Sustainable Development Goals: a Report from The Congregation
July 8, 2014
Marcella O’Connell rsm and Carmel Bracken rsm are members of the The Future We Need (FwN) group, an inter-congregational group of religious in Ireland, which has been promoting education and advocacy on sustainable development issues since the Rio + 20 Conference.
With the aid of a grant from Trocaire, a researcher (Betty Lacey) was employed to assist the FwN group in producing 4 position papers for submission to UN General Assembly’s Open Working Group (OWG) on the formation of SDGs.
The group (consulting with Aine O Connor) submitted papers on
1. Energy for the 5th session of the OWG, November 25 – 27, 2013.
2. Human Rights, Right to Development and Global Governance for the 6th session of the OWG, December 9 – 13, 2013.
3. Sustainable Consumption and Production (including chemicals and waste) for the 7th session of OWG session, January 6 -10, 2014.
4. Promoting equality, including social equity, gender equality and women’s empowerment for the 8th session of OWG session, February 2014
- Each paper was submitted to the appropriate Government department. The papers were acknowledged and interest was expressed in receiving more from our group.
- Each paper was also uploaded to the Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform (SDKP) e.g. http://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/getWSDoc.php?id=1948
Follow-Up on Submission of Papers
After the OWG sessions, the FwN group compared the above submitted position papers with the interventions made by the trio Ireland/Denmark/Norway at the OWG sessions to identify areas where our issues were addressed or omitted. The main issues which the group agreed needed further attention were compiled and a meeting sought with Dominick O’Brien at the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government. for April 9th when the group could be accompanied by the US director of shareholder advocacy at Mercy Investment Services, Pat Zerega, who has many years of experience in the area of corporate social responsibility. Three members of the FwN group along with Pat Zerega and Denise Boyle fmdm met with Dominik O Brien. Niall Tierney (Dept. of Foreign Affairs) who had attended the OWG sessions at UN was connected via video link from Limerick.
Education and Awareness Raising
Soup and Substance is an annual Lenten information event hosted by Mercy International Association, focusing on the themes of cosmology, eco-justice and human trafficking. This year the FWN group administered these sessions by inviting guest speakers to give talks on these areas and participate in question and answer sessions. Topics covered included:-
1) Be the Change Programme 2) Fostering Environmental Awareness
3) A Global Perspective on Debt Crisis 4) Protection Children from Exploitation
5) EU Environmental Law and Policy 6) Using your Investments for Social Change
Global Frackdown Day: Ideas that surfaced in FwN group are:
*Purchase of the book: Just Water: Theology, Ethics and the Global Water Crisis by Christina Z. Peppard (Fordham University) as a resource book
*Education in awareness of young people and adults around water and fracking
* Need for creative work around the Human Right to water and the Right of Water to exist.
A Mercy group — Sisters Marcella O Connell, Kathleen Glennon, Kathleen Somers and Carmel Bracken— hope to prepare a prayer around water for Global Frackdown day.
Letter writing campaign pertaining to the ‘right to water and sanitation’ for inclusion in SDG’s
- Carmel Bracken rsm and Marcella O Connell rsm
