SDG0064

Additional written evidence submitted by the Bond SDGs Group

Introduction

The Bond SDGs Group (formally Bond Beyond 2015 UK) is a civil society coalition with over 150 member organisations advocating for the full implementation of the SDGs with a strong focus on their global impact. It is convened by Bond, the UK platform for international development NGOs.  We welcome the opportunity to submit evidence to this inquiry.  

For further information, please contact Mariana Rudge (mrudge@bond.org.uk).

Implementing the “Leave No One Behind” principle

1. “Leave No One Behind” is at the core of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Countries have pledged to ensure the goals and targets are “met for all nations and peoples and for all segments of society”. If properly implemented, this principle will ensure the SDGs make even more progress than the Millennium Development Goals, which focused on achieving averages and hid vast inequalities in progress between different groups.

2. “Leave No One Behind” challenges conventional approaches to development, ensuring that human rights are at the heart of development practice, and putting the most marginalised and hard to reach people at the forefront of development planning, processes and interventions.

3. Leaving nobody behind requires greater focus from the UK Government and other actors on exclusion, inequalities and the underlying causes of poverty, both in the UK and through policy and programming internationally.

4. The UK Government was an important champion for the “Leave No One Behind” principle during the SDGs negotiations, and should continue to promote this principle in its actions as well as its rhetoric. David Cameron had made a public promise to “Leave No One Behind” and Theresa May affirmed the current Government will continue to lead the world in implementing that pledge.

5. We support the work DFID is doing to consult civil society in developing countries through its “Leave No One Behind Partnership”. The UK government should convene similar consultations domestically and work with civil society groups to identify who is being left behind in the UK and why.

6. To have a robust approach to “Leave No One Behind” the UK Government will need to understand and respond to the underlying and connected drivers of poverty, inequality and instability. For DFID this will mean investigating the interconnections between poverty, climate change and the unsustainable use of natural resources as these are critical drivers of marginalisation in the countries where it works.

7. We welcome the work DFID has been doing on a “Leave No One Behind approach” to guide the application of the principle in its programmes and look forward to the Government making this public so all stakeholders can better understand how this work can be supported. We regret to note, however, that the current Government has not yet articulated how “Leave No One Behind” will be delivered domestically.

8. In its future reporting on SDGs progress we expect the UK Government to ensure that data is publicly available in a timely manner and meets the ambition to “Leave No One Behind”, disaggregating data by sex, age, disability, geographic location, income, race, ethnicity, and migration status.

9. Disaggregated data is a key accountability tool in leaving no one behind. In this regard, we welcome the work of the ONS in developing new methodologies for data disaggregation which will help identify who is being left behind and improve the targeting of policies.  DFID statisticians have also been working on an action plan for data disaggregation, which will help drive better collection and analysis of data both in the UK and globally. Beyond DFID, it will be important for all UK ODA spending Departments progressively to report progress against indicators disaggregated across all the categories identified in SDG 17.18.

10. Inequality is an important challenge for the UK. The issue is being increasingly highlighted in public discourse, most recently the Prime Minister’s speech at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet, where she spoke of globalisation having left too many people behind. The recent report by the Social Mobility Commission[1] found that Britain has a deep social mobility problem which is getting worse for young people.

11. Unicef’s report from this year ‘Fairness for Children’[2], which covered high income countries, found that inequality among children is growing, with particularly high rates in the UK in relation to healthy behaviour and educational attainment of children. If it weren’t for the existence of social transfers, the relative income gap in the UK would be amongst the highest in Europe.

12. Differences in life expectancy and healthy life expectancy in England have been directly linked to inequality, with the ONS reporting a difference of almost 8 years in life expectancy and a 17-year gap in healthy life expectancy between those who are privileged and those who are living in the most deprived parts of England.[3]

13. Inequality is an important challenge for the UK. The Government needs to act on this challenge and outline what it will do to deliver on its pledge to “Leave No One Behind” domestically as well as overseas.

December 2016