Mercy Global Action at the UN, together with colleagues of the NGO Mining Working Group, released a response to the Zero Draft of the outcome document for the Summit to Adopt the Post-2015 Development Agenda.

The response presents proposed amendments and critical rationale in order to improve the Agenda in five main ways:

1 Anchor the Post-2015 Development Agenda in human rights
2 Make poverty eradication the objective over economic growth and prosperity
3 Explicitly name and include the human right to water and sanitation in priority themes
4 Safeguard essential public services from public private partnerships (PPPs)
5. Ensure effective participation of affected communities and civil society

The NGO Mining Working Group response to the Zero Draft is available here.

Mercy Global Action continues to engage in the Post-2015 process, advocating first and foremost for a human rights-based approach to sustainable development and for the human right to water and sanitation to be explicitly named in the outcome document, given the urgency of the global water crisis and the need to prioritize the needs of people and planet. Colleagues of the NGO Mining Working Group repeated these consistent calls on the UN floor at the civil society session during last week’s negotiations.

In keeping with these advocacy efforts, the office published a press release focused on the importance Pope Francis placed on the human right to water and sanitation in the Encyclical. The office will draw on the Pope’s emphasis on water as a human right that should not be commodified in continued advocacy on Post-2015 going forward.

Messages to:
Áine O’Connor rsm - MGA Co-ordinator at the UN
Avery Kelly - MGA Fellow