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suffered from “rigid national policy agendas, following international benchmarks, rather than local conditions.”108 The understandable desire for simple, easily communicated universal goals obscures the complexity of the development process and the diversity of contexts. A sharper focus is needed on the vital roles and responsibilities of sub-national governments and the support they need to fulfil them. A ‘localized’ perspective is all the more important given the different challenges of rural and urban areas. The world has already achieved the MDG goal of halving the proportion of people without ‘sustainable access to safe drinking water.’ But, as shown in this report, the indicator for ‘improved’ provision does not guarantee adequate provision in urban areas. However, despite the limitations of the MDGs, there is now growing international recognition of the importance of sub-national governments in ensuring the universal provision of basic services, and in providing more accountable and transparent governance for citizens and civil society.
Sub-national governments and the Post-2015 Agenda109 At the September 2010 MDG Summit, UN Member States began to consider the Post-2015 Development Agenda. This process includes: deliberations of the High Level Panel set up to advise the UN Secretary General; discussions emerging from the UN Rio + 20 Summit; climate change negotiations; dialogues on financing for development (following the Monterrey Consensus); the Beijing Agenda; and the Habitat III Agenda. The issue of local basic services continues to cut across the debates on poverty reduction; “measures to improve the access of poor and excluded people to quality ba-
sic services, have produced gains in many countries”, states the report of the Secretary-General.” The High Level Panel report recognizes lack of access as a manifestation of poverty, and has kept water and sanitation front and centre with a stand-alone goal of universal access to both services. It affirms that “everyone should have access to modern infrastructure – drinking water, sanitation, roads, transport and information and communications technologies (ICT).” It also recognizes, as does the UN task team, that the management of solid waste is a serious challenge in cities. The Post2015 report of the UN Regional Commission also highlights the importance of basic services to development. All of the themes under consideration in the UN Open Working Group, which works on the follow-up to Rio+20, are directly or indirectly related to basic services: water and sanitation; health and population dynamics; infrastructure development and industrialization; energy; sustainable cities, human settlements, transport, consumption and production; social equity, gender equality and women’s empowerment. As GOLD III demonstrates, basic services are best where empowered local governments have the authority, resources, and capacity to fulfil their responsibilities in delivery. Many local governments have been pioneers in inclusive development. Where substantive progress is being made on the MDGs, it often thanks to local governments. Accountability and transparency mechanisms, allowing residents to hold local governments to account, are critical, especially for residents for whom global development goals are not yet a reality. It makes sense, therefore, for the setting, implementation and measurement of global goals and targets to be decentralized. Local governments which have much of the responsibility for meeting international goals should have an influence in setting priorities, greater resources and capacities
United Nations Task Team (2012) p. 47. 108
This section draws from a number of reports and documents: UN Task Team (2012); Report of the Secretary-General (26 July 2013); United Nations Regional Commission (2013); HLP (2013). 109