Now is the time to go back to your countries and get to work on the policies, budgets and investments needed to achieve the SDGs. Above all, now is the time for leadership. Let’s take action now for a better, healthier, more peaceful, sustainable and prosperous world.
The second SDG Summit was held on 18-19 September 2023 during the UN General Assembly High-Level week in New York. The Summit marked the mid-point of the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
The SDG Summit is the central UN platform for Heads of State and Government to provide political leadership on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its Sustainable Development Goals. It provides high level political guidance on the 2030 Agenda and its implementation, identify progress and emerging challenges, and mobilize further actions to accelerate implementation. The Summit is the centerpiece of the UN’s work in 2023 and of the General Assembly’s High-level week this September.
Through the Summit, countries, both individually and collectively, have an opportunity to place the world on a sustainable development path. The international community can seize this opportunity to make significant transformations for integrated SDG implementation and how societies produce, consume and share benefits and risks, while leaving no one behind. The Summit is envisaged to be forward-looking and action-oriented, with the aim of accelerating international action to improve people’s lives and reinvigorating the sense of hope, optimism and enthusiasm that characterized the adoption of the SDGs and the 2030 Agenda.
The Secretary-General urged world leaders to deliver a Rescue Plan for People and Planet at the SDG Summit through deliverables in three areas. First, he requested countries to deliver global commitments to the SDGs, including through an SDG Stimulus by massively scaling up financing and other measures, such as debt relief. Second, he urged world leaders to convey a National Commitment to SDG Transformation. This could include clear benchmarks to reduce domestic poverty and inequality levels by 2027 and 2030, in tandem with nationally determined climate contributions. And third, all countries are urged to fully engage their domestic constituencies, particularly civil society and the private sector, in their Summit preparations.
Secretary General Antonio Guterres in his remarks at the closing of SDG summit urged the Member States that “Now is the time to go back to your countries and get to work on the policies, budgets and investments needed to achieve the SDGs. Above all, now is the time for leadership. Let’s take action now for a better, healthier, more peaceful, sustainable and prosperous world”.
The Political Declaration was adopted by the Member States during the SDG Summit leaving them with ‘a to-do list.” Now it is our responsibility to make our leaders accountable to what they have agreed to in the ‘to-do list.”
To read the Political Declaration, click HERE.
Author: Cynthia Mathew CJ
Photos of NGO Representatives at a rally reminding global leaders of their responsibilities to humanity and earth: (1) Cynthia Mathew with JCoR Coordinator Teresa Blumenstein. (2) Teresa and Cynthia with other NGO Representatives of Religious Congregations at the UN.
