GHRA Head criticizes UNDP 2016 Report

Oct 26, 2016 News

…says Development Goals are ‘wishes’

Chairman of the Guyana Human Rights Association, Mike McCormack, has taken the position that the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) outlined in the United Nations Development Programme’s Caribbean Human Development Report, are mere wishes based on the approach taken to achieve the objectives.
He said during the launch of the 2016 report that the development goals highlighted in the report are not goals, since there is the lack of a clear cut plan to achieve them and this includes resource mobilization.
“The SDGs have no such framework, no responsibility that somebody’s gonna have to answer to if they are not achieved. There are no identified resources, and there is no programme that would allow you to really say these are our goals. These are all sustainable development wishes.”
McCormack went onto say, that the goals lack the normative obligation to implement them and does not deal with the politics.

Guyana Human Rights Association Head, Mike McCormack

The Human Rights advocate argued that the development analysts studied the issues prevailing in society by looking backwards. He said, “They evaluate what the situation is now and its improvements by what it was in the 1990s.”
He said that the Sustainable Development Goals aim to abolish poverty by 2030 but believes that this is not morally relevant from a Human Rights perspective to determine how much progress was made from the 1990s to present.
“The question is looking forward, how much longer are we going to tolerate the levels of deprivation and abuse and exploitation that exist now?”
McCormack said that from his point of view he finds it hard to accept the report. “Let’s for a moment imagine we were living in 1830 and we were preoccupied with slavery and we looked back to 1800, we could argue, things are improving.”
He said that this analysis is unacceptable from a Human Rights perspective because the question in 1830s was “Can we abolish slavery at a tolerable cost?”
According to him, the parallel analogy is whether the abolition of poverty now can be done at a tolerable cost. He said that there lacks political will to deliberately address these issues head on.
The 17 goals are no poverty, zero hunger, good health and well-being, quality education, gender equality, clean water and sanitation, affordable clean energy, decent work and economic growth, reduced inequalities, sustainable cities and communities, responsible consumption and production, climate action, life below water, life on land, peace and justice and partnerships for the goals.
The report which was launched a few days ago, gave an insight into the progress countries in the Latin America and Caribbean have made on various economic fronts. This includes GDP growth, vulnerable populations, poverty and employment. It sought to provide an update on the multidimensional progress of human resilience beyond income.

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