Felix Dodds comments on sustainable development, coffee & life

Information from Gwilym Roberts-Harry, UN  Intergovernmental Policy and Review Branch,  Office of Intergovernmental Support and Coordination for Sustainable Development High Level Political Forum   HLPF 2021 will be held from Tuesday, 6 July, to Thursday, 15 July 2021, under the auspices of the   Economic and Social Council . This includes the three-day ministerial meeting of the forum from Tuesday, 13 July, to Thursday, 15 July 2021 as part of the high-level segment of the Council. The theme and SDGs under review can be found on the  2021 HLPF website, please track the ‘Latest’ column on the right-hand side of the home-page.  Preparation  A Concept Note on the HLPF has been released by the President of ECOSOC. You can find this on the 2021 HLPF website under Programme .  The blue navigation bar on the 2021 HLPF website includes a Stakeholders segment. All information contained in these update emails will be available there. T...

  Felix Dodds: You have participated in the conceptualization of the SDGs, could you please explain to us how the SDGs came about and in what way are they different from the MDGs? I was attending the informal for Rio+20 in July 2011 on institutional framework for sustainable development in Solo Indonesia when the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were proposed by Paula Caballero who was then Director of Economic, Social and Environmental Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Colombia. It was Colombia who played the critical leadership role initially supported by Guatemala and Peru. The SDGs from the beginning differed from the Millennium  Development Goals (MDGs) in several critical ways: they were for ALL countries and not just developed countries and   they covered the three pillars of sustainable development economy, environment and development.   Another difference was that the MDGs were not negotiated and were originally opposed by NGOs and othe...

Hosted by the government of Indonesia on behalf of the Friends of Governance for Sustainable Development  in cooperation with the UN-DESA Office of Intergovernmental Support and Coordination for Sustainable Development Introduction “8. We envisage a world of universal respect for human rights and human dignity, the rule of law, justice, equality and non-discrimination; of respect for race, ethnicity and cultural diversity; and of equal opportunity permitting the full realization of human potential and contributing to shared prosperity. A world which invests in its children and in which every child grows up free from violence and exploitation. A world in which every woman and girl enjoys full gender equality and all legal, social and economic barriers to their empowerment have been removed. A just, equitable, tolerant, open and socially inclusive world in which the needs of the most vulnerable are met.”  Transforming our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (UN, 2...

As the 25th organization in the 25th anniversary year of UN Bonn, an office of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has recently moved to the UN Campus on the Rhine, with a branch office in Berlin. The new UNDP office aims to strengthen development policy cooperation with the German government. A closer look at the chronicle shows the highlights of the past 25 years. You can see the settlement of organizations large and small, starting with the United Nations Climate Secretariat and the Convention to Combat Desertification and continuing to UN Habitat's Global Water Operators' Partnerships Alliance, which only settled in Bonn in 2020. The success story of UN Bonn is presented in a timeline on the UN Bonn website at:  https://unric.org/de/unbonn-25/   Currently, there are approximately 1,000 staff members employed across the roughly twenty UN organizations, programmes and offices in Bonn. In line with the motto „Shaping a Sustainable Future“, they have given themselv...

Laura Kotila/PMO Finland Guest blog by: Marja Innanen Chief specialist, deputy secretary general National Commission on Sustainable Development/Prime minister’s office Finland The UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network and the Bertelsmann Foundation have ranked Finland as a number one in their international comparison of sustainable development. Annually published Sustainable development report and Index assesses countries’ progress on implementing the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs. For Finland, it is an honor to be at the top of the list this year. This has not happened over night - it has required hard work and long-term dedication from the whole of society. We have built common understanding, dialogue and – most importantly, trust – among all stakeholders for almost 30 years. When Finland celebrated her 100 th anniversary, there was one word that summed up and was the theme of the celebration: together. In Finland, cities, municipalities, business, organizations and other actor...

Guest blog from Yunus Arikan, Director of Global Advocacy ICLEI World Secretariat  G7 Summit: The outcomes og G7 Summit are available through the below links:  Carbis Bay G7 Summit Communique (PDF, 430KB, 25 pages) (g7uk.org) : Summary of Carbis Bay G7 Summit Communique (PDF, 248KB, 2 Pages) (g7uk.org) G7 Carbis Bay Health Declaration (PDF, 389KB, 4 Pages) (g7uk.org)   G7 2030 Nature Compact (PDF, 120KB, 4 pages) (g7uk.org) G7 2021 Open Societies Statement (PDF, 355KB, 2 Pages) (g7uk.org) G7 2021 Research Compact (PDF, 356KB 2 pages) (g7uk.org) It can be noted that the enhanced engagement and leadership of the G7 in the global multilateralism through the 2021 Summit was welcome by many stakeholders. However, the commitments, in terms of climate finance, vaccine equity and coal phase-out were particularly fell short of the expectations considering the scale and urgency of actions as well as historic responsibilities and capabilities of G7 nations. It has to ...