Outcome Document of the CSOs Monrovia Consultation for the Post 2015 Development Agenda

（January 30-February 1, 2013 Monrovia, Liberia）

On the occasion of the High-Level Panel’s meeting in Monrovia, Liberia during January 30-Feruary 1, 2013, we the members of global, regional and national civil society welcome the commitment of the HLP and of the host government to outreach and engagement with civil society organisations. Building on the previous CSO engagement with HLP processes, as well as a number of regional and national consultations on the post-2015 development framework, CSOs have met in Liberia to discuss our perspectives on and approaches to the HLP meeting’s theme of ‘national building blocks for sustained prosperity – economic transformation’.

Context

We are deeply concerned about the continuing harsh environment for sustained prosperity, inclusive economic growth and social transformation. This includes the following:

•Continuing economic uncertainties and turbulence caused, especially for poor people and the middle classes, by the triple crisis – finance, energy, food – of 2008 onwards. The underpinnings of this crisis in a hyper-financialised, and poorly regulated model of economic growth have not yet been effectively addressed, and continue to wreak havoc in people’s lives;

•Under this model, global and national inequalities are persistent and widening, including among a number of the economies that are experiencing the fastest economic growth. The evidence on inequality increasingly suggests that, far from growth being a rising tide lifting all boats, the poor are floundering whether in terms of income, wealth or nutritional status;;

•From the beginnings of structural adjustment programs in Africa and Latin America in the 1980s through multiple intervening financial crises into the current crisis, the neoliberal model has imposed excessive fiscal discipline on borrowing countries resulting in cutbacks in public spending in areas such as health, education, water, sanitation and programs for social protection, as well as leading to poorly regulated privatisation and public-private partnerships. Not only have poor people suffered as a consequence, but accountability has been weak;

•The growing phenomenon of jobless growth and the fact that even where jobs are created, workers often suffer from low wages /earnings, insecurity, unhealthy working conditions, abuse and violence, means that the fruits of economic growth are not translated effectively into the well-being of people or opportunities for the future;

•The continuing risks and vulnerabilities resulting from climate change and the fact that much of the economic growth that is currently occurring, for example in Africa, has been concentrated in extractive industries, is resource-depleting, environmentally destructive, and unsustainable. The phenomenon of the ‘resource curse’ and the siphoning away of the returns from such growth mean that its benefits do not reach ordinary people. It also often jeopardises access to resources and traditional livelihoods of the poorest and most vulnerable.

•Persistent and new conflicts continue to stifle economic potential, intensify and entrench poverty and suffering, increase the numbers of internally displaced persons and refugees, and raise levels of violence against women, children and young people.

Cross-cutting Approaches

We demand from political leaders and governments that you move urgently to tame and regulate the hubris of financial markets and unsustainable growth, generating thereby greater national policy space and more resources for human development, and keeping socially disruptive inequalities from getting worse.

Alternative economic models and approaches exist that combine growth with human development and human rights in ways that are environmentally sustainable. These models are more participatory, can draw on new financing mechanisms, and build on the energy, dynamism and creativity of those who are traditionally marginalised and oppressed. What is needed is the political will among global and national leaders and decision-makers to adopt such approaches and make them central to the Post 2015 development agenda.

As civil society organizations working with communities and people at multiple levels, we bear testimony to the fact that unsustainable and dis-equalising approaches to economic growth place the greatest burdens on people who have the least resources and capacities to cope with the consequences.

Harsh economic conditions interact with long-standing social inequalities, biases and discrimination, as well as with key aspects of population dynamics such as migration, urbanisation and changing age structures (towards larger numbers of young people in some cases and many older people in others) to determine who is most severely affected.