10 July 2018
HLPF Blog Addresses Gender Equality, Sustainable Transport, Asia-Pacific Progress
UN Photo/Nasim Fekrat
story highlights

Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Executive Director of UN Women, notes that the UN Women’s recent report titled, ‘Turning promises into action: Gender equality in the 2030 Agenda,’ shows that gender inequalities remain pervasive across all dimensions of sustainable development, including SDGs 6, 7, 11, 12, 15 and 17, which are the focus of this year’s HLPF.

Kaveh Zahedi, ESCAP, explains that three years into the implementation period of the 2030 Agenda in Asia Pacific, the answer is “yes” for only one SDG, “unlikely” for many Goals, and “probably not” for a few SDGs, where “the region is moving in the wrong direction,” in particular on inequality.

6 July 2018: In the latest posts to the blog series on the 2018 session of the UN High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF), UN officials and civil society leaders highlight: the importance of public transport, walking and cycling; findings on the roots of gender inequality; and progress “in the wrong direction” for countries in Asia-Pacific.

The blog series is coordinated by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA). Articles on issues related to the 2018 session of the HLPF date back to January 2018. Available on the UN Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform, the series features contributions from UN Member States, the UN system, and Major Groups and other stakeholders.

In his article, Mohamed Mezghani, Secretary-General International Association of Public Transport (UITP), calls for the “modal share” of transport to be positively inclined towards public transport, walking and cycling. He stresses that citizens need mobility champions. To this end, Mezghani notes that UITP has set up a platform in collaboration with United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) to support local decision makers in adopting and developing more sustainable transport systems. The Mobility Champions Community, he explains, builds on the best practices in the deployment of clean vehicles, increased public transport supply, combined and active mobility, and energy efficiency to help leaders adopt policies in support of the SDGs.

Asia Pacific is on track to meet only one SDGs, and for a few SDGs is “moving in the wrong direction,” in particular on inequality.

Kaveh Zahedi, UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), notes that, three years into the implementation period of the 2030 Agenda in Asia Pacific, the answer is: “yes” for only one SDG; “unlikely” for many Goals; and “probably not” for a few SDGs where, he says, “the region is moving in the wrong direction,” in particular on inequality. In order to achieve the promise of the 2030 Agenda to leave no one behind, he says, the region needs to:

  • address the challenges of population aging in Asia Pacific, where one in four people will be 60 years or older by 2050;
  • build disability-inclusive societies for over 600 million people with disabilities, to address their disproportionate rate of poverty, remove barriers to education and work, and enable their full and effective participation in decision-making processes;
  • achieve safe, orderly and regular migration to address the challenges faced by over 60 million international migrants in the Asia Pacific region;
  • invest in building resilience and in promoting innovation; and
  • eliminate gender disparities, close gender gaps and invest in women, including by promoting women’s entrepreneurship.

Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Executive Director of UN Women, underscores that the transformation to sustainable and resilient societies can only happen when every woman and girl is afforded the same rights and opportunities as men and boys. However, she notes, UN Women’s recent report titled, ‘Turning Promises into Action: Gender Equality in the 2030 Agenda,’ shows that gender inequalities remain pervasive across all dimensions of sustainable development, including SDGs 6 (clean water and sanitation), 7 (affordable and clean energy), 11 (sustainable cities and communities), 12 (responsible consumption and production), 15 (life on land) and 17 (partnerships for the Goals), which are the focus of the 2018 HLPF session’s in-depth review of the Goals. She explains that this reality is “deeply rooted.” [HLPF Blog] [HLPF 2018 Website] [SDG Knowledge Hub story on earlier blog posts]


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