increased recognition of the role of CSOs across the Commonwealth as key contributors to national, regional and international sustainable development programmes, debates and processes;
  • Greater awareness and consensus across the Commonwealth on education as a critical asset for girls and women and a fundamental human right for all;
  • Reinforced national, regional and international commitment to ending the AIDS pandemic.