Climate change has disproportional impact on women(2)

MDGs AND CLIMATE CHANGE

As the clock is ticking down to the MDGs deadline, the United Nations is leading the world to hammer out the post-2015 development agenda on the basis of gains and lessons in implementing MDGs over the past years.

"I think the MDGs are very positive in terms of goals (because they've) galvanized populations and sort of held the international development community to a standard," Hendra said.

"But, they didn't do a number of things. One: they didn't look at the underlying causes of poverty and the causes of the slow ( MDGs) progress," he said.

At the same time, the UN official pointed out that the MDGs did not focus on specific social groups, analyze financially poor sector's populations or gender discrepancies.

"So I think there has been so much evidence in the last few years that inequality is such a huge issue," he said.

The struggle with access and justice within the MDGs also falls in line with the climate change conversation, he said.

Therefore, "it's really important to underline the constraints and root causes," he said, indicating that the uneven dynamic between men and women is one of the main struggles.

The power dynamic has lead to women to have a lack of resources, limited decision-making in family matters, politics and business, Hendra said.

Thus, the next set of anti-poverty goals needs to look at the big picture, he said.

POST-2015 DEVELOPMENT AGENDA

At the end of the MDGs, the post-2015 development agenda will be put in place.

"I think this new agenda is about sustainable development and on how to integrate social and environmental concerns in much more horizontal and robust way," Hendra said.

Moreover, "the open working group on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has separate and strong stand-alone goals on general equality, women's rights and also on climate change," he said.

So, the next global agenda will address all of this, Hendra said.