6th Session of the Post-2015 Intergovernmental Negotiations
(Intergovernmental Negotiations on the Outcome Document)

On Monday, 22 June 2015, Co-Facilitator Macharia Kamau (Kenya) welcomed participants to the meeting, noting that with less than three weeks of work remaining until the end of the process, everybody, including delegates from New York and from Capitals should be “on board.” Introducing the zero draft of the outcome document for the UN Summit to adopt the post-2015 development agenda, he said “we are off to a good start”, expressing his encouragement on the positive comments and support expressed by Member States, Major Groups, business, and some regional meetings including the recent African Union Summit in South Africa. He congratulated delegates for the work done in the past months, and observed that even newspapers such as the Financial Times are now speaking about the sustainable development goals (SDGs).

He then presented the zero draft, and outlined that:

• the synopsis is intended to be easily communicated in a manner that can be managed by the public and the media;
• the declaration is meant to be short, accessible, and highlight issues without turning them into “a laundry list;”
• the section on SDGs and targets tries to reflect the request of delegations to replicate the entire set of goals and targets agreed in the Open Working Group (OWG) process;
• the means of implementation (MOI) and the global partnership section includes some indicative language and clearly indicates that the section is a placeholder waiting for the outcome of the Third International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD3).

Co-Facilitator David Donoghue (Ireland) expressed optimism that the post-2015 negotiations could be completed by 31 July 2015 as planned. He said the declaration section of the zero draft respects comments made on this topic during the second session of the post-2015 negotiations, and called on participants to respect the overall importance of maintaining a short, concise and readable text.

Throughout the day, delegations delivered opening statements on the entire zero draft and, more specifically, on the draft declaration. All Member States said the zero draft provides a good basis for the negotiations. There were numerous calls to change the title of the document, with some Member States proposing crowdsourcing it. Other issues raised included: the relationship between the FFD3 outcome and the MOI chapter of the post-2015 outcome document; the need to strengthen the environmental dimension of sustainable development in the declaration; concern about picking and choosing some goals to prioritize in the declaration and the preamble, such as the nine objectives proposed by the Co-Facilitators; whether the preamble should remain in the document or not; whether the entire OWG outcome document (including the preamble and reservations) should be included in the outcome document; and the need to reference a better and “fit for purpose” UN system to help countries respond to development challenges and support the implementation of the agenda.