Background
By adopting the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in September 2015, Heads of State and Government committed to eradicating poverty and advancing sustainable development, focusing on people and planet and pledging to leave no one behind. The 2030 Agenda is broad and ambitious, establishing a unified, universal and integrated development framework. The Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals and targets set out many, inter-related objectives and issues, including achieving gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls, reducing inequality within and among countries, combating climate change, and building peaceful, just and inclusive societies. The 2030 Agenda will therefore require enhanced capacities to coordinate and integrate policies at the national, regional and global levels with a view to fostering effective realization of the SDGs.
In support of the new Agenda, the theme for the 2016 Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) session is “Implementing the 2030 Agenda: moving from commitments to results”. Through this theme, the Council and the whole ECOSOC system will facilitate global engagement in support of implementation, bringing together governments, the private sector, civil society, the United Nations system and other actors.
The 2016 ECOSOC substantive session will elaborate the policy, institutional and other requirements, as well as provide policy guidance and promote operational support for implementing the 2030 Agenda. As 2016 is the first year of implementation, it marks an important moment for the international community to identify challenges to implementation, exchange lessons on early implementation efforts and strengthen planning and cooperation for delivering results.
In support of the 2016 session of ECOSOC, the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) are convening this electronic discussion (e-discussion) on the 2016 ECOSOC theme. The e-discussion provides a unique opportunity for the wider development community to formulate critical policy messages and recommendations. Contributions made by e-discussion participants will be channelled into various parts of ECOSOC, particularly the report of the Secretary-General on the ECOSOC theme and the deliberations during the high-level segment of the Council in July.
Purpose
The purpose of the e-discussion is to engage stakeholder groups, experts, practitioners and policy-makers across the globe in a dialogue on specific aspects of the 2016 ECOSOC theme “Implementing the 2030 Agenda: moving from commitments to results”.
The e-Discussion is expected to provide ECOSOC with suggestions and recommendations on how to best address implementation challenges of the new Agenda, with a special focus on the national level. It will also discuss how the international community, comprised of various UN intergovernmental (including ECOSOC, the General Assembly and the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development) and other policy making fora, could function to better support implementation.