12 July 2017: During the second and third days of the 2017 meeting of the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF), delegates reviewed the implementation of SDG 1 (no poverty), SDG 2 (zero hunger), SDG 3 (good health and well-being) and SDG 5 (gender equality).

Participants recommended actions to accelerate SDG 1 implementation, including improving access to land and tenure security, making agriculture profitable, ensuring access to democratic decision-making, addressing child poverty, and prioritizing education.

Among the assessments cited with regard to implementation status of SDG 1 were the following: three quarters of a billion people still live in extreme poverty, despite progress; those who remain poor are the hardest to reach, with many concentrated in areas that are fragile, in conflict, or have a high risk of natural disasters; and China has pledged to lift 70 million out of poverty by 2020. Recommended actions to accelerate implementation included: scale up infrastructure investments; strengthen social protection systems; advance e-commerce networks in villages; improve access to land and tenure security; make agriculture profitable; ensure access to democratic decision-making; address child poverty; and prioritize education.

On SDG 2, speakers emphasized: ensuring access rights to natural resources for the poor; promoting market infrastructure and access; addressing climate change; supporting education; promoting local innovation to improve natural resource management; developing institutional frameworks; ensuring inclusive and cross-sectoral national policies to ensure the right to food; putting smallholder farmers at the center of food policy; eliminating economic and commercial distortions, including fisheries subsidies; improving gender equality; supporting recipient-led interventions; addressing malnutrition; and including women’s empowerment in natural resource management.

On SDG 3, speakers stressed the need for: deliberate efforts to address equity; efforts to address future challenges; collaboration across sectors; practical approaches to biomedical innovation; strategies to promote collaboration in science; political will, policy coherence, and investments in health; efforts to address structural causes of poverty by reforming the global economic order; universal health coverage; an understanding of the social determinants of health, including infrastructure, electricity supply, and illiteracy; efforts to address antimicrobial resistance; and greater interdisciplinary collaboration in developing novel diagnostics and treatments.

On SDG 5, participants called for: eliminating discrimination against property rights for women; combatting discrimination, violence, and harmful practices, including via special measures; legally recognizing land rights; ensuring sexual and reproductive rights; defending women’s rights defenders and preventing gender-based violence; increasing school enrollment rates; increasing representation in the legislative branch; promoting access to comprehensive sexuality education; encouraging youth-friendly health services; and ensuring legal, economic, and social rights.

Also on 11 and 12 July, HLPF delegates engaged in thematic reviews on “Eradicating poverty and promoting prosperity in a changing world” in relation to: multi-stakeholder perspectives; the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) Accelerated Modalities of Action (SAMOA) Pathway; and countries in special situations, including least developed countries (LDCs), landlocked developing countries (LLDCs), and the special challenges of middle-income countries (MICs). [Earth Negotiations Bulletin, 11 July] [Earth Negotiations Bulletin, 12 July]