A new policy brief elaborates the objectives, guiding principles and organizational framework within the United Nations system of a sustainable development review process.
UNCTAD is proposing a framework that will help countries to deliver the post-2015 development agenda.
This is timely in light of ongoing discussions in the lead up to the Third International Conference on Financing for Development (13-16 July 2015) and the United Nations Summit to adopt the post-2015 development agenda (25-27 Sep 2015).
This preliminary proposal is based on UNCTAD’s experience with both national policy reviews (in the areas of trade policy, services, trade and gender, technology and innovation, debt management, etc.) and peer reviews (investment policy, competition policy).
It also builds on UNCTAD’s direct involvement in the Millennium Development Goals monitoring exercise, as well as in the assessment by the Millennium Development Goals Gap Task Force.
It takes into account UNCTAD’s experience with the two main institutional changes in the multilateral system in Geneva: the Universal Periodic Review that was brought about with the historic change of the Human Rights Commission into the Human Rights Council in 2006 and the Trade Policy Review Mechanism institutionalized when the World Trade Organization succeeded the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in 1995.
Lastly, this proposal builds on the broader institutional experience within the United Nations and other international organizations, such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and other institutional experience at the regional level, such as the African Peer Review Mechanism.
