sa1564.jpg Steve Ansul

A Peace Agenda for Global Development

Next week, Liberia will host a meeting to help establish a bold yet practical vision for global development cooperation after 2015. The world must seize the opportunity to embrace an agenda that addresses the vicious cycle of conflict and poverty that undermines economic and social development.

MONROVIA, LIBERIA – This week, the 27 members of the High-level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda gather in Monrovia, Liberia, to advise United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. At the meeting, the Panel will establish a “bold yet practical” vision for joint action on sustainable development.

While these discussions – hosted by Liberian President and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, and British Prime Minister David Cameron – take place, the nearby Sahel and the Great Lakes region continue to be plagued by violence and conflict. Indeed, large-scale displacement of people and unspeakable human suffering are occurring in many African countries (not to mention in Syria and elsewhere), threatening to reverse the continent’s unprecedented economic progress during the last decade.

The Panel (of which I am a member) must seize the opportunity presented by the Monrovia meeting to contribute to a global development agenda that addresses the vicious cycle of conflict and poverty that hampers economic activity and undermines human well-being.

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