Recap: “Having heard 43 voluntary national reviews, I am truly impressed with the political leadership and national commitments,” said UN Under-Secretary General for Social and Economic Affairs, Wu Hongbo, at the conclusion of this year’s High Level Political Forum for Sustainable Development. The 10-day long HLPF came to an end last Wednesday, July 19th. During the last three days of the event, 43 nations presented their Voluntary National Reviews (VNR), in which they presen

For the past week, the United Nations has been hosting the High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, where certain Sustainable Development Goals are being reviewed in depth to compare progress, share innovation, and learn from successes and failures from working to achieve them. While SDG 4, focusing on the promotion of equal access to quality education, is not specifically being examined this year, it is important to understand that education plays a critical ro

Stronger Together “Leaving no one behind” is a principle theme of the Agenda 2030 adopted by the 193 UN Member-States, believing that it is imperative in order to provide for an inclusive development process. In fact, it is very unlikely that the 17 SDG’s mentioned in the agenda would be achieved without a collective participation of the global community. This year’s High Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) witnessed a record number of participants. It is a uniq

UN Women/Franz Stapelberg According to UN Women, gender equality is a precondition for all other global goals to be met. While significant progress has been made worldwide in primary education, political participation, and employment equality, it has been slow, and there is still much work to be done. While some well known inequalities have gained awareness because of international advocates such as Malala Yousafzai, UN Women has showcased a few other major focus areas when t

The Sustainable Development Goals represent the goals of the global community. At this year’s High Level Political Forum, and throughout the year, the Major Groups and other Stakeholders represents the collaboration and cooperation that is needed to achieve the SDGs. MGoS provides a platform for civil society to join the conversation, and you can too by following the conversation on twitter with #MGoS Learn more about the Major Group system here at https://sustainabledevelopm

The Event: The 2nd annual HLPF is set to take place at the UN Headquarters in NYC from July 10-19, 2017. Each year, the forum focuses on a specific theme to go along with the 17 UN goals for sustainable development (SDGs). This year’s theme is “Eradicating poverty and promoting prosperity in a changing world”. In addition to the theme, there will be five specific goals that will be reviewed in depth throughout the forum: Goal 1, Goal 2, Goal 5, Goal 9, Goal 14, and Goal 17. T