Felix Dodds comments on sustainable development, coffee & life

NEW YORK — Today, the Friends of Governance for Sustainable Development announced the release of Volume 7: Interlinking Major Sustainable Development Events to Embrace Policy Coherence and Implementation of the 2030 Agenda.   Felix Dodds , Secretary of the Friends of Governance for Sustainable Development and Director of Research and Development of Multilateral Policies and International Affairs at the Rob and Melani Walton Sustainable Solutions Service (RMWSSS) at Arizona State University, and a Fellow at Stakeholder Forum, coordinated the launch of the publication through his publishing company New World Frontiers. “We are excited to announce the seventh volume of this series of books produced by the Friends group,” said Dodds. “The book is an invaluable resource that includes chapters written by nearly a dozen experts working within the UN system on a range of issues whose perspectives are crucial for anyone working to advance sustainable development at the global level.” ...

Guest blog by Anna Marry, Senior Global External Affairs Advisor, Brooke Imagine a scene: It is early morning by the river under the African sun. Children are splashing around, women are washing clothes and filling yellow jerry cans with water. This water will be used in the village throughout the day for drinking, cooking, cleaning, and watering crops. But the village is an hour away – how will the women and children possibly manage to transport all these cans? You know the answer, you have seen it many times, but you have never noticed. Every day, in millions of villages such as this one, water is transported from the source to households with the help of the humble donkey. Working animals, in particular donkeys, are the invisible enablers of SDG 6 – clean water and sanitation. It is especially women and girls for whom donkeys are a true lifeline, as it is usually their job to provide water for the household. Having a donkey eases their work and enables them to transport more wat...

In 2014 The Water Institute at the University of North Carolina hosted conference on the Water, Food, Energy and Climate Nexus. It played an important role in the discussion in the SDG Open Working Group on the interlinkages between Goals. In 2016 Jamie Bartram head of the Water Institute and I brought together some of the key presentations from the conference into a book ' The Water, Food, Energy and Climate Nexus: Challenges and an agenda for action'. We invited the then Prince of Wales to write the Foreword which he agreed to do. The issues he raised in 2016 have moved even more to the centre of the political agenda. The climate crisis has accelerated and the links between their impacts on food, water and energy are now clear to anyone who is looking. In 2016 the idea of the circular economy was not yet being discussed in the negotiations. In 2022 the new negotiations on a Plastic Convention have it as a central part of the negotiations. His insights into the challenges we f...

  Adam Islaam | International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) originally from UNEP-WCMC site here. We are collectivel y failing to conserve the world’s biodiversity and to mobilize natural solutions to help curb global warming. A new study carried out by the Nature Map Consortium, shows that managing a strategically placed 30% of land for conservation could safeguard 70% of all considered terrestrial plant and vertebrate animal species, while simultaneously conserving more than 62% of the world’s above and below ground vulnerable carbon, and 68% of all clean water. In November, governments will convene in Glasgow under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Natural climate solutions for mitigation and adaptation will be high on the agenda, as illustrated by the recent  G7 Nature Compact  and the  Leaders’ Pledge for Nature  signed by 88 heads of government. In 2022, China will host the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Bio...

Addressing Resilience through the Nexus of Water-Food-Energy; Cities as SDG Laboratories was organized by the Stakeholder Forum for a Sustainable Future and the International Science Council  and the UNC Water Institute. The power point that supports this can be found here.   The Rural-Urban Nexus:   Cities are to be seen not in isolation, but intrinsically connected with broader ecosystem as part of a metabolism of flows and interconnected social and ecological processes. A substantial proportion of the water, energy and food that supports urban living is supplied from rural areas outside the cities. The largely one-way flow of these resources together with the pollution and waste generated in urban spaces have a determining effect on patterns of rural development and the integrity of the ecosystems services. The Nexus approach has already shown itself to have a crucial part to play in ensuring that the supply of water, energy and food services to ci...

Negotiating the Sustainable Development Goals . T he Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a universal set of seventeen goals and 169 targets, with accompanying indicators, which were agreed by UN member states to frame their policy agendas for the fifteen-year period from 2015 to 2030. Written by three authors who have been engaged in the development of the SDGs from the beginning, this book offers an insider view of the process and a unique entry into what will be seen as one of the most significant negotiations and global policy agendas of the twenty-first century.  The book reviews how the SDGs were developed, what happened in key meetings and how this transformational agenda, which took more than three years to negotiate, came together in September 2015. It dissects and analyzes the meetings, organizations and individuals that played key roles in their development. It provides fascinating insights into the subtleties and challenges of high-level nego...

The Full Report from the Conference can be found here. Message from the 2018 Nexus Conference The 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals can only be achieved if they are pursued in an integrated manner. For this reason, the Nexus community of researchers, academics, NGOs, policy makers, the private sector and other key stakeholders came together at the 2018 Nexus Conference at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. We have concluded that the Nexus approach remains essential in recognizing the indivisible nature of the SDGs and that such an approach is fundamental in delivering these goals. The Nexus approach brings into focus the positive synergies and potential negative tradeoffs that arise when working to achieve the ambitious 2030 Agenda, and it is helping to develop more practical solutions to address key issues. Understanding the interlinkages between water, energy, food and climate plays a crucial role in delivering sustainable outcome and helping gl...

Message from the Nexus Conference The draft outcome Message from the Nexus Conference is available here for you to read and send us focused comments and suggested changes. Please submit all comments by April 1, 2018 . A new version will be produced for the conference to have available and a final version after the conference will be circulated to the Member States for their consideration when they are preparing the Ministerial Declaration for the UN High-Level Political Forum. We would appreciate it if you sent any changes to the text as track changes to nexus@unc.edu. Any comments should be sent to the same address. Registration for the April 16-18th Conference can be done here.  About the Conference The “Nexus” approach is the one that focuses on overlaps across sectors while respecting sectoral expertise in order to make better plans by understanding interactions.(Stockholm Environment Institute, 2017)The Water Institute at the University of North Carolina at C...

Submit your abstract and register today   http://waterinstitute.unc.edu/conferences/nexus-2018/ We hope you will engage in the second Nexus Conference – Water-Food-Energy-Climate will be on the 16-18 th of April 2018 in Chapel Hill in North Carolina organized by The Water Institute at the University of North Carolina.  It will focus at the Nexus at the urban level. First, we would hope you would share the possibility of you, your colleagues and any one you know who might be interested submitting abstracts for the conference Second, we are looking for the chance to develop collaborative research out of the conference. Third, we would hope that you and others might attend the event which will also feed into the reviews of the relevant Sustainable Development Goals. We have engaged an International Advisory Board  ( http://www.cvent.com/events/nexus-2018-water-food-energy-and-climate/custom-18-7a6bb88243834db2b933a40829319d4d.aspx ) to help to focus the co...