World Vision’s Comments and Recommendations on Key Issues
Identified in the Open Working Group’s Proposed Sustainable
Development Goals
Overview of comments and recommendations
World Vision celebrates the achievement of the Open Working Group in finalising its proposed
Sustainable Development Goals. The OWG members have demonstrated a willingness to negotiate
in good faith with a clear goal in mind: to articulate a global vision for the achievement of sustainable
development.
Of paramount importance, the proposal captures the world’s ambition to finish the job that was
started in the Millennium Development Goals – to end poverty in all its forms everywhere. By
stating that this includes the most vulnerable men, women and children wherever they may live and
by setting targets accordingly, the proposal goes beyond the MDGs to reach out to the world’s very
poorest and most vulnerable people, who were missed in 2000.
Critically, in pursuing this ambition the proposal identifies several critical new themes, most
significant among which are responding to climate change, reducing inequality, reducing violence and
promoting peace. Establishing global targets in these areas is a significant step forward.
Taken as a whole, the framework is a detailed articulation of an ambitious global development
agenda. It should be noted however that it falls short of presenting a fully integrated vision to inspire
the next generation of development. Some of the themes are also insufficiently articulated. While
no framework can address everything, missing some elements may compromise the potential
effectiveness of the whole framework.
This is evident in how World Vision’s priority issues – those that we see as essential to reach the
most vulnerable children – have been addressed. Each is prominently addressed but falls short in
critical areas:
Maternal, newborn and child health; and nutrition and food security: Welcome is the commitment to
finish the job started in the MDGs and determination to eliminate preventable death. But nutrition,
the cause of almost half the deaths in children under five, is not mentioned in the health goal and
links between the health and nutrition goals have not been made. This misses an opportunity to
draw these themes together and undermines the likely success of the health goal overall.
Violence against children: The report acknowledges violence against children as a truly universal
problem that fundamentally undermines the chances for human progress, stability and sustainable
development. Restricting the focus on gender based violence to girls is, however, a mistake in our
view. Boys experience gender based violence and are critical partners in ensuring cycles of violence
are to be broken and gender equality achieved.
Peace: By including a peace goal that addresses several drivers of conflict the OWG has added to the
global consensus that peace and sustainable development are inseparable. But beyond the peace goal,
the proposal falls short. Conflict is not recognised as one of the most challenging development
contexts. Opportunities to address the cross cutting nature of peace are not taken, and existing
global peace frameworks – the New Deal and its Peacebuilding and Statebuilding Goals – have not
been referenced.
We look forward to the opportunity to continue to address these challenges in the formal
negotiation of the post-2015 agenda. They do not take away from the OWG’s achievement in giving
the world a detailed framework that will be one of the most important inputs to those negotiations.
World Vision looks forward to partnering with others to produce a framework that:
1. Finishes the job started in the MDGs, and goes further to assure a sustainable future for all.
2. Preserves the OWG’s recognition that people are at the centre of sustainable development,
so that we can work towards a world that is “just, equitable and inclusive”.
3. Contains a robust plan for the implementation of the goals. Two features we think are most
critical are:
a. Citizen engagement. World Vision is calling for locally led and transparent
mechanisms for monitoring progress and ensuring accountability.
b. A clear approach to enabling cross-sector partnerships applicable across all the
goals to enable delivery at scale and speed.
4. Recognises conflict as one of the most significant drivers of poverty.
Comments and recommendations on goals related to health
World Vision believes health, particularly of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable children,
families and communities, must be at the centre of any goals established on sustainable development.
The inextricable links between good health and the pillars of sustainable development are well
known. The well-being of children is one of the best indicators of sustainable development and the
health of a society.
Despite remarkable progress by some low and middle incomes countries, it is clear that many will
not meet the MDG targets for improving child and maternal health by 2015. In 2012 an estimated
6.6 million children died before the age of five and there were close to 300,000 women maternal
deaths. The vast majority of these women and children die from largely preventable causes, for
instance, during childbirth or shortly after, or due to infectious diseases such as pneumonia,
diarrhoea and malaria. Undernutrition is the single biggest cause of preventable deaths of children
under five years of age, responsible for 45% of child deaths in 2012.
Current measures of child health mask inequalities between the best off and worst off. Vast numbers
of children are born but never counted, their fundamental right to an identity violated. Children and
mothers die because we don’t always know where they are and how to reach them. There are big
holes in the health information collected which makes it difficult to understand who suffers as a
result of health inequality and where resources must be targeted.
Tackle inequalities depends hugely on the availability of the right data. Data on inequalities are very
poor or non-existent in many countries, particularly for factors of health and wellbeing that go
beyond income, and for the poorest and most marginalised social groups. Health information
systems should be designed with a focus not just on generating data for data’s sake but on driving
analysis, review and use of information collected in order to better target and ensure efficiency of
services, with the goal being improved health for children, families and communities.

Chapeau: Health is, disappointingly, largely absent from the Chapeau. It's notably missing
from Paragraph 7, which outlines a number of other rights. It does feature in Para 11, with
reference to the survival of children. The 'urgent steps needed to improve quality, coverage
& availability of disaggregated data to ensure that no one is left behind' is of particular
relevance to the health goal where the inequities are often manifested in the starkest terms
of life and death.

There are clear links between Goal 3 on health and Goal 1on ending poverty. An estimated
100 million people a year worldwide are pushed into poverty by catastrophic health costs
(WHO). Eradicating extreme poverty is closely related to protecting the poorest & most
vulnerable and the provision of social protection systems that support access to quality
health services.

On the final text of Goal 3, the unfinished business of the three health related MDGs
features in the first three targets. We welcome the specific target on ending preventable
deaths of newborns and children under five. However we are concerned that there is no
mention of nutrition within any of the nine targets under Goal 3, despite the fact that poor
nutrition contributes to almost half of all under-five deaths. It will be critical to try to
address this gap in the next stages of negotiations and in the identification of indicators.

We support the current focus on Universal Health Coverage as a crucial target under Goal
3 but not as the overarching framework or in the goal title. The current definition &
understanding of UHC still does not adequately address the social determinants of health so
if it was in the framing of the goal this could lead to the narrowing of the scope to health
systems only.

We would draw particular attention to the need for strong national to local accountability
mechanisms for health that put people at the centre.
Comments and recommendations on goals related to ending hunger and
achieving food and nutrition security for the most vulnerable children
World Vision believes that each child and their family has the right to enough nutritious food each
day to live a healthy life; and that children should be protected against the causes and consequences
of acute and chronic food and nutrition insecurity. Almost 870 million people in developing countries
don’t have enough nutritious foods each day. 100 million people require life-saving food assistance
each year.
Leading scientists, economists and health experts agree that improving nutrition during the critical
1,000 day window (during pregnancy and up to two years of age) is one of the best and most cost
effective investments to achieve lasting progress in global health and development. Undernutrition is
the single biggest cause of preventable deaths of children under five years of age, responsible for
almost half of the 6.6 million under five child deaths in 2012. An estimated 162 million children (1 in
4 of all children under-five) are stunted and 52 million suffer from wasting.
This is a global crisis with far reaching and devastating effects. Hunger weakens immune systems and
stunts children’s physical and cognitive development. Extreme hunger and food insecurity can also
force families to adopt negative coping strategies that expose children to abuse, neglect, exploitation
and violence, such as taking them out of school or sending them out to look for work.
End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture

World Vision welcomes a standalone goal on food security and nutrition, though we would
encourage the use of stronger wording, as in earlier drafts: “end malnutrition in all its forms,
including undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies and obesity and overweight, with special
attention to reducing stunting by 40% and wasting to less than 5% in children less than 5
years of age by 2025, and address the nutritional needs of pregnant and lactating women.

There is no mention of improving effectiveness of addressing humanitarian food emergencies
- a significant oversight and one that must be addressed in the next round of negotiations.

It is important that 'food security' remains in the goal, and in future post-2015 negotiations
this needs to be extended to specify the achievement of 'adequate nutrition for all'.
Target 2.1by 2030 end hunger and ensure access by all people, in particular the poor and
people in vulnerable situations including infants, to safe, nutritious and sufficient food all year
round
o Strongly affirm this target, particularly ‘end hunger’, ensure access to by all people
o Welcome reference to ‘infants’ although it could be more specific, by making
reference to “children in their first 1000 days (pregnancy to age two) and pregnant
and lactating women.”
o Reference to ‘people in vulnerable situations’- welcome reference to vulnerability,
though ‘people in vulnerable situations’ not necessarily the same as ‘vulnerable
groups’


Target 2.2 by 2030 end all forms of malnutrition, including achieving by 2025 the
internationally agreed targets on stunting and wasting in children under five years of age, and
address the nutritional needs of adolescent girls, pregnant and lactating women, and older
persons
o Welcome reference to internationally agreed targets on stunting and wasting. We
hope that the setting of 2025 will, but we have ended up with commitments only to
2025. However it does allow for an interim target and hopefully significant review of
progress by 2025.

Strongly welcome specific mention of the nutritional needs of adolescent girls and
pregnant/lactating women, but there is only a vague reference to ‘addressing’ with no specific
target proposed.
Other comments
The eradication of hunger features prominently in the Chapeau, mostly in tandem with ending
poverty. The right to food also features in the Chapeau (para 7). Para 11 presents a missed
opportunity to refer to nutrition, in the context of children surviving and developing to their 'full
potential', with only education specifically mentioned.
Beyond the Chapeau, we would express disappointment that nutrition is missing from other goals most notably Goal 3 on health. With 45% of under-five child deaths related to poor nutrition it will
not be possible to 'end preventable deaths of newborns and under-five children' without improving
nutrition significantly.
Comments and recommendations on goals related to ending violence against
children
World Vision welcomes the recognition that significantly reducing all forms of violence and especially
ending violence, abuse and exploitation against children is critical for realization of the sustainable
development agenda. The Outcome Document acknowledges violence against children as a universal
problem that undermines the chances for human progress, stability and sustainable development.
The cost of violence goes beyond its effect on individuals; it slows economic development and
erodes human and social capital. Violence tends to correlate with other developmental challenges
such as greater poverty and malnutrition, poor health and school performance. Failing to address
violence against children prolongs conflicts and fragility creating a dangerous inter-generational cycle.
World Vision therefore sees the proposed target to eliminate violence against children and targets
on some of its critical manifestations as a crucial investment in sustainable development. We
especially:

Commend and strongly affirm the inclusion of a target to end abuse, exploitation, trafficking
and all forms of violence and torture against children, recognizing the universal character of
violence against children and its detrimental effects on them and their societies (16.2).

Welcome target 16.1 to significantly reduce all forms of violence and related death rates
everywhere as critical for reducing vulnerability and increasing stability.

Strongly affirm the commitment to provide legal identity for all including birth registration by
2030 (16.9).

Affirm the target for eliminating all forms of violence against girls and women (5.2) and all
harmful practices, including child, early and forced marriage (5.3).

Strongly affirm commitment to prohibit and eliminate worst forms of child labour and end it
in all its forms by 2025 (8.7)

Affirm targets 4.6 and 4a confirming the importance of including the most vulnerable
children in mainstream education and recognizing the impact of a safe and non-violent
learning environment on enrolment and educational outcomes.

Commend the intention to strengthen relevant national institutions, including for prevention
of violence thus reconfirming the commitment of member’s states to strengthen their
national child protection systems (16a).
World Vision is concerned:

Target 5.2 does not explicitly recognize that gender based violence and harmful traditional
practices affect both girls and boys. Reducing violence against boys is a critical precondition
for breaking cycles of violence at home and in community, as well as a significant stepping
stone in efforts to promote and achieve gender equality and the empowerment of women
and girls.

The current target on ending violence against children is prominently positioned in relation
to other targets to reduce violence, we believe that it can be substantially strengthened by
including reference to all settings where violence against children occurs.

Birth registration should not only be universal but also free to ensure accessibility of process
for accessing legal identity.

Finally, we would recommend that goal 3 includes the reference to the role of health
systems in preventing violence against children in keeping with the recent WHA resolution
on preventing violence against, women, girls and children.
Comments and recommendations on goals related to peace
World Vision considers that promoting peace is essential to end poverty in all its forms,
everywhere. World Vision calls for a post-2015 development agenda that addresses peace and
stability by targeting the broad spectrum of factors that can either drive peace or lead to conflict and
violence. These drivers include both familiar development concepts like child survival, access to
services and economic opportunity, and peacebuilding factors like access to justice, confidence in
security and building the structural foundations of an effective state.
These concepts are best captured in the existing 'Peacebuilding and Statebuilding Goals' of the New
Deal for Engagement in Fragile States.
The 19 July final report of the Open Working Group, proposing a set of Sustainable Development
Goals, is an achievement to be celebrated. Its Goal 16 “Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for
sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and
inclusive institutions at all levels” reinforces the message of earlier reports and the view of most
member states that peace is essential to development. World Vision celebrates the commitment of
the champions of peace in the negotiations that led to the prominent inclusion of a peace goal.
The OWG proposal falls significantly short, however, in systematically embedding peace as a concept
across the goal framework. In future post-2015 negotiations, this must be addressed, to ensure that
the peace dimensions of all goals are recognised, and that the final goals demonstrable build on the
best international thinking and practice on peace-building.

Chapeau: World Vision welcomes the recognition to strive for a just, equitable and inclusive
world (para 4), all of which are essential preconditions for both peace and development. We
also welcome the recognition in para 13 that there are different circumstances in each
country that will require a range of different approaches. This is particularly significant for
fragile and conflict settings.
However we are concerned that countries experiencing or at risk of conflict are not recognised as
places where the most vulnerable people live, and that the New Deal is not acknowledged.
It is a failing of the whole proposed framework that conflict and humanitarian settings are not
addressed. This is particularly evident in the absence of any reference to refugees or other displaced
people, who are by definition among the most extremely vulnerable people in the world. This must
be addressed in the future post-2015 negotiations.
Goal 16. Peace: World Vision welcomes the inclusion of this goal, and endorses the selection of
issues identified in the targets. Particularly welcome is the striking of a balance between setting
targets around peoples’ experience of peace issues, and the strengthening of institutions.
As noted however the elimination of any accountability for reducing the number of refugees and
assuring their protection is a major failing of this proposal.
Other comments
In future post-2015 negotiations, World vision would like to see:

Fragile and conflict settings recognised as places where the most vulnerable people live.

Humanitarian factors especially for refugees specifically addressed at target level.

Greater attention to the cross-cutting nature of peace.
Comments and recommendations on goals related to social accountability
World Vision maintains that the effectiveness of the Post 2015 development framework will depend
in part, on locally led and transparent mechanisms for monitoring progress and ensuring
accountability, so that local communities are able to hold their governments accountable for
equitable progress at national and local levels.
Social accountability improves development outcomes, reduces inequality, and can help generate
data in real time to track and improve delivery on development indicators. It is critical to strongly
embed in the Post 2015 framework and accompanying accountability mechanisms opportunities for
local communities to actively participate in the setting of national and sub national targets and
indicators and their monitoring, including through social accountability processes.
We affirm efforts in the outcome document to include marginalised and vulnerable people; inclusive,
participatory and representative decision-making; effective, accountable and transparent public
institutions at all levels; improve public access to information; develop and implement capacity
building programmes in developing countries in support of national plans for implementing and for to
strengthen capacities for data. All these will go a huge way in ensuring positive development
outcomes.
While we recognise that there will be a separate accountability framework for the development
goals, World Vision notes that the outcome document’s goals and targets are critical in setting the
scene for monitoring and accountability for the framework. As such, World Vision proposes that the
next stage of the post-2015 process aims to strengthen language on monitoring and accountability at
all levels and on participation of local communities in real time monitoring and interactive systems of
accountability.
We affirm paragraph 14 in raising the importance both of multi stakeholder partnerships for
sustainable development and for a mechanism to review implementation. We propose to strengthen
‘the mechanism for implementation review’ by specifically promoting ‘a mechanism for monitoring
and accountability’ and rephrasing as follows:

Goal 1. End poverty in all its forms everywhere. We affirm the need for sound policy
frameworks based on pro-poor and gender-sensitive development strategies as stipulated in
1.b. However, for these policy frameworks to be responsive and effective in delivery as well
as enable ownership and monitoring of national development efforts, these frameworks
could be strengthened by promoting the participation of local communities and other key
stakeholders.

Proposed Goal 16. Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development,
provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at
all levels.

We welcome targets 16.6 and 16.7 in promoting accountability and enabling citizen
engagement in decision making, but we are concerned that the removal of specific timelines
as per the earlier draft targets will water down the urgency of the target and may affect the
delivery of the broader post 2015 framework.

Further, we welcome public access to information as presented in 16.10, but note that the
phrase ‘free and easy’ has been removed, which could undermine the actual accessibility of
this information particularly by local communities.

Proposed goal 17. Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global
partnership for sustainable development
Data, monitoring and accountability
World Vision commends the emphasis on disaggregation of data, timeliness and data quality in 17.8.
This target can be made stronger by going beyond availability to ensuring access as one does not
necessarily mean the other. Inclusion of both availability and access is reflected under para 17 of the
Chapeau and should be continued here
Further, while we recognise that there will be a separate monitoring and accountability framework
for the development goals, it is important to link this explicitly to any goal framework by including a
target on regular monitoring and reporting of progress. Target 17.16 of the zero draft offered
potential wording:
17.xx undertake regular voluntary monitoring and reporting of progress on SDGs, led by
governments with participation of local communities, within a shared accountability framework that
promotes a continuum from the local communities to the global institutions, including means of
implementation, the global partnership among Member States and multi-stakeholder initiatives and
partnerships.
Comments and recommendations on goals related to the means of
implementation and global partnerships for sustainable development
World Vision is calling for zero-based goals in the next development agenda. This means that the
most vulnerable - those who have been left behind in the MDG era - will need to be reached. This
will not be possible simply by doing more of what we are already doing: new and innovative
approaches are needed. As such, World Vision believes it is vital that the post-2015 process gives
sufficient consideration to, and makes provision for, how the new thematic goals will be achieved.
World Vision therefore welcomes Goal 17 in general and has specific suggestions in two areas in
particular: (1) cross-sector partnerships; and (2) domestic resource mobilization and tax payments.
Cross-sector partnerships
World vision believes that cross-sector partnerships are critical for implementation. As such, the
post-2015 framework must include targets, applicable across all the goals that ensure an enabling
environment for such partnerships.

World Vision welcomes target 17.16 and 17.17 and encourages the post-2015 agenda to
build on them by:
o Establishing by 2017 for each goal a global, multi-stakeholder, issue platform to
convene diverse stakeholders and to support alignment with national-level platforms
to mobilize and share knowledge, expertise, technologies and financial resources to
support the achievement of sustainable development goals in all countries,
particularly developing countries;
o Establishing by 2020 for each goal a single, national, government-led, multistakeholder platform to encourage and promote effective public, public-private, and
civil society partnerships in support of the government’s development priorities.

World Vision is concerned that effective platforms and partnerships will need to be
appropriately resourced and suggests that multi-stakeholder platforms and partnerships will
need to be supported in addition to the capacity building programs identified in 17.9.

In some partnerships, companies and their foundations invest from a philanthropic
perspective. World Vision welcomes the determination in target 10.b to ensure that diverse
funding flows are directed to where the need is greatest. WV suggests that the growing
private sector philanthropy movement be specifically as a source of financing, and that fragile
and conflict affected states be specified as one of the locations of greatest need.

On accountability, World Vision welcomes target 12.6 on corporate sustainability reporting
and suggests that it could be strengthened by including specific targets for the increase in the
number of companies adopting sustainable practices and those integrating sustainability
information into their reporting cycles. World Vision also supported 17.16 in the OWG
draft of 30 June, on regular voluntary monitoring and reporting of progress on SDGs and is
concerned this has been withdrawn as accountability, including for cross-sector partnerships,
is a critical part of delivering the development framework.
Domestic resource mobilisation and tax payments
World Vision welcomes the recognition in 17.1of the importance of domestic resource mobilization
including tax collection. Transparency of payments is particularly acute in relation to extractive
industries, as some of the countries in most need of more domestic funds also have some of the
world’s richest endowments of natural resources.
In addition to improving domestic capacity for tax collection, action at the international level is also
required to eliminate tax avoidance, in order to grow domestic resources. World Vision therefore
suggests that future post-2015 negotiations on domestic resource mobilization prioritise the
elimination of tax avoidance and maximisation of natural resource revenues.