May 2016: Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela presented early actions taken to implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), along with new institutional arrangements and good practices, in the summaries of their voluntary national reports submitted for the 2016 session of the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF). A total of 22 governments have volunteered for the 2016 VNR process, and to date, 12 have provided summaries of their planned reports.

According to the summary of its national report, the first action taken by Colombia on implementing the 2030 Agenda was to strengthen the links within its National Development Plan (PND). As a result, 92 of the 169 SDG targets are already built and monitored with indicators defined in the National System of Evaluation of Management and Results (SYNERGY).

In February 2015, Colombia’s president created the High Level Commission for the Effective Implementation of Agenda 2030 and the SDGs (ODS Commission), which enables the participation of all sectors and stakeholders at all levels. The Commission includes five working groups, on: indicators; territorial; resource mobilization; international affairs; and communications. The Commission defined an implementation strategy with three focal areas: Policy and Programs; Indicators; and Costs of the 2030 Agenda. At the end of 2016, the Commission will formulate a public policy document, ‘CONPES,’ outlining Colombia’s national targets and indicators in line with the 2030 Agenda, and defining the responsibilities of different actors.

Mexico’s summary notes that its national Technical Committee Specialized in Information Systems for the Millennium Development Goals (CTESIODM) will be transformed in the Technical Committee Specialized in Information Systems for the Sustainable Development Goals (CTEODS) by including five government units, in addition to the 15 initially included in CTESIODM. The CTEODS will be responsible for monitoring the Goals, targets and indicators of the 2030 Agenda, and the indicators have been distributed to the CTEOD’s units for oversight and finding baselines. The next stage, according to the summary, is to define national indicators. This process will include civil society, academia and the private sector.

Mexico plans to align the technical cabinets of the Office of the President, created for its National Development Plan 2014-2018, as well as several interministerial commissions, with the SDGs and targets, using the divisions People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace and Partnerships. Other good practices identified in the summary include: political leadership for implementation at the highest level, by the President; a new platform to bring together all the SDGs-related information, with the possibility to search and disaggregate data by gender, age, geographic location, and education; and including information on SDGs in the activities and speeches of officials at the highest level, at all levels of government.

According to the summary of its national review, Venezuela has taken action along four main lines for implementing the SDGs: political commitment at the highest level to support the SDGs’ integration in operational plans of public administration entities, under the supervision of the Council of Ministers of the six sectoral vice-presidencies; launching an alignment process of the public policies established in the National Development Plan 2013-2019 with the 2030 Agenda; instructing the National Institute of Statistics (INE) to disaggregate relevant data and visualize information about the most vulnerable: children and adolescents, Afro-descendants, indigenous peoples, persons with disabilities, the elderly, and women, among others, under the principle “leave no one behind;” and support for the participation of civil society, the private sector, and academia to ensure both a “bottom-up” and “top-down” approach to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda.

The UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) is collecting inputs to the 2016 VNRs from participating governments, intergovernmental bodies, NGOs and partnerships at an online platform. The 2016 HLPF will be its first session since the adoption of the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs, and will convene in New York, US, from 11-20 July. [Inputs to 2016 VNRs] [Colombia Input (in Spanish)] [Mexico Input (in Spanish)] [Venezuela Input (in Spanish)] [IISD RS Story on DESA Platform] [IISD RS Story on WEOG Inputs] [IISD RS Story on VNR Guidelines]