At the heart of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015, are the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These placed an urgent call for action by all countries – developed and developing – to come together in a global partnership. However, the UN Sustainable Development Goals Report 2022 paints a worrying picture, with worsening progress in almost all SDGs, thus widening inequalities within and between countries and leaving the social planetary ecosystem possibly worse off than before. The UN Secretary General, while announcing a new SDG stimulus in early 2023, called for the international community to come together to massively scaling up affordable long-term financing by aligning all financing flows to the SDGs, and in improving the terms of lending of multilateral development banks. This is of critical importance particularly for developing countries which face challenging trade-offs in the allocation of finance for short term economic recovery vis-a-vis long term packages for sustainable and holistic development. The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2022 has called for a full-scale transformation of the international financial and debt architecture. But there is also a need for specific obligations on states and private corporations to commit to global goals that require them to go beyond their limited interests. A third pillar that is not given adequate priority is the role of civil society in meeting the 2030 Agenda. It has not been co-opted as an equal stakeholder, despite being at the front-lines, contributing to these global goals, both as implementers of targeted actions and as those who hold the state and private sectors accountable for their actions. What more needs to be done? Is there a need for a more ‘ground-up’ approach to deciding whether progress against SDGs is being made? Is the global financial and legal architecture hindering the achievement of the SDGs? What might alternative pathways look like? This consultation will seek experts’ views on what might still be missing amongst the heightened global efforts.
Consultation link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1y2pTfRrSzVWvF- cIu44quahYtEbycyGp/view?usp=sharing
