Today, 6 October 2020, we publish our flagship report ‘Scotland for a Fairer World: 2021-26 Policy Priorities for the Scottish Parliament’. The extensive report brings together the views of our diverse membership of over 200 individuals and organisations into one coherent vision to make Scotland a leader in Sustainable Development.
The world is at a critical juncture, with multiple intersecting crises. No longer can we separate the nature crisis and the climate emergency from our consumption habits and fossil-fuel dependency, nor can we decouple our own economic prosperity from the poverty experienced elsewhere.
The COVID-19 pandemic has illustrated clearly that the health of everyone, everywhere, is only as strong as the health of the most vulnerable and that we all have a responsibility to help one another. This is not only true for collective health, but also across all dimensions of sustainable development, our economic prosperity, our climate and our environment.
With the global economy on its way to suffering a historically deep recession, we must recognise that pre-existing inequalities mean that those with the least, especially in low-income countries, are often affected in the most regressive ways.
That is why our members are calling for political parties to commit to action across five keys areas – policy coherence, the economy, climate justice, international development funding and global citizen education – to ensure international development is no longer seen as a discrete policy concern, and instead, become part of a universal policy agenda that has sustainability and wellbeing at its heart.
So what are we asking the next Scottish Government to do exactly?
We set out a number of asks related to the economy, governance, education, climate and international development funding; but we also emphasise work in one area can’t be done in isolation.
That’s why our main ask aims to bring it all together. We want to see the next Scottish Government to put forward a Wellbeing and Sustainable Development (Scotland) Bill during the next Parliament that makes all public bodies set objectives towards sustainable development outcomes, ensuring that they impact positively on people and the environment here in Scotland and in low-income countries.
Other asks include increasing commitments to international development funding and climate justice, upping our game on fair trade, renewing our commitment to global citizenship education, and ensuring our Parliament embeds a sustainable development lens into everything it does.
Download the full report here, or check it out in the PDP viewer below.