Author: Ana Zeballos

September 7, 2020

UN Monitor: COVID-19 Round-Up on UN General Assembly High-level Meetings – 04/09/2020

The 75^th session of the UN General Assembly (GA) will open on 15 September and its first weeks will see a number of high-level meetings: the first annual “SDG Moment” launching the Decade of Action, the High-level meeting to commemorate the 75^th Anniversary of the UN, the Biodiversity Summit, the High-level meeting on the 25^th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing +25) and the High-level meeting to commemorate and promote the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. Read more

Blog / COVID-19 / UN Meetings / UN Monitor

September 1, 2020

The Impact of Digital Technologies: a UN75 Priority?

By Carter Boyd and Elena Marmo
In recent years, the opportunities and challenges presented by rapid digitalization have become a staple on various agendas across the United Nations. Within the past few months, as the socioeconomic impacts of COVID-19 increase global reliance on digital technology, the relevance of and concerns about digitalization have heightened. Digital technologies have been prominent in a number of UN processes and deliberations such as UN75, human rights reports, the Roadmap for Digital Cooperation and the 2020 High-level Political Forum. Read more

Blog / COVID-19

August 27, 2020

Financing for Development in the Era of COVID-19 and Beyond

by Bodo Ellmers
A snapshot of the ongoing work at the United Nations in times of crisis. This publication looks at the financing for development (FfD) work at the United Nations in 2020, an exceptional year due to outbreak of the global coronavirus crisis in the spring. Following this shock, FfD became a highly relevant issue on the UN agenda. The FfD process as originally scheduled was redesigned, with the FfD Forum originally scheduled for April cut down from four days of face-to-face meetings to a virtual session that lasted for just one hour. An official outcome document was adopted anyway, however free of concrete commitments that would match the needs of coping with the crisis. Read more

COVID-19 / UN Meetings / UN Monitor

July 24, 2020

Heard at the 2020 UN High-level Political Forum

By Barbara Adams, Carter Boyd and Karen Judd

“The world is going through a public health crisis which is turning into a global economic and social crisis. The HLPF is one of the first major intergovernmental meetings with universal participation and broad stakeholder engagement since the onset of the crisis. Read more

Blog / COVID-19 / UN Meetings

July 16, 2020

PRESS RELEASE – Vague promises won’t solve global crises

On 16 July, this year’s virtual UN High-level Political Forum (HLPF) on sustainable development came to an end. The HLPF is the premier UN body to monitor the annual progress on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) worldwide. The COVID-19 crisis has exacerbated inequalities and further endangered development gains already at risk prior to the global pandemic. Millions of people globally are already suffering from hunger and poverty and now lives and livelihoods are threatened as a result of the vast socio-economic effects of COVID-19. Read more

Alert / Blog / COVID-19 / UN Meetings

July 5, 2020

ONLINE | Launch of CDP Paper: National Reports on the 2030 Agenda: What do they (not) reveal?

Since the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, member states and civil society have reported on the progress made in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the implementation of the 2030 Agenda. Monday, July 13, 2020, 8:00 am to 9:00 am (EDT). Read more

Alert / Blog / COVID-19 / UN Meetings

July 3, 2020

Invitation: Web conversation “Building better without building back a broken system”

Web conversation in the run-up to the HLPF “Building better without building back a broken system”. Lessons from the global COVID-19 crisis and its impact on the SDGs. Monday, 6 July 2020, 8:30-10:00am EDT Read more

UN Meetings / UN Monitor

June 25, 2020

2020 HLPF, one decade to go: tinkering or transformation?

By Barbara Adams, Karen Judd and Elena Marmo
Preparations are underway for the 2020 High-level Political Forum (HLPF) and review of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Member States are engaged in negotiations to adopt by consensus a Political Declaration and 47 have undertaken Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs) for presentation at the HLPF. The UN system has issued a number of reports containing analyses and assessments of progress towards the SDGs. In addition to contributing to these processes and reports, major groups have issued a range of analyses and demands. Read more

Briefings / COVID-19

June 18, 2020

COVID-19 and the SDGs

By Jens Martens, Bodo Ellmers and Vera Pokorny
The COVID-19 pandemic and the policies with which governments have responded to it have had a serious impact on the global sustainability agenda. While the full extent of the pandemic and its impacts cannot yet be assessed, there is an evident risk that the pandemic will jeopardize the achievement of the internationally agreed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in their entirety.
Preliminary forecasts by the United Nations, the World Bank and other international organizations warn that the already fragile progress made in reducing poverty and malnutrition over the past decades will be reversed. Read more

COVID-19 / UN Meetings / UN Monitor

June 15, 2020

UN Monitor: COVID-19 Round-Up – 15/06/2020

The UN has released a three phase plan for re-opening the United Nations, releasing information on what the “new normal” will look like for Member States, UN Staff and other stakeholders. Read more

Recording: Launching event of the Spotlight on Susainable Development 2020

On the eve of the (virtual) United Nations 75th anniversary event and the Global Goals Week, authors presented this year’s global civil society report Spotlight on Sustainable Development. With this virtual launching event that took place on 18 September 2020, we presented key findings of the report.

If you missed it, you can watch the recording on youtube now.

REINFORCING the shift
towards climate justice

Climate change impacts are now undermining and will pose significant constraints on meeting sustainable development and poverty eradication in many developing countries due to the loss and damage that they bring to critical economic and human infrastructure but also to the long-term shifts in economic production that they will entail.

Income inequality and enduring poverty exacerbates the impact of climate change on the poor, particularly those in developing countries. These make the extremely poor, virtually all of whom live in developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, much more vulnerable to the losses and damage that climate change results in. The lower levels of financing, technology, physical infrastructure and disaster preparedness and resilience that most developing countries experience due to their development circumstances pose greater challenges to climate change adaptation and long-term development resilience for these countries.

The COVID-19 crisis and the worldwide measures to tackle it have deeply affected communities, societies and economies around the globe. COVID-19 is a global wake-up call for enhanced international cooperation and solidarity.

But calls for “building back better” by just pushing the reset button will not change the game. We need structural changes in societies and economies that ensure the primacy of human rights, gender justice and sustainability.

This is the key message of the 2020 edition of the Spotlight Report on Sustainable Development “Shifting policies for a systemic change.” The report unpacks various features and amplifiers of the COVID-19 emergency and its inter-linkages with other crises.

Re-inventing multilateral solidarity: rhetoric, reaction or realignment of power?

Multilateral solidarity is gaining traction as the slogan for mobilizing support for international cooperation and for the UN. Is it replacing or merely renaming cross-border obligations – many of which have been enshrined over decades in UN treaties, conventions and agreements, and the principle of common but differentiated responsibility in their implementation?

Why do we seek another name at this time? It seems that reaffirmation is less attractive than invention in this time of innovation, short term thinking and results measurement and messaging via social media and 280 characters. How should it be reinvented?

Solidarity assumes trust and common responsibilities. Reinventing multilateral solidarity must start with bending the arc of governance back again – from viewing people as shareholders – to stakeholders – to rights holders.