Highlights and images for 11 July 2019

Highlights for Thursday, 11 July 2019

HLPF 2019 continued into its third day with a thematic review on empowering people and ensuring inclusiveness and equality, focused on the perspectives of society. Interventions by women and stakeholders were noticeably predominant in this session, which addressed four issues:

There were calls for further inclusivity and space for civil society involvement; moving away from tokenism and “tick-boxing”; and honest assessments of global and national processes, moving away from “rose tinted” messages to a more critical review of progress, with space for civil society to present alternative reports. The potential of using regional spaces for better civil society engagement was also recognized. A session on the science-policy interface followed, with a briefing from the independent group of scientists on the Global Sustainable Development Report (GSDR). Peter Messerli, GSDR Co-Chair, noted uneven progress in the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and called for integrated approaches in implementation. The value of science in achieving the Goals, and identifying challenges beyond the Goals; the importance of making science accessible; and the need for scientific institutions to be involved in policy making and resource planning were emphasized. In the afternoon, a review of implementation and interrelations among SDGs focused on SDG 10 (reduced inequalities). A statistical snapshot of SDG 10 showed that income and other forms of inequality are on the rise. Globally, the bottom 40% receive less than 25% of overall income, and an increasing share of income going to the top 1% in many countries. Meanwhile, 50% of those affected by extreme poverty are children below 14 years. The principles of “leaving no one behind” and “nothing for us, without us” were evoked as essential for achieving SDG 10. For more details on the day's events and to hear what delegates said in the corridors, see our daily Earth Negotiations Bulletin.

IISD Reporting Services, through its ENB Meeting Coverage, provided daily web coverage and daily reports from HLPF 2019. In addition, IISD Reporting Services has published a summary and analysis report from the meeting, which is now available in HTML and PDF.

Photos by IISD/ENB | Kiara Worth

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Thematic Review: Perspectives of Society

Delegates during the session discussing perspectives of society.

Donovan Guttieres, Major Group for Children and Youth (MGCY)

Kira Christianne Danganan Azucena, Vice-President, ECOSOC

Warda Rina, Co-Chair, Asia Pacific Regional Civil Society Organizations (CSO) Engagement Mechanism

Pooja Rangaprasad, Civil Society Financing for Development (FfD) Group

Co-Moderators Paola Simonetti, Co-Chair, Major Groups and other Stakeholders (MGoS) Steering Group, and Katarina Popovic, Secretary-General, International Council for Adult Education

Jose Viera, CEO, World Blind Union (WBU)

Gisele Fernández Ludlow, Mexico

Flore De Pauw, Youth Delegate, Belgium

Emily Mattheisen, NGO Major Group

Science-Policy Interface

Panel speakers during the session, which included a briefing from the Independent Group of Scientists on the 2019 GSDR.

Peter Messerli, Co-Chair, GSDR

Heide Hackmann, CEO, International Science Council

Endah Murniningtyas, Co-Chair, GSDR

Nicola Barker-Murphy, Jamaica

A slide shown during the presentation of the 2019 GSDR “sounds the alarm bell” to scale-up and accelerate SDG implementation.

Moderator Romain Murenzi, Executive Director, World Academy of Sciences

Meera Joshi, outgoing Commissioner, New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission

Stephan Contius, Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety, Germany

Virginia Murray, Public Health England

Discussion on SDG 10 – Reduced Inequalities

Valentin Rybakov, Vice-President, ECOSOC, convened the session, which focused on: best practices for reducing inequality; changing the narrative around SDG 10 to capture the value of equality and inclusion for multiple stakeholders; the interlinkages between SDG 10 and other goals and targets that can be leveraged to reduce inequality; and which dimensions of inequality can be lowered most or least quickly, and which groups are the easiest and most difficult to reach.

Benjamin Rae, Statistics Division, UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA)

Moderator Sarah Cliffe, New York University

Martha Chen, Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO) Network

Justice Edwin Cameron, Constitutional Court of South Africa

Máximo Torero Cullen, Assistant Director-General, Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO)

Eun Mee Kim, Dean, Ewha Womans University, Republic of Korea

Mayra Lisseth Sorto, El Salvador

Mikael Lånström, Finland

Cho Tae-yul, Republic of Korea, speaking on behalf of the Group of Friends of SDG 10

Prudence Kaoma, Zambia

Nalini Singh, Executive Director, Fiji Women’s Rights Movement

Jane Barratt, Secretary-General, International Federation on Ageing

Around the Venue

Delegates speak informally between sessions

Ovais Sarmad, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Deputy Executive Secretary, speaks with Zitouni Ould-Dada, FAO

Abdullah Abu Shawesh, State of Palestine

In the exhibition area, Peace Boat US shares information on their work to build a culture of peace around the world by connecting people across borders and creating opportunities for learning, activism, cooperation, and sustainability, with a particular focus on SDG 4 (quality education), SDG 5 (gender equality), and SDG 17 (partnerships for the goals).

A display by 'Bridge 47 - Building Global Citizenship' highlights their work advocating for SDG target 4.7, mobilizing global civil society to achieve a 'vision of life-long education that inspires hearts and minds'.