Welcome to the May edition of our In Case You Missed It monthly review.

Schools are almost out in my neck of the woods in Eastern Maryland, and children can’t wait for the summer fun to start! And what’s not to love? Swimming, camping, fishing, maybe even getting a little bored…

I can’t help but share my kids’ excitement, but for me, the past weeks’ buildup has been about more than just the end of a school year. With the Bonn Climate Change Conference and the UN High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) just around the corner, a lot has been happening.

Buckled in and ready to roll? Here goes.

Getting HLPF ready 

HLPF 2026 is just five weeks away, and negotiations on the HLPF ministerial declaration have been forging ahead. The co-facilitators plan to place the draft ministerial declaration under the silence procedure before the end of June.

2026 is also the year when the UN General Assembly (UNGA) conducts its periodic reviews of the functions of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and the HLPF to ensure the two bodies continue to remain relevant in a dynamic global landscape. These negotiations are also in full swing. According to the co-facilitators, the revised draft resolution represents “a concise and streamlined text consistent with the UN80 Initiative.”

The UN80 reform initiative, launched by the Secretary-General in 2025, aims to make the UN more agile, integrated, and equipped to respond to the global challenges of today amid dwindling resources. To that end, it seeks to:

  • achieve efficiency in the way the UN Secretariat operates (Workstream 1);
  • improve the way mandates are created, delivered, and reviewed (Workstream 2); and
  • carry out structural and programmatic realignments (Workstream 3).

An independent background paper for the informal deep dives on ECOSOC and the HLPF, prepared as a substantive independent input from CEPEI, is available on the HLPF website. In a guest article, CEPEI explained how the UNGA’s review of ECOSOC and the HLPF can help restore coherence, strengthen institutional credibility, and position the UN’s development governance for a credible post-2030 trajectory. Reconnecting authority to financial leverage, increasing transparency around informal power, and strengthening structured civil society and stakeholder participation are among CEPEI’s recommendations.

The last regional input to the HLPF – from Africa – is now in. It complements the outcomes of the other regional forums on sustainable development (RFSDs) that met in preparation for HLPF 2026 in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) region, and Asia-Pacific. The Arab RFSD, originally scheduled to take place in Beirut, Lebanon, in April, was postponed due to conflict, with new dates and venue to be announced. To ensure the Arab region’s voice is represented at the HLPF in July, four online preparatory sessions were held in May.

ECOSOC’s annual Multi-Stakeholder Forum on Science, Technology and Innovation for the SDGs (STI Forum) convened in preparation for the Forum. Participants focused on how STI could accelerate the achievement of the SDGs. The recently issued main messages for the 2026 voluntary national reviews (VNRs) and an update on sustainable consumption and production trends will also inform HLPF deliberations.

The Forum convenes from 7-15 July on the theme, ‘Transformative, equitable, innovative and coordinated actions for the 2030 Agenda and its SDGs for a sustainable future for all.’ It will conduct in-depth review of SDG 6 (clean water and sanitation), SDG 7 (affordable and clean energy), SDG 9 (industry, innovation and infrastructure), SDG 11 (sustainable cities and communities), and SDG 17 (partnerships for the Goals).

Multilateralism in action

The impact of the UN80 reform initiative has been palpable beyond HLPF preparations. An interactive dialogue among Member States reflected on how political commitments in the Pact for the Future can inform UN80 reform efforts and how the UN80 Initiative can support effective implementation of the Pact. Summing up the broader role of the UN80 Initiative, the UNGA President said the Pact “is our commitment, the SDGs are our benchmark, and UN80 is our delivery mechanism.”

A comprehensive guide to the UN80 Initiative’s 31 work packages is now available. Spanning its three workstreams, the work packages are supported by 85 indicative actions. The goal is to provide Member States with an overview of the status of each work package and outline the pathways to decision making.

The UN Forum on Forests (UNFF) convened amid concerns over the shrinking funding for its Secretariat – and the UN’s overall financial health, which the UN80 Initiative aims to improve. Discussions drew on the UN’s latest global assessment of progress toward the six Global Forest Goals and 26 targets of the UN Strategic Plan for Forests 2017-2030, 24 of which were found to be met or partially met. Participants acknowledged forests as a major enabler of the vast majority of the SDGs, the Paris Agreement, and other global environmental targets – and the UNFF’s role in leading and promoting these goals.

At the conclusion of the annual conference between the UN and the African Union (AU), the Chairperson of the AU Commission (AUC) and the UN Secretary-General reaffirmed their commitment to a strategic partnership between the two organizations to advance peace and security, human rights, and sustainable development and to accelerate progress on the AU’s Agenda 2063 and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The next AU-UN annual conference will take place in 2027 in New York, US, at a date to be determined.

Raising ambition for climate

In Santa Marta, Colombia, a group of 57 ambitious countries launched a process to break away from fossil fuels while promoting a just transition. Convening a little over a month before the Bonn Climate Change Conference, the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels (TAFF) held solutions-oriented discussions on overcoming the economics of fossil fuel dependence, transforming supply and demand, and advancing international cooperation within and beyond global climate governance. While there was no call to merge this initiative into the UNFCCC, the relationship between TAFF and the international climate process loomed large.

Three weeks after the Santa Marta conference, the UNGA initiated political follow-up to the 2025 advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that spelled out States’ climate change-related obligations and legal consequences of their breach. In a reflection of our tense geopolitical times, the resolution passed by a vote of 141 in favor to eight against (Belarus, Iran, Israel, Liberia, the Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, the US, and Yemen), with 28 abstentions. Together with the outcomes of the Santa Marta conference, the resolution will serve as the backdrop for the Bonn Climate Change Conference in June.

In preparation for the UN Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC COP 31) in November, Türkiye and Australia outlined the Presidency’s vision for the conference. COP 31 will seek to strengthen the workstreams on mitigation, adaptation, and finance and in cross-cutting areas that include just transition, agriculture, and transparency. Under the Türkiye-Australia Partnership Modalities, Türkiye’s Murat Kurum is COP 31 President-designate. Chris Bowen of Australia is President of Negotiations.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) latest data on climate finance for 2013-2024 will contribute to deliberations on finance at COP 31 and during the Bonn Climate Change Conference in June. The data reveal that developed countries surpassed the UNFCCC’s collective climate finance goal of USD 100 billion per year for three consecutive years. However, in 2023-2024, the bulk of climate finance continued to flow to middle-income countries, with support for low-income countries remaining below its highest level of 11.1 USD billion in 2022.

In 2024, countries adopted a New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) on climate finance for the period 2026-2035. The UNFCCC Standing Committee on Finance is due to prepare its first report on progress towards that goal in 2028.

Our May guest authors shared perspectives on how sustainable development and economic growth in Asia-Pacific can reinforce one another, made the case for phasing out fossil fuels in the transport sector, and demonstrated how renewables can bring benefits beyond environmental considerations.

Localizing SDG implementation

The 13th session of the World Urban Forum (WUF) took stock of global efforts to steer urban development towards inclusive, sustainable, and resilient cities in the face of increasing climate change impacts, conflicts, and urbanization. A UN report proposing solutions to the global housing crisis supported these discussions.

Exploring the local dimension of SDG implementation, our guest articles highlighted:

Driving progress beyond 2030

The UN High-Level Expert Group (HLEG) on Beyond GDP released its much-anticipated report on “counting what counts” by addressing the limitations of relying on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as the primary measure of progress and well-being. The report highlights how economic growth, while essential, can coexist with persistent inequality, declining well-being, and environmental degradation.

Also contributing to the Beyond GDP movement is the 2026 Circularity Gap Report, which warns that conventional economic metrics such as GDP do not capture value loss to linearity. They overlook resource depletion, waste, underutilization, and stock depletion. Introducing a new global lens – the ‘Value Gap’ – the report quantifies the economic losses of today’s linear economy.

Much like efforts to complement GDP with other metrics, preparatory work toward the 2027 edition of the Global Sustainable Development Report (GSDR) contributes to early conversations on the future of sustainable development post-2030. A recent event gathered German stakeholders’ perspectives to inform GSDR 2027, including about current challenges in sustainable development and pathways beyond 2030. GSDR 2027 will feed into the 2027 SDG Summit where all 17 SDGs will undergo their final review before the 2030 deadline.  Negotiations on a post-2030 development agenda are also slated to formally kick off in 2027.

Forus launched its collective contribution on what a post-2030 development framework must “defend, demand and decline.” The alliance sees the post-2030 process as an opportunity to correct the SDGs’ implementation, financing, and participation gaps, while defending their universal and transformative promise. Forus is a global network of over 24,000 civil society organizations (CSOs) working in the areas of civic space and sustainable development.

I hope this snapshot of May’s SDG news fills you with anticipation of the upcoming convenings. And to those of you in the Northern Hemisphere – happy summer!