30 June 2017: In advance of the 2017 session of the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF), UN Member States discussed a revised zero draft of the Ministerial Declaration. The UN Secretariat published the preliminary programme of side events, noting a record number of requests to host side events. The UN Division for Sustainable Development (DSD) published three blogs for its HLPF series that highlight actions on access to Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), the World’s Largest Lesson and health as an enabler of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The co-facilitators of consultations on the 2017 Ministerial Declaration of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) High-Level Segment and the HLPF released a revised zero draft of the Declaration on 27 June. Member States began a first reading of the revised text on 30 June, which will continue through 5 July. The HLPF is expected to adopt the Declaration on 19 July 2017 while the ECOSOC High-level Segment will adopt it on 20 July 2017.
In the revised draft, Member States commit to: end poverty, hunger and ensure healthy lives everywhere; establish conditions to maintain this outcome across generations; combat inequalities within and among countries; and “heal and secure our planet.” Governments also stress the need to ensure an adequate standard of living for women and girls throughout the life cycle, including through social protection systems, and underscore the importance of supporting young people’s full participation in implementation and review of the 2030 Agenda. The draft encourages full implementation of the Paris Agreement and calls on parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that have not yet done so to deposit their instruments of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession, where appropriate, as soon as possible.
On SDG 14 (life below water), the draft Declaration welcomes the outcome of the UN Ocean Conference and calls on all stakeholders to urgently implement, inter alia, the actions highlighted in the Conference’s ‘Call for Action’ and the voluntary commitments pledged during the Conference. On finance, the text calls for mobilizing additional resources from public and private sources, highlighting opportunities for blended finance strategies through partnerships with the private sector.
The UN Secretariat has released a list of side events for the HLPF, noting that over 276 applications were submitted to host side events. This record number of applications was more than the number received for the UN Ocean Conference, which the Secretariat said underscores the “excitement and interest” that HLPF is generating.
In an HLPF blog series, Forest Whitaker, Member of the SDG Advocacy Group, CEO-Founder of the Whitaker Peace & Development initiative and UNESCO Special Envoy for Peace and Reconciliation, calls for developing knowledge societies where everyone has opportunities to learn and engage with others through access to ICTs, in line with SDG 9 (industry, innovation and infrastructure). He highlights the need for “massive” ICT investments in local populations, especially in remote and vulnerable communities, and for promoting civic uses of ICTs. Whitaker shares how ICTs can contribute to peacemaking, showcasing his foundation’s efforts to train groups of young people from conflict- and violence-affected communities in conflict resolution, entrepreneurship and ICTs, so they can become peace makers and mediators and develop educational and economic projects.
Richard Curtis, Member of the SDG Advocacy Group, Screenwriter, Producer and Film Director, showcases the World’s Largest Lesson in another blog post. The Lesson, which teaches children about the SDGs and reminds them of the Goals yearly, produces films, comics and lesson plans for teachers to use in schools. This year the lesson focused on how food choices impact the SDGs and asked participants to pledge to make changes. Curtis highlighted engagement with the Lesson in his blog, noting three government ministers have gone to schools and either given or taken part in a lesson, and 58 ministers of education have sent out messages to all the schools in their country encouraging them to take part.
In another blog, Elinor Chisholm and Philippa Howden-Chapman, University of Otago, highlight ways in which SDG 3 (good health and well-being) interacts with other Goals, such as the role of tackling unsafe water and poor sanitation under SDG 6 (clean water and sanitation) to address water-borne diseases. They further share how progress towards SDG 11’s (sustainable cities and communities) target 11.1 –access to adequate, safe and affordable housing – reinforces targets around ending preventable deaths of children and premature mortality from non-communicable diseases. The authors caution, however, the potential for progress on one Goal to work against progress on another Goal, such as how increasing agricultural production can counteract efforts to reduce the number of deaths and illnesses from hazardous chemicals and air, water and soil pollution and from communicable diseases. They recommend governments develop a holistic policy framework that ensures that progress on some areas supports progress overall.
The HLPF will convene from 10-19 July 2017 in New York, US. [Preliminary Programme of Side Events][HLPF 2017 Website][HLPF Blog] [SDG Knowledge Hub Policy Brief on What to Expect at HLPF] [IISD Sources]