In this issue... the Sustainable Development Goals, LDCs, and critique of the Habitat III New Urban Agenda.

August 2016

Will the UK be left behind on sustainable development?

Last year the UK signed up to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): the UN global goals for all countries. In his recent article in the Guardian, IIED director Andrew Norton asks, how is the UK going to implement them?

News and blogs

Champion of urban climate action to deliver IIED's 2016 Barbara Ward Lecture

The 2016 Barbara Ward Lecture taking place in London on 11 October 2016, will be delivered by Debra Roberts, head of Sustainable City Initiatives in Durban, South Africa.

The lecture comes as the world focuses on urban issues ahead of Habitat III, the United Nations' first urbanisation conference in 20 years.

Ten essentials for the New Urban Agenda in one page

The current draft of Habitat III's New Urban Agenda is lengthy, dense and gives little attention to the roles of local government and civil society.

Having been frustrated by this massive document, we developed an alternative version of the New Urban Agenda – in one page.

Spotlight on... How are the LDCs defining a new sustainable development agenda?

IIED interviewed participants at the June 2016 Least Developed Country (LDC) experts' dialogue meeting, to gather international perspectives on how organisations are developing new thinking and actions on sustainable development.

Experts from NGOs and the UN discussed the various ways in which their organisations are supporting LDCs to pursue and finance low-carbon development; build resilient communities; improve the lives of people with disabilities; and in the case of Bhutan specifically, to pursue a 'global happiness goal'.

Watch the playlist of interviews on the IIED website.

New publications this month

How can Bangladesh's private sector engage with the Green Climate Fund? is a toolkit that provides basic facts about the Green Climate Fund and information on how to access it, engage with it through the Private Sector Facility (PSF) and the readiness support available. It is designed for use by commercial banks, micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), suppliers and manufactures or investors that want to channel and manage GCF funds towards climate-relevant projects and programmes, or develop and implement projects themselves.

Despite growing evidence that women suffer disproportionately from climate change hazards, there are inadequate data and methods for prioritising women’s perspectives in city-level resiliency initiatives. Climate change vulnerability assessments in Indonesia: Where are the women’s perspectives? found that women’s perspectives were lacking in Indonesian city-level resiliency planning due to low participation and a lack of municipal gender-disaggregated data.

Growing urban demand for food – which now constitutes about 60–70 per cent of food consumption in Asia and more than half in Africa – is met largely by trade. This paper, Food consumption, urbanisation and rural transformation: the trade dimensions, reviews evidence for what this trade means for rural areas, and for successful rural economic transformation.

Briefings

Transforming a ‘New Urban Agenda’ into a just urban agenda

Lessons from Improving a Gender-based Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment

Job vacancies

Communications and advocacy officer
IIED has a part-time opportunity for a communication and advocacy professional who has experience working with civil society organisations in developing countries.
Closing date: 10am (BST) Thursday, 25 August 2016

Marketing manager
The Communications group has an exciting opportunity for a marketing professional experienced in digital technologies to raise awareness, manage dissemination and increase the impact of IIED among our priority audiences.
Closing date: 4pm (BST) on Monday, 5 September, 2016

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