7th and 8th Sessions of the Post-2015 Intergovernmental Negotiations
(Intergovernmental Negotiations on the Outcome Document)

The intergovernmental negotiations on the post-2015 agenda convened on Monday afternoon to begin consideration of the revised outcome document for the UN Summit to adopt the post-2015 development agenda. Delegates did not meet in plenary on Monday morning to allow Member States to consult on the revised outcome document, which the Co-Facilitators circulated on Sunday evening.

Introducing the proposed method of work for the week, Co-Facilitator Macharia Kamau (Kenya) urged groups to suggest specific language solutions, anticipating that further discussion would be needed on about half a dozen issues. He called on Member States to express their views through their representative groups. He noted that, due to strong voices against including the “tweaks” in the text to Sustainable Development Goals’ (SDGs) targets, those changes had been removed from the text and placed back into an annex. He cautioned, however, that for the outcome document to be credible, the technical tweaks should be accepted.

Member States expressed differing views over: whether or not to include the preamble; mentioning the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR) as opposed to “shared responsibility;” language on climate change; sexual and reproductive health and rights (including references to the review conferences of ICPD and Beijing) and a reference to “unilateral economic, financial and trade measures.” Some countries called for recognizing the human right to water, with the US and Russia remaining opposed. The European Union and others were concerned that the Addis Ababa Action Agenda (AAAA) was no longer annexed to this version of the outcome document, while the Group of 77 and China continued to assert that the AAAA is different in scope from the post-2015 development agenda, and the two cannot be conflated.

The Co-Facilitators repeatedly urged delegations to express their views through their representative groupings, and after a brief break at 6:10 pm, convened an evening session to continue the plenary, with 27 speakers remaining.