19 November 2015: The UN Office for Sustainable Development (UNOSD) convened representatives of governments and UN agencies from around the world for the second annual Sustainable Development Transition Forum (SDTF), which addressed integrating the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into national planning processes.
The 2015 Forum, held from 17-19 November 2015, in Incheon, Republic of Korea, comprised three parallel workshops on: guidance for implementing the 2030 Agenda and SDGs; inter-regional experience sharing and training for mainstreaming the 2030 Agenda into national strategies; and capacity development for mainstreaming energy SDG targets and indicators into statistical programmes in Asian countries.
Representatives of 30 countries attended the workshop on guidance for implementation, organized by UNOSD, the UN Development Group (UNDG) and the Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF). The workshop discussed: building public awareness; applying multi-stakeholder approaches; tailoring SDGs to national contexts; creating policy coherence; budgeting; monitoring, reporting and accountability; assessing risk and fostering adaptability. In closing, participants reflected on challenges, lessons learned, and the way forward.
The workshop on experience sharing and training addressed preparations for national reviews in 2016, and presented country experiences from Belize, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Germany, Honduras, Republic of Korea, Togo, Uganda and Viet Nam.
The workshop on energy targets and indicators, organized by UNOSD and the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs’ (DESA) Division for Sustainable Development, discussed recent efforts to define energy indicators and statistics for sustainable development. Participants discussed energy as a key enabler of sustainable development, referring to studies including DESA’s development and testing of energy indicators and the World Bank’s Global Tracking Framework 2015 for measuring progress towards the objectives of the Sustainable Energy for All (SE4All) initiative.
The parallel workshops concluded with a joint session in which participants discussed critical implementation risks and ways to address them over the next 15 years. [Meeting Webpage] [Concept Note] [Publication: Progress Toward Sustainable Energy: Global Tracking Framework 2015 Key Findings] [ASEF Webpage for Meeting]
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SDG Knowledge Hub coverage of SDTF meetings can be found here.