In this issue: Feature article.  The post-2015 World – Implications for Social Development . by Clem McCartney The value of care and domestic work: why the gender gap matters . by Eloïse Leboutte and Ignacio Socias UN adopts landmark resolution on principles for sovereign debt restructuring . Useful resources and links—the find of the month . The Club de Madrid is one of the most unusual international networks. An independent non- profit organization comprised exclusively of f ormer Heads of States and Heads of Government, the Club provides an opportunity for eminent former leaders to stay actively involved in the global development discourse.  Made up of over 100 former democratically elected leaders, the organization issues invitations to join only to other democratically-elected statesmen after they have left their top positions. The aim of the Club is to make the expertise and experience of its members available to current leaders. It has become clear that members have the neutrality and convening power to be welcome in dialogues and debates about current problems in many parts of the world. For the past ten years the Club has been working on a Shared Societies Project to promote policy approaches that generate safe and prosperous shared communities—a clearly difficult but most important task. We invited Dr Clem McCartney, consultant to the Club and coordinator of the Shared Societies Project, to share his perspective on the new 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and to put the above-mentioned Project of the Club de Madrid in the spotlight. The Editor.
The Post-2015 World – Implications for Social Development
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By Clem McCartney
The new Sustainable Development Goals (SGDs) are with us at last.  We have seen them coming, and some of us may have worked to influence their form and substance.  We may have been preparing for them and thinking how they will affect our work and how we can use them to advance our own efforts to "realise the future we want for all¹", as the UN system task team on the post-2015 development agenda said back in 2012.  Even if we have not been getting ready for them, they are here now, and their potential contribution to social progress is too important for us to continue to disregard them.  Things will never be the same again. They provide the opportunity to create sustainable peaceful and prosperous communities that provide the basic needs of all the population.  It will mean profound changes for all those working in social policy, development planning, economics, health, education, employment policy and politics.  They are intended to go to a new level beyond the Millennium Development Goals.  They are not just a set of targets that we should aim for, such as reducing poverty and ensuring access to basic services including health, education, clean water etc.  They are that and more. The drafters have described them as a holistic integrated set of goals, linking the three pillars of economic, social and environmental development, and they create a framework that, if taken to its logical conclusion, should transform society at the local through to the global levels, so that we can overcome the causes of poor services and poor access to services and the lack of social development in many areas.  At the same time their name suggests that they are intended to ensure that we protect the planet and that our development model is sustainable.  It's a tall order.  How do we react? It will require "a high degree of policy coherence at the global, regional and sub-national levels²”, new holistic approaches, more interdisciplinary teams, new planning models and new monitoring systems.  And there will be many other challenges that have barely been foreseen.
The involvement of the Club de Madrid
The Club de Madrid has been considering those challenges for some time.  It is the largest network of former Heads of State and Government (currently more than one hundred) elected through a democratic process.  The Members offer support to current leaders as they confront today's global, regional and national challenges.  They identify specific issues that they feel need urgent attention, and as such, they have been concerned about climate change, fuel poverty,³ gender equality and other themes of the post-2015 Agenda.  Much of the engagement with the new Agenda has centred on the issue of social inclusion, which the Members have argued is the foundation on which the Sustainable Development Goals can be achieved.  A major initiative of the Club is the Shared Societies Project, designed to draw attention to the challenges of inter-group divisions and the importance of building social inclusion and positive inter-group relations.  Like the drafters of the Sustainable Development Agenda, the Project has argued for an integrated transformative approach, and they have put social inclusion or building Shared Societies at the heart of that discussion, because Shared Societies provide the conditions for achieving the Goals, and at the same time progress towards the Goals will advance a Shared Society in a benign or virtuous cycle. Members of the Club de Madrid took part in the Rio+20 Conference, where they presented the Global Shared Societies Agenda, 4 which had been developed with partners and representatives of intergovernmental organisations.  It was intended as a template to show what a more inclusive, fair and equitable system of global economic governance would look like; to make the case that it would be in the interests of all; and that it could be created, if there is the political will. Since then, the Members have followed the post-2015 process, making visits to the UN in New York, taking part in official meetings and organising side events, as well as privately exchanging views with key Permanent Representatives to the UN and relevant members of the UN Secretariat. They also prepared a number of short documents 5 commenting on progress and offering encouragement to the Member States. The Members are now ready to co-operate with political leaders, social welfare practitioners and inter-governmental bodies in tackling the challenges of implementation, monitoring and the review of progress.
Planning, financing, implementation, monitoring and review
Parallel to the drafting of the Sustainable Development Goals, attention has also been given to the creation of systems to finance 6 , plan, and implement new development initiatives, and to monitor and review the Goals, and particular attention has been directed to identifying indicators 7 that will be able to demonstrate progress - or otherwise - towards the achievement of the Goals. Less attention has been given to the implications of this new Agenda for the way that the policy-making and practice communities are structured and organized.  The Agenda is creating a new paradigm in which the current domains of social, economic, environmental and security policy are interlinked and mutually supportive. How will policy-making and institutional structures need to change to be able to meet the new realities and apply a more holistic approach to the development process?  Will they be able to take advantage of the momentum that the SDGs have initiated?  Even if some of the details of the Goals have disappointed some people, they have established a new discourse around development on which policy makers, planers and practitioners can build in order to respond to and meet the needs of the poorest and most disadvantaged in sustainable ways. Many of the people helped by the Millennium Development Goals are still marginal, they are still in poverty and the quality of the services has not been adequate.  And some have not been touched by the MDGs at all.  That is partly because the MDGs were developed as a set of discrete targets that were not integrated with each other or with an overall vision of future development. It is now apparent that progress in one area is dependent on progress in the others, and failure to take account of any of the three interdependent dimensions of the SDGs will lead to limited, if any progress, in overall development.  What will this mean in practice? This will require a fundamental rethinking of development and giving greater emphasis to the social dimension and to the promotion of socially sustainable development. In Rio, Governments re-emphasized the need to place people and the planet at the centre of sustainable development. A strong social foundation is crucial for ensuring the sustainability of social and economic development and environmental protection. Therefore, eradicating poverty, tackling social exclusion and inequality, promoting full employment and decent work, social protection and social inclusion should be at the core of economic and environmental policies in order to achieve inclusive and sustainable development with social justice. Not only is social development necessary for sustainable development, but, with the right policies in place, social processes that transform behaviour can be drivers of change in the economic and environmental spheres.  That provides a unique opportunity to revisit and reposition social development. Such a perspective reflects the thinking in the publication "The Economics of Shared Societies" 8 , which is based on the report of a working group of experts convened by the Club de Madrid.  Another working group has recently been established to look at the implications of the relationship between social inclusion and Shared Societies and environmental sustainability.  The rhetoric that the three pillars have to be integrated is fine and helpful, but we need to understand what that means and how it can be translated into practice. Two critical dimensions are a more people-oriented, inclusive approach and an interdisciplinary orientation.
A Shared Society as a Driver of Development
There is increased interest in the inter-relationship between the key critical factors in achieving development.  Traditionally, it has been argued that economic development is fundamental to progress in other aspects of development.  While not denying the importance of the economic dimension, the Shared Societies Project has argued that social inclusion, participation and empowerment is also fundamental to establishing the key enabling conditions that facilitate the achievement of societal goals.   As the Secretary-General has said, "Empowerment and participation of all members of society in social, economic and political life is critical to achieving sustainable development."9  On the other hand, his Special Adviser on post-2015 development planning, Amina Mohammed, has warned,10  "Inequality and exclusion are just so deadly: we can't leave people or countries behind. It's incredibly dangerous." A Shared Society is one where every resident feels at home and able to play a full part in the society. Empowerment enhances the potential for participation and public engagement.  A shared and empowered society is more sustainable, both in the sense that it is likely to be more stable and prosperous but also because it is more likely to be environmentally sensitive as its members are aware of the impact of their actions on their local environment and resist efforts to exploit the environment for short-term gain.  Of course, that depends on the community being aware of the impact of its actions and willing to act responsibly.  But public involvement adds extra levels of checks and balances, and in a Shared Society, where everyone is encouraged to engage and take responsibility, it is easier to raise awareness of important issues.
An inter-disciplinary approach
It follows that future policy, regardless of its immediate focus, will need to consider its multi- faceted dimensions and effects.  Economists will have to think more clearly about, and factor in, the social and environmental aspects of their work and, equally, social scientists and environmentalists will also have to take a cross-disciplinary approach.  Progress in one area will be essential if progress is to be made in the others. What will be the implications of this for each discipline?  It will require a deeper understanding of each discipline on the part of all those involved in planning and implementing policy.  Are practitioners equipped to audit their policies for their potential social, economic and environmental consequences? This multi-disciplinary approach will demand a new approach in training. Are colleges and universities prepared for those changes? We will also have to reframe what constitutes success in our policies and practices.  For example, it will not be sufficient to have reached social inclusion targets, if the costs are high in economic and environmental terms, or if we create economic growth that the planet cannot sustain or which does not provide decent work for all.  Do we have the necessary criteria and indicators for measuring the multi-faceted impacts of policies?
Carpe Diem
These are changes that social planners and social welfare practitioners should welcome.  We know that the needs of individuals and communities need to be considered in their wider context, but in the past social workers have had little opportunity to make an input into the wider development agenda.  In the past such policy arenas have tended to function in isolation from each other. The Sustainable Development Goals provide the framework in which that can change, but it will require a clear sense of direction.  Amina Mohammed has said,¹¹ "I suspect that the next years will be a cacophony and that what we'll be working on is making it a symphony." Are social welfare institutions, personnel and their professional organizations ready and capable to respond to the need for new integrated cooperative approaches?  How will they cooperate or even merge?  If that happens, will one discipline becoming dominant, negating the concept of a holistic approach?  Are practitioners ready to function as a multidisciplinary team of equals? Conceptually, are we clear about the nature of the holistic relationship between the economic, social, and political?  Does it reflect the reality of the situation on the ground and the experience of development planning?  Will it require more rigorous theoretical underpinning that can illuminate the nature of the development process?  What are the resulting implications for future priorities? These are among the key questions that we have to consider, but not only consider.  We will have to respond to them in our practice. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and may not necessarily reflect the position of the ICSW Management Committee ▷ The value of care and domestic work: why the gender gap matters By Eloïse Leboutte and Ignacio Socias International Federation of Family Development · International Organizations Department Women typically spend disproportionately more time on unpaid care work than men. On account of gendered social norms that view unpaid care work as a female prerogative, women across different regions, socio-economic classes and cultures spend an important part of their day on meeting the expectations of their domestic and reproductive roles. That is in addition to their paid activities, thus creating the double burden of work for women. How society and policy makers address issues concerning care has important implications for the achievement of gender equality.  They can either expand the capabilities and choices of women and men, or confine women to traditional roles associated with femininity and motherhood.  The unequal distribution of unpaid care work between women and men represents an infringement of women's rights and also is a brake on their economic empowerment. We argue that gender inequality in unpaid care work is the missing link that influences gender gaps in labor outcomes. The gender gap in unpaid care work has significant implications for women's ability to actively take part in the labor market and for the type/quality of employment opportunities available to them. Time is a limited resource that is divided between labor and leisure, productive and reproductive activities, paid and unpaid work. Every minute more that a woman spends on unpaid care work represents one minute less that she could be potentially spending on market- related activities or investing in her educational and vocational skills. In countries where women spend a large amount of time on unpaid care and there is a large gender gap in the time spent in that way, the gender gap in hourly wages is also higher. Unpaid care work entails a systemic transfer of hidden subsidies to the rest of the economy that go unrecognised, imposing a systematic time-tax on women throughout their life cycle. Caregiving is a complex activity that requires, among other physical and emotional skills, empathy, patience, dedication and effort. The result for those who do it is frequently exhaustion and, at times, even illness. Globally, an increase in girls' education and women's paid work means a decrease in the supply of unpaid work. Women bear greater responsibility for unpaid care than men. Prevailing gender norms mean that women and girls undertake the bulk of unpaid care work such as looking after and educating children, looking after older family members, caring for the sick, preparing food, cleaning, and collecting water and fuel. The socially prescribed and entrenched gender roles that designate women and girls as care providers can undermine their rights, limit their opportunities, capabilities and choices, and so impede their empowerment. Prevailing gender norms mean that, across all societies, women and girls undertake the bulk of unpaid care work, such as looking after and educating children, looking after older family members, caring for the sick, preparing food, cleaning, and collecting water and fuel. That unequal burden of unpaid care undermines women and girls' rights (to decent work, to education, to health, to rest and leisure), limits their opportunities and, therefore, impedes their economic empowerment. It hinders women from seeking employment and income, which in turn holds them back economically.
The role of fathers
While there is a growing body of evidence about the role of fathers in children's lives, there are also knowledge gaps, and the quality of the evidence varies.  Although a concerted effort has been made to capture evidence about the positive influences of fathers on child development and well-being, it is pertinent to note that the studies to date have more often focused on the negative impacts of poor or absent fathering on children. [1] Most fathers aspire to share caregiving equally with their spouse/partner, but are often unable to bring that desire to reality. Fathers need time to develop parenting skills, but they don't have it. The fact that men don't bear children is obviously an unchangeable biological fact. The fact that men don't rear children is not. People are not born with the gene that teaches them all they need to know to be effective parents – neither women nor men. From the first days and weeks after childbirth, many (we hope most) women have the opportunity to spend time with their children, which facilitates both bonding with their new-born and developing competencies as new parents. In contrast, few men are provided with an opportunity to spend significant time with their young children. Age is also a determinant of unpaid work, albeit with a smaller quantitative impact. The frequency of involvement first increases, then reaches a maximum before decreasing. The turning points are: • The mid 40s in the case of caring for and educating children; The late 40s in respect of cooking and housework; . . The early 50s for caring for elderly/disabled relatives. Those respective turning points pertain mostly to women. [2] . Not only are women more involved in unpaid work, but also the kinds of activities in which they engage differ from their male counterparts. The most typical male tasks in the household are construction and repair work, where women's involvement is limited, both in terms of participation and the amount of time they devote to the task. Men also devote slightly more time to gardening and pet care, but their participation rates in these activities are more or less equal to those of women. Tasks that have traditionally been thought of ‘women’s work’ (e.g. cooking and cleaning) continue to be primarily performed by women. In the countries surveyed, 82% of women prepare meals on an average day, while only 44% of men do. Also, the average time spent by women on cooking is four times the time spent by men. [3] As the reasons for unpaid work inequalities are multi-layered, there need to be distinct policy interventions to effectively remedy their negative impacts on different groups of women. Work- family reconciliation policies have to be tailored accordingly.
From "shadow" to formal
Activities that contribute to the well-being of families and individuals at home, such as care services and housework services, have an important job-creation potential. Home-care services form part of "white jobs", together with healthcare services and residential care activities, while housework services are at the border of this category. Demand for care and household services is expected to increase owing to an important trend-- population ageing in all Member States, combined with the expected decline in the number of potential careers within the family circle. Rather than asking which type of State is best for women performing unpaid work, we will attempt to make some observations that help contextualize their potential effects within diverse frameworks and policy spaces. If a country is facing underemployment and unemployment and is willing to engage in public work programs, we need to identify (from a gender point of view) the interventions that can ameliorate the burdens on women.  If social cash transfers are used to improve human development indicators, it is useful to investigate how and when they are also helpful in addressing unpaid care work. When universal provisioning is a viable option, we need to ensure that policies are mindful of existing inequalities in paid and unpaid work." [4] In policy debates in many Member States, personal and household services are often mentioned as a possible answer to the following issues: ✓  Accessible and affordable care services are an important precondition for increasing female participation in the labor market.  The creation of job opportunities for the relatively low-skilled workers, in particular as far as housework services are concerned, comes at a low cost for public finance by encouraging the provision of housework services in the formal economy rather than in the shadow economy. Job creation is also a factor in considering the cost of different options for long-term care. ✓ Improvement in the quality of care, thanks to a work-force having the right skills and benefitting from good working conditions, subject to quality controls on the service providers. Personal and health services offer significant opportunities in raising employment levels, allowing the work-life balance to be improved, productivity to be increased and undeclared work to be brought into the official labor market. One of the "solutions" for better reconciliation of work with family responsibilities involves more paid employment in caring, but the conditions of work and employment in these jobs often leave much to be desired. Undervaluation of paid care work goes hand in hand with a lack of recognition of unpaid care work, which is seen as natural and not requiring skills. Female migration in that context has significant impacts both in the South and in the North. In the receiving countries, the employment of female immigrants represents an individual household’s solution to the needs of balancing family and labor market work. Family members have always been the mainstay for providing care to aging and other relatives or friends who need assistance with everyday living. Yet family caregiving today is more complex, costly, stressful, and demanding than at any time in human history.
A cause of the fertility rebound
The mass entry of women into the labor force is one of the major social changes observed in most OECD countries in recent decades. At the same time, the link between female employment and fertility has changed. While in the early 1980s fertility was highest in countries with the lowest female employment rates, the reverse is true today. [5] The Scandinavian countries – all with a high level of economic development – are a good illustration of this new situation, with female employment rates (in the 25-54 age group) of above 80% and high fertility. The countries of southern and eastern Europe, on the other hand, illustrate the opposite situation, with low female employment rates and low fertility. These are countries with income levels below the OECD average. So the reversal of the relationship between GDP per capita and fertility probably reflects a switch from negative to positive in the link between female employment and fertility. At the relatively early stages of economic development, GDP growth opens up women's access to educational attainment. Women are encouraged to stay longer in the educational system in order to become more qualified and increase their earning potential. Because they spend more time in education, many young men and women wait longer before forming a couple and having children. Moreover, the increase in women's earning potential produces an increase in the opportunity cost of having children, as time spent at home represents an implicit wage loss. Women therefore prefer to invest more time in paid work than in caring for children, so their fertility decreases. That decrease may be accentuated if parents tend to invest more heavily in their children's education, in which case the family size is limited for financial reasons. However, if the woman works, her additional income provides greater economic security and makes an additional child more affordable, especially if government family-support policies are also in place. Moreover, the development of policies to help parents reconcile work and family life may itself be favored by strong economic growth. Norms and attitudes towards childbearing, the family and gender roles are also evolving alongside this process of economic and institutional change.
References.
[1] Lisa Wood and Estée Lambin, 'How fathers and father figures can shape child health and wellbeing', The University of Western Australia, 2013. [2] Patrick McCloughan et al., 'Participation in volunteering and unpaid work - Second European  Quality of Life Survey',  Eurofound,  2011. [3] Veerle Miranda, 'Cooking, caring and volunteering: Unpaid work around the world.' OECD, Paris, 2011 [4] Rania Antonopoulos, 'The unpaid care work - paid work connection", Working paper, ILO, Geneva, 2009 [5] OECD, 'Doing better for families', 2011. The article represents an abridged version of the IFFD paper dated 1 October 2015 and written by the authors: "Implications of the gender gap. The value of care and domestic work", available at http://www.worldfamilyorganization.org/archive/news/2012/02-02-2012-IFFD Papers.html The contents do not represent the official position of any institution, but only the views of the authors.
>   UN adopts landmark resolution on principles for sovereign debt
restructuring
On 10 September 2015, in a pivotal decision and by a large vote, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution entitled 'Basic Principles on Sovereign Debt Restructuring Processes" (resolution 69/319). The resolution contains nine key principles that should be respected when a country undertakes the restructuring of sovereign debt. There were 136 votes in favor, six against and 41 abstentions in the vote on the resolution, split largely along developed vs. developing country lines. The NGO community vigorously supported the resolution, seeing it as a way towards better prevention and resolution of sovereign debt crises. In a joint letter to the EU Ambassadors sent before the vote, NGO representatives stated that "we are particularly concerned by the ability of vulture funds to sabotage debt restructuring processes through aggressive litigation. The lack of an effective debt restructuring framework is increasing the burden and costs of debt restructuring to the public because of bailout loans being used to pay off private creditors". While the resolution is non-binding, it is widely seen, given its political weight, as a significant step forward in supporting countries that have to restructure their debt and face creditors. In particular the resolution specifies that "a sovereign State has the right . . . to design its macroeconomic policy, including restructuring its sovereign debt, which should not be frustrated or impeded by any abusive measures." The resolution further states that "good faith by both the sovereign debtor and all its creditors would entail their engagement in constructive sovereign debt restructuring workout negotiations and other stages of the process with the aim of a prompt and durable re-establishment of debt sustainability and debt servicing, as well as achieving the support of a critical mass of creditors through a constructive dialogue regarding the restructuring terms." The principles of transparency, impartiality, equitable treatment, sovereign immunity, legitimacy, sustainability, and majority restructuring are also listed as essential elements in the debt restructuring process. For more details please go to: http://unctad.org/meetings/en/SessionalDocuments/a69L84 en.pdf
Useful resources and links-- the find of the month
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1-  How’s Life? 2015
Measuring Well-being. OECD, Paris, 2015
How's Life? is part of the OECD Better Life Initiative, which features a series of publications on measuring well-being, as well as the Better Life Index ( www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org ), an interactive website that aims to involve citizens in the debate about what a better life means to them. The third edition in a series describes the essential ingredients that shape people's well-being in OECD and partner countries. It includes a wide variety of statistics, capturing both material well-being (such as income, jobs and housing) and the broader quality of people's lives (such as their health, education, work-life balance, environment, social connections, civic engagement, subjective well-being and safety). The report documents the latest evidence on well-being, (a children well-being chapter has been added in this edition), as well as changes over time, and the distribution of well-being outcomes among different groups of the population. For more details: http://www.oecd.org/statistics/how-s-life-23089679.htm 2 - Promoting Health, Preventing Disease: The Economic Case David McDaid, Franco Sassi, Sherry Merkur (eds). McGrow Hill, Open University Press, New York, 2015 This book—a result of a collaborative effort between the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, the OECD, and the WHO Regional Office for Europe-- provides an economic perspective on health promotion and chronic-disease prevention, and gives a rationale for assessing the economic case for action. A comprehensive review of the evidence base in support of a broad range of public health interventions, addresses not only their effectiveness in improving population health, but is presented in conjunction with their implementation costs, impacts on health expenditures and wider economic consequences.  The authors give practical illustrations of methods and the measures of cost and outcome used in the evaluation of interventions, covering specific risk factor areas including tobacco smoking, alcohol, unhealthy diets, physical inactivity, poor mental health and harmful environmental factors. They also consider cross-cutting themes including key implementation issues, health inequalities, and the merits of early life interventions. For more details: http://www.euro.who.int/en/about- us/partners/observatory/publications/studies/promoting-health,-preventing-disease-the- economic-case.-executive-summary-and-sample-pages The content of this Global Newsletter may be freely reproduced or cited provided the source is acknowledged. The views do not necessarily represent policies of ICSW. Newsletter Editor: Sergei Zelenev, Executive Director Address:  ICSW, 5700 Arlington Ave., Bronx, New York, 10471 (US Office) Phone: +1 347-526- 4893, E-mail: szelenev@icsw.org, icsw@icsw.org Website www.icsw.org; If you wish to cease receiving this newsletter, please click 'here' providing your name and email address