SDG Summit: What to expect

With the SDG Summit fast approaching, here’s what to expect and how the SDG16+ community can mobilize for the summit.

(UN Photo: Manuel Elias)

The SDG Summit:

• 4 years into the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development — the first “Olympics of the SDGs”.
• 2 days in New York — 24 and 25 September — in one of the busiest ever weeks for the UN.
• 5 words that challenge Presidents and Prime Ministers to “mobilize further actions to accelerate implementation.”

For the SDG16+ Community, a platform to mobilize for urgent and ambitious action to:

• Significantly reduce all forms of violence everywhere, with the aim of halving global violence.
• Shift from a world where justice is only available to the privileged few, to one that protects human rights and provides justice for all.
• Tackle corruption and transform institutions so that they can meet the aspirations of people and underpin the ambitions of the 2030 Agenda.
• Tackle inequality and exclusion so that all people have a stake in a fairer and more sustainable future.

Acceleration Actions:

• A challenge to all partners — governments, civil society, and private sector — to bring their commitments to act to the summit.
• An official UN registry where actions can be registered — this will be kept open after the summit.
• As part of our push to get as many SDG16+ actions registered, a briefing for partners on how the process works.
• And a call for justice commitments from the co-chairs of the Pathfinders Task Force on Justice — see their video too.

Summit events:

• As part of the summit, six Leaders Dialogues that will set out new vision for how to deliver the SDGs. Read our briefing on how each dialogue links to SDG16+.
• An event on SDG16+ — we hope — in the SDG Action Zone (watch this space — we’re waiting final confirmation from the UN).
• And a gala event where leaders, ministers, and SDG16+ champions will announce their commitments to a Decade of Action.

And the summit as a beginning not an end point:

• The UN Secretary-General is expected to call for a Decade of Action on the SDGs.
• The 75th anniversary of the UN will launch a global conversation on how to close the gap between our aspirations on the SDGs, climate, and other global challenges and current realities. More on UN@75 preparations.
• We have a year to gather a global groundswell of commitments to accelerating action as part of the Decade of Delivery and to bring this to the 75th anniversary summit in September 2020.
• And start thinking about the second SDG Summit in 2023. Will we be ready to use this summit to demonstrate the green shoots of measurable increases in peace, justice, and inclusion?