Sustainable Development Goals | DemocracyWorks: A Blog of the National Democratic Institute

Let’s Speak the Same Language on Democracy and Peace

Citizens ask questions of candidates during NDI-supported senate debates in Liberia during the 2005 elections. Credit: Jim Della-Giacoma

Can there be peace without the United Nations? Maybe. Resilient democracies might also exist without direct intervention from international organizations. But given that NDI’s Resilient Democracy blog series was launched on the UN International Day of Peace, it would be useful to consider the role of international organizations and the evolving ideas they are promoting about sustaining peace and peaceful societies. Connecting to the UN’s macro thinking could strengthen NDI’s micro-level work.

The Missing SDG Indicators: Accelerating gender equality and empowerment

Women leaders in India, where the constitution dictates that one third of seats in local entities are reserved for women. Photo by: Gangajit Singh Chandok / U.N. Women / CC BY-NC-ND

To achieve a world “in which every woman and girl enjoys full gender equality and all legal, social, and economic barriers to their empowerment have been removed,” will require political action — leadership, commitment and accountability. The U.N.’s “Transforming Our World” sustainable development framework, which will be adopted by the General Assembly in the coming days, is the latest call to action. We will all be judged on what we do over the next 15 years to make that ambition into an empowered reality for women and girls. Sustainable development goal 5 to “achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls” expands significantly on the Millennium Development Goals by detailing in a single goal a full range of issues and actions that will drive success. However, in the proposed indicators, which anchor accountability for the new global framework, critical metrics for women’s participation in political life and public decision-making are missing.

Financing Gender Equity: “Money Matters” in Addis Ababa

NDI’s Layla Moughari helps members of parliament log into a questionnaire about their role in domestic resource mobilization. (Photo credit: Aretha Francis, Women in Parliaments Global Forum)

NDI co-organized a panel on July 13, on the role of parliamentarians in using “domestic resource mobilization” to advance gender equality as part of the Post-2015 Development Agenda. Domestic resource mobilization refers to the use of a country’s public and private funds -- including tax revenues -- to finance development goals. Globally, significant domestic resources that could be spent to support gender equality and empowerment are lost every year through corruption, corporate tax evasion and inefficient tax collection systems.

Women Making Democracy Happen

Today is International Women’s Day – a day to celebrate all that women have achieved while recognizing the barriers that still stand in the way of gender equality.

This year’s theme is “Make It Happen.” Since its founding in 1983, NDI has sought to live those words by helping to give women the tools to participate, compete and lead as equal and active partners in democratic change.

There’s No Sustainable Development Without Good Governance

With the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set to expire this year, attention is turning to a new priority - Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), which are being negotiated now and are scheduled to be adopted in late September.

As the world contemplates this new agenda, good governance needs to be a priority.