Charles Kenny

Over the last few weeks a couple of (fantastic) co-authors and I have published two papers about progress towards the SDGs (links below). Working on the papers has helped me think through what a short time fifteen years is in development, and how much a timeframe can shape what is seen as the best solution to a problem. And they raise the question: do the fifteen year targets of the SDGs stand in the way of their vision of integration and sustainability? If you wanted to achieve long term development progress, you’d probably focus on technology change, learning and innovation in policies, and improving institutional functioning. If you wanted to improve outcomes in fifteen years, you’d probably focus on throwing money at technical solutions. The problems with the second approach include that we don’t have the money, and the technical solutions won’t necessarily work best over the long term.

The first paper, written with Dev Patel, looks at the demand for innovation to meet the SDGs. At one level, it suggests that the need for new technologies and approaches is actually quite low: along most of the income distribution, there are countries already (reportedly) succeeding in meeting the SDG targets we look at, suggesting it may be possible with the body of knowledge that currently exists to bring the maternal mortality ratio of a country with a GDP PPP per capita of $2,850 to under 70, for example. The amount of progress most countries could get by “moving to the policy frontier” is more than they would get from the world as a whole moving to better outcomes at a given level of income at any reasonable rate of global technology advance. Or to put it another way, in a period of 15 years, national policy decisions on funding and focus likely dominate global technology change as the most powerful tool for increasing the rate of progress.

A second paper with Mallika Snyder asks Meeting the Sustainable Development Goal Zero Targets: What Could We Do? The paper emphasizes how much more than money achieving the targets would take—including massively improving the quality and sustainability of service delivery alongside increasing demand, for example. But it also notes that in many cases we do at least understand the technical solutions that could deliver (close to) zero goals. It also suggests if we used such solutions and achieved a lot of progress towards the SDGs by 2030, we would likely have spent trillions of dollars in the effort.

Looking at the papers together leaves me with the feeling that fifteen years may be too short a period to map out a holistic, far reaching vision of sustainable development. As the 2015 UN General Assembly resolution proclaimed, the SDGs present an “integrated and indivisible” balance of the three dimensions of sustainable development: the economic, social and environmental. They recognize the “deep interconnections and many cross-cutting elements” of the goals and that “social and economic development depends on the sustainable management of our planet’s natural resources.” I strongly believe all of that is true about long term development, but I think this is less true about progress over a decade and a half.

For example, over periods as short as fifteen years, the link between increases in income and increases in health are fragile. Over a decade and a half, the generational effects of greater school enrollment on child health will only have started to emerge. For a process that will play out over a few centuries, the relationship between climate change and broader development progress over fifteen years is going to be comparatively limited—and the vast majority of climate change that will occur over that time is locked in by emissions we’ve already released.

Again, as the analysis in my paper with Dev suggests, the hope for making considerably accelerated progress during the SDG timeframe relies primarily on “moving to the existing policy frontier” rather than investing in technology. In part, that reflects that researching and rolling out technologies simply takes too long to imagine a huge impact of new technologies in fifteen years. (Think: adoption of TCP/IP in 1983 and only three percent of the world using the Internet in 1998, or the first mobile phone call in 1973 and less than one mobile subscriber per 1,000 people worldwide in 1988).

So while long term development is driven by interlinked progress across a range of measures of the quality of life underpinned by institutional development and technological change, rapid progress over a period of as short as fifteen years is more likely to be driven by spending more on existing solutions. The problem with an approach based on existing technical solutions is the same as it was when proposed by “costing studies” of the Millennium Development Goals fifteen years ago. It ignores the institutional and other barriers to effective rollout.

One case where this isn’t true appears to be basic health programs including vaccination and bednet provision, where rollout of simple solutions at scale really has made a huge difference to health outcomes. And there will be other exceptions across the SDGs—including cases where norms and institutions or complementary outcomes and technology availability change so rapidly that fifteen years is quite long enough to see a major impact. Again, it isn’t clear the SDGs are actually having the effect of encouraging short-termism. And, frankly, when it comes to people dying from easily prevented conditions, short-termism is not only justifiable but a moral imperative. Still, when it comes to sustainable global progress, fifteen years simply isn’t a long enough time-frame to realize the full vision of the SDGs.

The Canadian government has made some impressive steps towards prioritizing gender and women’s rights in international relations. I’m hoping that’s a sign of momentum towards even bigger steps in the New Year—using the full range of tools from trade and migration policy through investment and aid.

A number of commitments around women peace and security, including the “Elsie Initiative,” which will provide training, support, and financial incentives to increase the proportion of women in UN peacekeeping operations.

An updated trade deal with Chile that includes a gender chapter referencing existing gender equality commitments made by both countries, creating a trade and gender committee to foster initiatives to ensure women benefit equally from trade, and a proposal to the WTO Working Party on Domestic Regulation that members do not discriminate against individuals on the basis of gender in the context of licensing requirements, licensing procedures, qualification requirements, or procedures.

A commitment to support 1,200 largely Yazidi women and girls alongside male family members fleeing violence in Northern Iraq.

A new Feminist International Assistance Policy which places a strong emphasis on—and reallocates funding towards—gender equality and empowerment of women and girls. Not least, that has involved a 3-year commitment of $650 million towards family planning and reproductive health as well as a $150 million 5-year fund for women’s rights organizations.

And there’s evidence of more to come—not least of which, Canada’s plan to focus the upcoming G7 meeting in Charlevoix on gender equality at home and abroad. This is good news—and suggests there might be potential to build on a strong start with even more.

The government says that gender chapters in trade agreements will be standard going forward. That’s great news, but it would be better to see them have more bite, and to have elements included in the binding parts of the treaty. In particular, Canada could make a commitment to use trade deals (and continue pushing at the WTO) to tackle gender apartheid in the workplace. Seventy-nine countries restrict the kind of jobs women can do purely on the grounds they are women. Fifteen countries say men can stop their wives getting a job. These kinds of restrictions mean that women have fewer opportunities to benefit from global exchange than do men, and they stand in contravention of Article 11 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)—to which Canada is party alongside 109 other countries. Canadian trade officials could highlight removal of gender apartheid laws as areas for pre-ratification reform.

Canada’s migration policy could both benefit the country and some of the world’s most discriminated-against women with a tweak in the system. Worldwide, women want to migrate equally with men. Women from gender-unequal countries are particularly keen to move, but the extra barriers they face means that fewer actually manage to leave. About 45 percent of all immigrants to Canada are women, but from countries that put specific legal barriers in the way of women emigrants, the female share drops to 36 percent. Given the extra barriers these women face, the ones who manage to leave are likely to be particularly able and motivated—and so of high value to Canada. And given the increasing evidence of “social remittances”—migrants repatriating not just money but attitudes to their home countries—increased women’s migration will be a force for change in sending countries. That suggests a triple win for the migrants, Canada, and sending countries from a policy of favoring women emigrants from gender-unequal countries. The change would be simple to introduce given that Canada already uses a points system for immigration decision: just add a few points for women from the selected group of gender-unequal countries.

Regarding investment, Canada is about to set up its own Development Finance Institution— to support private investments in developing countries. Along with the rest of the World, Canada itself has a real problem with gender equality in private sector management. Women hold less than nine percent of the five highest-paid jobs in each of Canada’s 100 largest listed companies. One (more) reason that’s a problem is that women-managed firms hire considerably more women staff. So if Canada wanted to maximize the impact of its DFI on women’s economic empowerment worldwide, it would search out women-run companies to support—perhaps even offering preferential terms. It should also prioritize investments that help overcome barriers to women’s entrepreneurship—partnering with financial institutions to promote women’s financial inclusion, for example. At the same time, Canada should ensure that it doesn’t support gender-unequal investments. Given the number of countries worldwide have laws that specifically discriminate against women’s participation in the workforce, and the fact such laws are associated with considerably lower female labor force participation, companies receiving DFI support should be encouraged to mitigate the impact of local discriminatory legislation to the extent possible within the host country’s domestic laws by following a code of conduct regarding women’s employment and reporting data on employment by gender. If the government wanted to go further and help the Canadian private sector as a whole become a world leader in gender equality it could encourage the same code of conduct and mandate the same reporting on all Canada-based multinationals. And it could also take the emerging idea of supplier diversity goals for Canadian government procurement global—setting goals for aid and other overseas procurement, and encouraging multilateral institutions like the UN and World Bank to follow suit.

While aid resources are moving towards prioritizing women and girls, Canada’s overall aid budget fell by 4.4 percent last year. ODA as a proportion of GDP is now at 0.26 percent—that’s considerably below the OECD average. Better aid is at least if not more important than more aid. And shifting resources towards programs like family planning where there is a strong evidence base of effectiveness is likely moving towards better aid. But girls and women also benefit when Canada provides resources for quality education, vaccines, access to productive assets, gender-responsive infrastructure to reduce unpaid care work burdens, or (even) budget support. An improved feminist international assistance policy would involve both better and more ODA.

Finally, the Canadian government could use its global leadership position on gender to support international partnership. Women’s economic empowerment is an area where all countries (and firms) have a long way to go, with developing countries often ahead of (at least some) OECD countries: 32 percent of firms included in the World Bank’s enterprise surveys of East Asia and the Pacific are managed by women compared to 15 percent in high income OECD countries, for example. That suggests there are lessons to be learned across income divides in both directions. A global partnership of business and political leaders could make and track commitments on how they will help level the playing field for women in the economy, as well as sharing what has worked.

I’m excited to see Canada’s burgeoning leadership on gender in international relations. From this side of the border, it is hard not to be a little jealous. But it would be great if the New Year brought even more to be jealous about.