Category: Alert

PRESS RELEASE: Launch of Spotlight on Sustainable Development 2021

This year’s Spotlight on Sustainable Development Report describes the highly uneven socio-economic impact of the COVID-19 crisis and analyses the policy responses to it. It explores beyond the rhetoric, highlighting deepening inequalities, self-serving and hypocritical policies and governance failures at national and international level.
Addressing the imbalance in global vaccine production and distribution, the report also examines a few key areas where political and structural changes are necessary to correct the limited and asymmetric recovery. Read more

Feminists for a People’s Vaccine Campaign

The Feminists for a People’s Vaccine Campaign for equitable, accessible, and affordable COVID-19 vaccines, drugs, therapeutics, and equipment—Access to Medicines or A2M for short.
The FPV Campaign brings the unique perspective of feminists from the Global South and our partners and allies in the North to challenge the causes and consequences of extreme inequalities in access to medicines. Read more

ONLINE | Voluntary National Reports on the 2030 Agenda: What can we learn for a post-pandemic world?

The Committee for Development Policy (CDP) will discuss with Civil Society Reflection Group their key findings of its analysis of 2020 VNRs, highlighting the disconnect between the ambition of the agenda and the attention given to the transformative policies in such areas as productive capacities, pandemic preparedness, inequalities and sustainable consumption and production. Read more

Campaign Activation Workshop: Making the 2030 Agenda accountable: What is the role for civil society?

The promise of the SDGs makes governments accountable but who is to be made responsible for global issues like the climate, the pandemic or finances? Join us to discuss this issue in a workshop hosted by Global Policy Forum, Global Policy Watch and Social Watch as part of the 2021 SDG Global Festival of Action. The workshop will be hold on March 25, 2021 from 04:30 to 05:30 PM (CET). Read more

UN General Assembly Special Session: Transformation or Continuation of the Status Quo?

By Elena Marmo
The General Assembly (GA) will host its 31st Special session in response to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic on 3 and 4 December 2020. The UN Charter (Chapter IV, article 20) provides for the General Assembly to meet in special sessions which can be "convoked by the Secretary-General at the request of the Security Council or of a majority of the Members of the United Nations." Read more

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

By Barbara Adams
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? Read more

PRESS RELEASE: Launch of the global civil society report Spotlight on Sustainable Development 2020

The COVID-19 crisis and the worldwide measures to tackle it have deeply affected communities, societies and economies around the globe. 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.” It is published by a broad range of civil society organizations today – on the eve of the Global Action Week for the SDGs and three days before UN’s 75th (virtual) anniversary summit. Read more