reports devoted to the development challenges of our time. This report and the national consultations on the new development agenda have created a new source of data, but one which drives the dialogue towards convergence. The crowdsourcing methods used for this process validate expert reports produced under this and other streams in the post-2015 dialogue. For the purposes of this report, we have sliced up the 88 national conversations into regional-size bites. However, as a measure of accountability to the hundreds of thousands of people engaged in this process, each country has a national report which is validated at country level. For a country-by-country consolidation of the results of national consultations, the most complete sources are each of the 88 national reports. The regional analyses that follow do not attempt to summarize all issues that arose in all countries but, rather, to explore the most salient themes. Many common threads emerge, but also many differences between regions and within regions, reflecting both the need and call for a universal agenda, on the one hand, and an agenda which allows flexibility to take into account different contexts. We hope that the regional approach complements other available reports which focus on global trends. By making the raw material available, we also hope that interested analysts will delve further and look at other categories — for example, at the specific needs and priorities of, for instance, middle-income countries, countries experiencing conflict, SIDS, least developed or landlocked countries.
cases the private sector — accountable. People are asking not just for a one-off consultation, but for an ongoing conversation about the future they want. Indeed, during the course of convening these consultations we see signs of fatigue at the many consultation processes which ask for participation but remain a one-off ‘extractive’ conversation. The unprecedented engagement of civil society and other stakeholders in this dialogue and the richness of the material generated will hopefully trigger the beginning of a process that will establish and maintain the links between community-level, local, national, regional and global debates on the post-2015 agenda. The national consultations are seen by many stakeholders as the launch of a longer conversation, some of which will be taken up in the new global agenda, and some of which requires national, local or even regional responses. The consultations also reveal calls to step up pressure for decision makers and policymakers to be more accountable for delivering on these goals at the
national and global levels. At this stage, the results of the national consultations are being discussed with governments at the national level and in some cases at regional forums. Many governments see the views which have emerged during these consultations as a valuable source of information for their national development planning. As the intergovernmental process to define a new agenda — including the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals — moves forward, member states are benefiting from inputs from the High Level Panel, as well as from experts within and outside the UN structures. The people consulted not only have a clear sense of priorities, they also propose solutions and are keen to participate in putting in place measures to deliver the future they want. This richness of the results, and the succinct and immediate way in which many participants express their priorities and recommendations for the future, are elements to be brought to the attention of member states as they move forward with finalizing and implementing the agenda.
Ensuring that the voices of all groups of the Dominican society are heard during the Post-2015 Development Agenda (Photo: UNV/UNDP/Sara Romero)
Calls to keep the consultation channels open
As was highlighted in Chapter 1, the consultations have revealed a huge appetite and demand for involvement not only in the design of the development agenda, but also in its future implementation, through mechanisms which allow people to hold governments and the international community — and in some
A Million Voices: The World We Want | A Sus tain able Fu t ure with Digni t y f o r A l l 45