8 July 2014: UN Member States have been meeting on an almost daily basis since 27 June 2014, at UN Headquarters in New York, US, to hold informal consultations on organizational modalities for the summit to adopt the post-2015 development agenda.

Delegations are considering a draft resolution circulated by the co-facilitators, Robert Guba Aisi of Papua New Guinea, and Ib Petersen of Denmark. Member States also have discussed the possibility of adding annexes to elaborate on key elements.

While tentative agreement seems to have been reached among participants on the nature and purpose of the summit, discussions continue regarding references to format, stakeholder and observers inclusion, and other matters. On timing and duration of the Summit, several delegations have welcomed the suggested dates of 21-23 September 2015.

Several governments from various regions have called for integrating a meeting of the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) under the auspices of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) into the post-2015 summit, such as by considering the summit’s interactive dialogues as a meeting of the HLPF, and considering the summit outcome as the HLPF outcome. This would entail “resetting the cycle” of the HLPF, they note. Some have also called for aligning the HLPF with the Quadrennial Comprehensive Policy Review (QCPR).

Following agreement on the summit modalities, the 69th UNGA Session will consider modalities for the negotiations on the post-2015 development agenda. The negotiations on the agenda itself are expected to begin in early 2015, with the forthcoming synthesis report of the UN Secretary-General serving as a reference point for negotiations. [IISD RS Sources] [IISD RS Story on Draft Resolution]