This Week in #SDGs Counting- 2017 High-level Political Forum Week 2
This Week in monitoring the SDGs is focused on the final week of the HLPF and the outcome Ministerial Declaration
Yesterday marked the formal end of the 2017 High Level Political Forum at the United Nations in New York City, which opened last week on Monday, July 10th. The Forum’s focused on Goals 1, 2, 3, 5, 9, 14, and 17, and brought out themes including the continued need to strengthen data capacity; the growing interest in innovation in financing, impact investing, and private sector partnerships; and the trickiness of ensuring Voluntary National Reviews capture the whole picture of a countries’ experiences in implementing and monitoring the Sustainable Development Goals. The Ministerial Declaration from the Forum was adopted on the 19th.
Data and Monitoring at the HLPF
The HLPF is the UN’s high-level platform for follow up and review of the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals, so there was no shortage of data and statistics language throughout the Forum. Stefan Schweinfest, Director of the UN Statistics Division, made numerous appearances during thematic reviews to offer the perspective of the international statistical community and provide insight from the SDG Progress Report, which was formally launched on Monday, the 17th.
Continued calls for capacity building for countries to monitor the SDGs were heard regularly. The Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data, in partnership with the World Bank, announced a second funding round for data for development projects. At Financing side events, data professionals joined in calling for increased investment in data.
Financing Innovation, Impact Investing, and the Private Sector
StartingUpGood posted a more comprehensive round up of resources and links from these relevant portions of the HLPF. The 2017 HLPF held the second SDG Business Forum, which was possibly the largest private sector event in the HLPF’s five year history, as well as the second Partnership Exchange. Both of these events, which were large enough to be held in the General Assembly Hall, showed increased focus on the potential of impact investing and private sector partnership to come alongside Member State’s governments to achieve, and monitor, the Global Goals.
Voluntary National Reviews
The International Institute for Sustainable Development’s Reporting Services published daily summaries of statements made at Voluntary National Reviews throughout the week. 43 VNRs were presented, with many of the presenting countries using an array of country indicators based around the global indicator framework. 84 indicators from the global framework continue to be considered Tier 3, and do not yet have an established methodology to allow National Statistical Offices to monitor them effectively. The SDG Indicator Portal from the IISD illustrates which indicators are most reported by countries.
A theme from the VNR presentations was that the Voluntary National Review process is still young (it is only in its second year), and guidelines to further strengthen evidence-based findings and equal sharing of success and challenges are still being created.
The Ministerial Declaration
The outcome document of the Forum was the Ministerial Declaration, adopted on Wednesday, the 19th. Here is the Declaration as adopted.
