With less than 7 years remaining to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the implementation of these ambitious goals is in peril. Progress is insufficient in many key areas and further affected by multiple crises, as pointed out in UNECE’s 2024 SDG progress report.
This year’s Regional Forum on Sustainable Development (Geneva, 13-14 March 2024) is taking place against the background of member States having reaffirmed their commitment to effectively implement the 2030 Agenda at the SDG Summit in September 2023, and looking ahead towards the Summit of the Future, to be held in New York in September 2024.
Co-chaired by Deputy Foreign Minister Vahan Kostanyan (Armenia), and Deputy Minister of Regional Development Radim Sršeň (Czech Republic), the Forum will aim at harnessing opportunities in key SDG transition areas. Policy exchange, peer learning and the discussion of innovative and crisis-resilient solutions will be at the heart of the event.
Regional Forum: Springboard for scaling up action
The plenary sessions of the Regional Forum will take stock of the current landscape of SDG implementation and provide an opportunity to exchange effective policy actions for maintaining and accelerating progress towards SDG implementation that have been taken by governments and other stakeholders. The perspectives of science, technology and innovation, sustainable finance, youth, civil society and local governments will also be highlighted.
Which are the SDGs in focus?
In addition to assessing overall SDG progress in the region, the Forum will zoom in on this year’s in-focus SDGs in five peer learning round tables:
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SDG 1 – No Poverty
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SDG 2 – Zero Hunger
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SDG 13 – Climate Action
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SDG 16 – Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions
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SDG 17 – Partnerships for The Goals
Each of these roundtables promises to be inclusive and engaging, with valuable insights on effective policy actions and advice on implementation.
A whole-of-society effort
Strong participation of the private sector, financial institutions, civil society, youth, academia and other stakeholders is envisaged throughout the Regional Forum.
Regional Forum activities will kick off on 11 March with around 40 side events throughout the week on topics ranging from Digitalisation and Inclusivity to Women in Sustainable Food Systems and Climate Action, Cross-Sector Intelligence and Foresight to accelerate the SDGs and Closing the SDGs action gap – from “monitoring hype” to action.
Civil society and youth will prepare for the Forum discussions on 12 March: Attending NGO representatives will convene in the Civil Society Pre-Meeting organized by the Regional Civil Society Engagement Mechanism for the UNECE Region (ECE-RCEM). In the 2024 Youth Assembly for Europe, North America and Central Asia, organized by the UN Major Group for Children and Youth (MGCY) Europe Region Caucus, more than 50 young people will discuss their perspectives and priorities for SDG acceleration.
HLPF and Summit of the Future
The outcomes of the Regional Forum will feed into the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development in July and the Summit of the Future in September. The Summit of the Future will be a pivotal event which aims at accelerating efforts to improving the conditions for delivering on the SDGs and taking concrete steps to respond to emerging challenges and opportunities.
Join us from anywhere
At this year’s Regional Forum, we continue to keep the doors open for everyone: the Forum will take place in person with online side events, and all sessions will be livestreamed on UN Web TV. No matter where you are, you can tune in and follow the future-oriented exchanges.
Join us and the hundreds of participants that have already registered for an important milestone in the journey towards 2030 and engage in the conversation at #RFSD2024