13 April 2016: Governments in the Asia-Pacific region held two high-level discussions in April, resulting in a set of regional priorities for implementing sustainable development and financing commitments in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Addis Ababa Action Agenda (AAAA), according to the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).

The First High-Level Follow-up Dialogue on Financing for Development (FfD) in Asia and the Pacific took place in Incheon, Republic of Korea, on 30-31 March 2016. The 2016 Asia-Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development (APFSD) convened in Bangkok, Thailand, from 3-5 April 2016.

In briefings following the FfD Dialogue and APFSD, ESCAP Executive Secretary Shamshad Akhtar said countries had agreed on the need for an Asia-Pacific Tax Forum, and recognized the importance of: harmonizing legal and regulatory frameworks of regional capital markets; implementing strategies to deploy private investment and savings to support sustainability; and establishing a regional infrastructure financing forum. She said that the UN regional commissions will act as “critical bridges” to ensure policy consistency and coherence, while the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are implemented at the national and local levels.

Ahead of the regional deliberations, on 3 April, ESCAP published a report titled ‘Transformations for Sustainable Development: Promoting Environmental Sustainability in Asia and the Pacific,’ which examined four “critical determinants” of the relationships between the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development. The report called for changes in: social justice; patterns of resource use for greater efficiency; investment flows; and economic structures as a basis for deepening action on the environmental dimension of sustainable development. It said “transformations” in these four areas can enable full implementation of sustainable development priorities.

The report is one in a five-yearly series of reports on the environmental dimension of sustainable development, previously published as ‘State of Environment in Asia and the Pacific’ reports. ESCAP, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), UN University (UNU) and the Institute for Global and Environmental Strategies (IGES) jointly produced the report. [ESCAP Press Release] [IISD RS Story on FfD Dialogue] [Publication: Transformations for Sustainable Development: Promoting Environmental Sustainability in Asia and the Pacific]