So, as we enter the holiday season with Christmas just around the corner and as we close in on the end of the year, it is reasonable to reflect on the progress of some of the research areas we have targeted.

One focus area is the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), or what is referred to at the UN as Agenda 2030. This past September we saw the High Level Political Forum (HLPF) gather on September 18th and 19th during the UNGAs High-Level Week. The UN Secretary-General called the SDG Summit gathering the “centerpiece moment of 2023.” It took place at the midpoint of implementing the development agenda adopted by countries in 2015: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The HLPF meets under the auspices of the UN General Assembly, known as the SDG Summit . In 2023, the second SDG Summit took place (the first was in 2019) bringing together Heads of State and Government to review and renew efforts towards achieving the SDGs. The Summit culminated in the adoption of  a political declaration to accelerate action to achieve the 17 goals. Now I have written before on the SDGs but the question is what conclusions can we draw from this second UNGA gathering.

The first and critical conclusion of the HLPF is that Agenda 2030 is in jeopardy. As the the political declaration announced:

8. The achievement of the SDGs is in peril. At the midpoint of the 2030 Agenda, we are alarmed that the progress on most of the SDGs is either moving much too slowly or has regressed below the 2015 baseline. Our world is currently facing numerous crises. Years of sustainable development gains are being reversed. Millions of people have fallen into poverty, hunger and malnutrition are becoming more prevalent, humanitarian needs are rising, and the impacts of climate change more pronounced. This has led to increased inequality exacerbated by weakened international solidarity and a shortfall of trust to jointly overcome these crises.

And the answer by the Heads of State and the UN Secretary General is right there in the next paragraph:

9. We commit to bold, ambitious, accelerated, just and transformative actions, anchored in international solidarity and effective cooperation at all levels. We will promote a systemic shift towards a more inclusive, just, peaceful, resilient and sustainable world for people and planet, for present and future generations.

10. We will devote ourselves collectively to the pursuit of sustainable development including through international cooperation and partnership on the basis of mutual trust and the full benefit of all, in a spirit of global solidarity, for the common future of present and coming generations.

So it is all about ‘acceleration’ and collective action.  And further describing this notion of acceleration, the Declaration urges:

30. We must meet the moment by taking immediate measures to scale up efforts to achieve the 2030 Agenda and the Addis Ababa Action Agenda, including through development cooperation, SDG investments, reforming the international financial architecture, supporting sustained, inclusive and sustainable growth, enhancing macroeconomic policy cooperation, exploring measures of progress on sustainable development that complement or go beyond gross domestic product, and implementing actions to accelerate sustainable development, in particular in support of developing countries.

And it is apparent from the Declaration that the hope is to accelerate all 17 goals and their various aspects. But the issue is how.  And there it appears that there is little to offer although the Declaration does point to the Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs)  that many countries, though not all – note the United States has never prepared a VNR – have prepared which the Declaration suggests has “generated valuable lessons learned and have helped countries monitor progress and integrate the Sustainable Development Goals into national plans and policies.”

The hope is that all countries will focus on all the goals of Agenda 2030 pointing to the needed effort in all in paragraph 38. Pointedly, the Declaration looks to accelerate financing for the developing countries and reviews those policies that are designed to provide such financing. As the Declaration urges:

We commit to accelerate the full implementation of the Addis Ababa Action Agenda and to take further actions to scale up financing for sustainable development, and provide means of implementation for developing countries, …

Many of these policies such as expanding Multilateral Development Bank efforts are valuable but how. Too much of the Report seems to be aspirational, valuable reminders but not providing concrete steps to success.

Now far more innovative is the 17 Rooms Project that is brought by the Sustainable Development Project at Brookings with the support of the Rockefeller Foundation. As pointed out in their Synthesis Report:

The story of the Sustainable Development Goals’ second half out to 2030 is yet to be written. In practical terms, much of the story will boil down to groups of people getting together to listen, debate, and act on concrete next steps. This is the underlying spirit of 17 Rooms. In the 2023 annual flagship, 17 highly curated working groups, one per SDG, came together to craft new forms of actionable, collaborative leadership over a 12-to-18-month horizon. Their efforts addressed priorities like confronting the multi-dimensional challenge of climate change, harnessing frontier technologies, elevating local approaches to global issues, and reframing challenges to inspire action.

When you read the Report you see that many of the Groups offer plans that initiate from the sub-state and nonstate level, whether from the local community, the private sector or the provincial or state level. For example Room 17 – “Partnerships for the Goals” the Report urges:

the development of local agency and leadership as the driving force for system change and for helping to advance long-term outcomes across all SDGs. They rallied around the concept of collective leadership as a term to describe investing in the agency and collaborative capacities of locally rooted leaders and their allies.

And the energy and effort may indeed be there at these governance levels. But it leaves a problem: what I would describe as the ‘implementation gap’. While initiatives of this sort make great sense, achieving the SDGs, it seems to me, will require in the end national and then collective national action that also can be augmented by international organization collaboration. As valuable as it is to have the action at the substate and private sector levels, it seems imperative in the end that we ‘rope in’ the collective effort of national and international efforts.  And that is not apparent.

This appeared initially as a Substack Post at Alan’s Newsletter – https://globalsummitryproject.substack.com/p/as-the-year-begins-to-close?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2

Image Credit: United Nations