Dr Jessica Espey - In Conversation with Street Child

In Conversation With Street Child

Joining us this week is Doctor Jessica (Jess) Espey, political economist, and lecturer at Bristol University in south-west England. In the early part of her career, Jess worked for an international NGO, her focus was on women and children’s rights and how to advance them in policy development. During this time, she was given the opportunity to serve as a special adviser on the post-2015 sustainable development goal agenda within the office of the President of Liberia – this, she tells me completely altered her view on priorities for sustainable development.
“At the beginning of the process, had someone said to me we need a goal on cities and urbanisation, I would have laughed them out of the room.” Today, she tells me, “urban expansion is fundamentally transforming the face of our world.”
Following her time in Liberia, Jess took up a position as Associate Director of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network in New York. Being a part of the development agenda negotiations “was an incredible experience” she says. “No other negotiation in the history of the UN lasted this long.”
Asked if the goals are ambitious, she tells me “If they hadn’t been, it would have been a waste of time. They are aspirations – and we must strive to reach as many as we can.” As for the global institutions themselves, she says they’re crucial, but totally out of date, as people grow and change, it’s time for our global governance to do the same.