Professor Fukuda-Parr was one of the speakers at the Parliamentary Hearing at the United Nations – Ensuring a people-centered approach to the SDGs: a shared responsibility – organized by the Inter-Parliamentary Union and held in ECOSOC chambers on November 19-20.
Drawing from recent research on global goals, she urged Parliamentarians to support the goal to reduce inequality as a top international priority. Removing inequality and discrimination is not only a valuable end in itself and a human right but can help promote economic growth and human development.
Professor Sakiko Fukuda-Parr also recently gave the annual Boving lecture at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada, established to promote debate on urgent global challenges of poverty, inequality and development. The topic of the lecture was Fulfilling Social and Economic Rights. Drawing on her forthcoming book by the same title, she asked ‘what would we learn if we turned the question around, and instead of measuring the progress of nations by the production of commodities but by how well they are using those resources to improve the human condition’. Analysis using a new measurement tool, the SERF index, shows progress in state performance over the last decades but serious underperformance. The failure to realize social and economic rights is not due to lack of income but to inadequate social institutions.
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