Queen Rania Selected for UN Chief's High-level Advisory Panel on Post-2015 Development Agenda

(Office of Her Majesty, Press Department-Amman) Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah was selected as one of 26 members of a High-level Panel announced in New York by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to advise on the global development agenda beyond 2015, the target date for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The Secretary-General has appointed three co-chairs: President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia; President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia; and Prime Minister David Cameronof the United Kingdom. The High-level Panel -- half of whose members are women -- will include representatives of governments, the private sector, academia, civil society and youth.

“I have asked my High-level Panel to prepare a bold yet practical development vision to present to Member States next year,” said the UN chief in a statement. “I look forward to the Panel’s recommendations on a global post-2015 agenda with shared responsibilities for all countries and with the fight against poverty and sustainable development at its core.”

The Panel’s first meeting is due to be held at the end of September in the margins of the annual high-level debate of the UN General Assembly. The Panel is expected to submit a report to the Secretary-General in the second quarter of 2013.

Members of the advisory panel include former German President, Horst Kohler; former Japanese Prime Minister, Naoto Kan; Sweden’s Minister for International Development Cooperation, Gunilla Carlsson; Commissioner for Development for the European Commission, Andris Piebalgs; member of the Secretary General’s MDG Advocacy Group, Yingfan Wang of China; former Director General of the French Development Agency, Jean-Michel Severino and the Mayor of Istanbul, Kadir Topbas.

Among the other panelists are Mexico’s Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Patricia Espinosa; member of the Elders and wife of former South African President Nelson Mandella, Graca Machel; President of Brazil’s Institute for Applied Economic Research, Vanessa Petrelli; Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Abhijit Banerjee and the Secretary-General’s Special Advisor on Post-2015 Development Planning, serving in exofficio capacity, Amina J. Mohammed,.

The Panel is part of the Secretary-General’s post-2015 initiative mandated by the 2010 MDG Summit, the U.N. statement added. Member States have called for open, inclusive consultations involving civil society, the private sector, academia, and research institutions from all regions, in addition to the UN system, to advance the development agenda beyond 2015.

The work of the Panel will reflect new development challenges while also drawing on experience gained in implementing the MDGs, both in terms of results achieved and areas for improvement. The Panel’s work will be closely coordinated with that of the intergovernmental working group tasked to design Sustainable Development Goals, agreed at the Rio+20 conference. The reports of both groups will be submitted to Member States for their further deliberations.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were established in 2000 as a set of eight global development objectives that all UN member states and many international organizations, such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, agreed to achieve by 2015. The targets include: eradicating extreme poverty and hunger; achieving universal primary education; promoting gender equality and empowering women; reducing child mortality; improving maternal health; combating HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases; ensuring environmental sustainability; and promoting a global partnership for development.