Unlocking the Means of Implementation: Civil Society Perspectives on SDG 17

HLPF Side Event – Wednesday, July 11, 18:30-20:00 – UNHQ CR4
The combine MoI and FfD agendas should tackle the removal of many of the structural barriers to the socio-economic transformation and advance systemic reforms of global economic frameworks to realign them with the imperatives of human rights, gender justice, people-centeredness and sustainable development. Despite the high-level political promises of the 2030 Agenda, the world is off track to reach the SDGs, the cost being paid by all those people and communities that continue to be marginalized in the face of a world economy that is increasingly focused of its new frontiers of digitalization and dematerialization. The latest economic cyclical upturn, not generalized and mostly centred within the Global North, has been accompanied by an increase in hunger and the worsening in the profile of vulnerabilities, heightened carbon emissions, and the persistence of structural levels of inequalities between and within countries. Our economy fails when it downturns and fails us again when it moves forward. 10 years into the last financial crisis, some of the root determinants remain unaddressed and, combined with increasing levels of financialization, continue to fuel a slow-motion – not for that less damaging – new financial crisis and the re-emergence of debt sustainability challenges, which seriously constraint the fiscal and policy space to advance the development agenda. The combined evolution of commodity prices and exchange rates have been exacerbating existing conditions of commodity dependence and exposed the short-sightedness of export-led strategies and premature financial liberalization.

On this background, the side event will aim to address the current mismatch between the scope and urgency posed by world’s current multiple challenges and the far-too timid level of ambition in terms of public policies and investment. It will explore a set of key proposals which could unlock the means of implementation for the SDGs and put the international community back on track to purse the ambition of sustainable development.

Preliminary programme

Moderator: Stefano Prato, Managing Director, Society for International Development, and
Co-facilitator, Civil Society FfD Group
Introduction: Navid Hanif, Director, Financing for Sustainable Development Office, UN DESA
Speakers: Rosa Pavanelli, Secretary General, Public Services International
Warda Rina, Programme Officer, Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development,
Co-Chair, Asia Pacific Regional CSO Engagement Mechanism
Vitalice Meja, Director, Reality of Aid Africa, and Co-Chair, CSO Partnership for Development Effectiveness (CPDE)
Kavaljit Singh, Director, Madhyam, India
Roberto Bissio, Coordinator, Social Watch

This invitation is available for download here.