Two new groups of ASAP volunteers — the Quick Response Team and Campaign Coordination Team — will work together to provide research, consultation, and other support services to Beyond 2015.
Beyond 2015 is a global coalition of more than 500 civil society organisations from over 80 countries calling for a strong and legitimate development framework to succeed the UN Millennium Development Goals, which are due to expire in 2015. Beyond 2015 is working closely with the UN to ensure that its work on the post-2015 development framework is inclusive, participatory, and responsive to the voices of people living in poverty. The High Level Panel appointed to advise the UN General Assembly regards Beyond 2015 as a key source of civil society input in the MDG replacement process.
ASAP is well placed to contribute research and consultation to Beyond 2015 because two ASAP projects, the Global Poverty Consensus Report and the Institutional Reform Goals, focus on co-ordinating academics’ research and recommendations for the MDG successors. Beyond 2015 has recognised ASAP as a leading source of academic knowledge concerning poverty alleviation and other development goals.
In order to provide Beyond 2015 with the best academic input possible, ASAP has recruited volunteers from around the world to form the Quick Response Team and the Campaign Coordination Team.
The Quick Response Team consists of 25 academics who specialize in poverty alleviation from diverse disciplines, including philosophy, political science, social science, economics, international business, environmental management, medicine, and other fields. Team members are based in a wide range of countries, including Canada, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Korea, New Zealand, Norway, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and the United States. The diversity of the Quick Response Team leads to rich interdisciplinary analysis and research on questions concerning poverty alleviation. Specifically, the Quick Response Team offers the following services:
- Providing research-informed responses to urgent questions from Beyond 2015.
- Fact checking position papers written by Beyond 2015 member groups.
- Translating Beyond 2015 materials into other languages.
- Identifying academics who are conducting leading research on poverty alleviation and international development.
The Campaign Coordination Team consists of four members who are responsible for liaising between ASAP, the Quick Response Team, and Beyond 2015, and for coordinating the efforts of these groups. Specifically, the Campaign Coordination Team recruits academics from the Quick Response Team to contribute to Beyond 2015 policy briefs, delegates research tasks amongst the Quick Response Team, and synthesizes research findings.
To date, the Quick Response and Campaign Coordination Teams have worked together to provide substantive academic feedback on several Beyond 2015 policy briefs, spanning the themes of Health, Food Security and Nutrition, and Environmental Sustainability. The two teams are also collaborating to compile a list of potential contributors to the Global Poverty Consensus Report who represent a variety of nations and academic disciplines.
The development of the Quick Response and Campaign Coordination Teams marks a pivotal step for ASAP’s work in facilitating discussion between civil society and academic researchers, and in providing an avenue for academics to engage in poverty-alleviation activism and contribute directly to the efforts to eradicate global poverty.
For more information on the Quick Response Team, please contact Brent Peterkin at brentpeterkin@gmail.com.
For more information on the Campaign Coordination Team, please contact Erin Schutte at erin.schutte@yale.edu or Monica Landy at monica.landy@yale.edu.