Will the Summit of the Future lead to a more results-based United Nations?... : Kul Gautam replies to an article by Peter Singer

Dear Peter Singer,

Re your very thoughtful commentary on the Summit of the Future, I tend to agree with your observation that:

"The UN suffers from planning disease. Any successful real-world entity does 10% planning and 90% execution (and the planning is built on the results of execution). In the UN, it's the reverse. Rather than critically examine why the SDGs are off track, and support countries to overcome these obstacles, the UN comes up with a new list of things it wants to accomplish".

But I tend to differ with two of your three recommendations to GSD (Get the Sh*t Done). Lack of data and innovation are not the main reasons for the failure to achieve the SDGs. There is plenty of data available now (unlike a few decades ago) from the UN as well as non-UN academic institutions and think tanks on all kinds of subjects analyzed from multiple dimensions. And innovation is the forte of the private sector, academia, NGOs, etc. that the UN can tap into.

I fully agree with your third recommendation: better governance at the global level and better execution at the field level are crucial for UN's success.

As you say, the UN is drowning in excessive planning, but it has a real problem in prioritizing, because of the need to satisfy an unwieldy gamut of constituencies, not just its diverse member states but even more diverse global & local civil society organizations and privately funded foundations with diverse interests.

I personally like the "Best Things First" & "Best Buys" approach recommended by Bjorn Lomborg of the Copenhagen Consensus Center of some of the world's top economists and strategic thinkers. Since it is practically impossible to get a consensus on such a selective approach in the UN system, perhaps we need two sets of of SDGs – one set of goals that are considered the most cost-effective, most doable and high-impact, and a second set of goals that are highly desirable but may not necessarily be the most cost-effective or immediately doable, but need to be pursued to the best of each countries abilities. Such a two-tiered approach is bound to be controversial and will surely be challenged. But it is not impossible if skillful diplomats and statesmen/women & visionary leaders put their minds to it.

"I recall this is what UNICEF's visionary leader Jim Grant did when he led a global child survival revolution in the 1980s and 90s with a set of the most cost-effective health and nutrition interventions despite being heavily criticized by WHO and others for pursuing "selective primary health care" and a "vertical approach" to PHC, "at the expense of health systems building". The fact is that success breeds more success, and success in child survival led to the health sector getting more broad-based political support worldwide and health was elevated to the previously unimaginable Summit-level attention at the historic World Summit for Children in 1990 and the Millennium Summit in 2000.
Kul Gautam"

Click here for the article "SDGs: Far Too Many Promises"
Click her for the article "Will the Summit of the Future Lead......."?