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Secretary Generals Sustainable Development Finance Summit - Launches Strategy for Financing the SDGs

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Monday the 24th of September sees the High Level Meeting on Financign the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) represent tremendous investment opportunities, in the order of trillions of dollars. Yet, despite growing momentum for investments in sustainable development, the financing gap is significant.  A major challenge in financing the 2030 Agenda will be attracting and directing public and private investments to areas that support the achievement of the SDGs.  Financing for sustainable development, guided by the SDGs, including SDG 17, and the Addis Ababa Action Agenda will require action by diverse actors – Governments fostering enabling environments for financing and investment; the private sector mobilizing for long-term investment; and champions of innovation developing new solutions for financing the SDGs.  More information about financing for sustainable development can be found here.

The Secretary-General’s High-level Meeting on F…
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Friends of Governance for Sustainable Development Workshop on the Lessons Learnt from the 1st cycle of the HLPF

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On the 10th and 11th of September at the UN the Friends of Governance for Sustainable Development in cooperation with UN-DESA Office of Intergovernmental Support and Coordination for Sustainable Development  held an expert meeting for reviewing how to improve the High Level Political Forum (HLPF). attending were governments, UN, Major Groups and Other Stakeholders.

The title of the workshop was:
 "Advancing the 2030 Agenda: Lessons learnt from the first cycle of the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF)– how far can we go?" 
The power points as PDFs can be viewed on the Friends web site here. Papers based on the presentations will be available at the end of October for groups to use to have their own internal discussions on the key subjects.

 1. Rethinking the UN intergovernmental bodies after the creation of the HLPF: the roles of the General Assembly, ECOSOC and HLPF
In 2019, the High-Level Political Forum will complete its first cycle. The HLPF, an o…
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Register for G-STIC NOW - Technological Solutions for the SDGs: Brussels 28-30 November 2018

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The integrated technological solutions targeted by G-STIC need the attention and efforts of the entire community of SDG stakeholders, whether they come from the private sector, technological research institutes, socio-economic organisations, governments or intergovernmental organisations.
G-STIC 2018 presents a golden opportunity to work together to discover new integrated tech routes to reach the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),to help define and deploy the technologies of the futureand to help shape new markets and opportunities. Selected examples of strategic technological challenges, gaps and opportunities to advance the achievement of the SDGs will be discussed at G-STIC 2018.
We invite you to seize this opportunity. Read this newsletter to discover the programme for some of the G-STIC 2018 themes, and join the conversation about technological innovation for the SDGs.

The programme can be found here. Agroecology for sustainable food systems The high-level dialogue on policy actio…
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United Nations system: private sector partnerships arrangements in the context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

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The UN Joint Inspection Unit has completed its report on the United Nations system: private sector partnerships arrangements in the context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It clearly does not go far enough in the due diligence recommendations. It does suggest a role for rating systems of companies as an outside commentary on companies which the UN could use. "Organizations also note there are obvious benefits stemming from external due diligence assessments, and that the United Nations system should continue to engage private sector companies that specialize in rating the sustainability of prospective United Nations partner companies based on their environmental, corporate and social performance (including on human rights)." This could be very important if the organization uses the Corporate Benchmark on Human Rights and the work of the World Benchmarking Alliance. I share the recommendations as a whole below and the full report can be read here.
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Guest blog: 100,000 new micro industries to be created over the next two decades -What future industry will you be working in 10 years from now?

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Guest blog by Futurist Thomas Frey - republished from LinkedIn here. Thomas Frey is Keynote Speaker, Sr Futurist DaVinci Institute, Editor FuturistSpeaker.com, & Innovations Editor THE FUTURIST Magazine and author of “Epiphany Z – 8 Radical Visions for Transforming Your Future”

Every major industry today was started as a micro industry. Everything from steel, to photography, oil, airlines, electricity, automobiles, pharmaceuticals, and search engines all worked their way into existence from a tiny starting point.

Many of the oldest ones like steel, automotive, and pharmaceuticals took centuries to grow into the massive global industries they are today. But those created with digital technologies like search engines and smart phones sprang to life in only a few years.

Countless businesses are already feeling the first waves of disruption as industry veterans are hoping to navigate the turbulent waters ahead. As always, it much easier to visualize what goes away than what comes next…
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The UN section of the House of Commons International Development Committee Sexual exploitation and abuse in the aid sector

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While in New York in June I met up socially with some of the members of the House of Commons International Development Committee who were visiting to look at the issue of sexual exploitation and abuse in multilateral organizations within the aid sector as part of their research for their full report relating to the issue int he aid sector as whole. I strongly recommend reading the whole report which is a sobering and far too often shocking read.
I am republishing the section of the report that deals with primarily the UN. I have written before about concerns i have had in the development NGOs over a number of issues. What this report does do is challenge us all in the international arena to actually practice the values that we say we believe in. This report came out two weeks ago and perhaps will nto receive the review it deserves because it came out as many people were going on holiday. I hope this blog expands the group that will read both this section and then go onto read the who…
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Guest Blog: To Stop Having an Earth Overshoot Day, Stop Shooting the Earth’s Protectors

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Nick Meynen is an author of literary non-fiction books and a regular contributor to Meta, The Ecologist and MO* magazine. He works as a Policy Officer for Environmental and Economic Justice at the European Environmental Bureau (EEB).
This blog appeared first in Metamag: The News Channel of the European Environmental Bureau.
It may be the start of August – but 2018 should really be over.
Humanity already used the amount of resources that the earth can regenerate this year. At the same time, violence against those who protect the earth is on the rise.
Earth Overshoot Day never fell as early as this year: on 1 August. From now until December we’re eating up resources that have accumulated over the past 4 billion years. An increasing number of these resources are steadily evolving towards “out of stock”. Earth Overshoot Day is calculated by dividing the world’s biocapacity (the amount of natural resources generated by Earth that year), by the world ecological footprint (humanity’s consumption…
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