GNDR’s engagement in New York at HLPF 2024
Blog by Becky Murphy, Policy Lead, GNDR
Just six years. That’s how long we have left to achieve our target of truly inclusive and sustainable development for all, as outlined in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and it’s why I was part of a GNDR delegation who arrived in New York in July for the High Level Political Forum 2024 (HLPF).
The HLPF is held annually, under the auspices of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. It is an important space to track and reflect on the progress of the SDGs. Each year different SDGs are put into focus.
This year was particularly important for the disaster risk reduction and risk informed development community as the theme was “Reinforcing the 2030 Agenda and eradicating poverty in times of multiple crises: the effective delivery of sustainable, resilient and innovative solutions”. The SDGs in focus included ending poverty, ending hunger, combating climate change, promoting peaceful and inclusive societies and strengthening global partnerships for sustainable development. Each is intrinsically linked to what we as a sector are seeking to achieve.
It was also the first HLPF since the 2023 SDG Summit and will support the implementation of the Political Declaration and other outcomes of the SDG Summit for advancing the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs.
Importance of the whole of society approach & shrinking political space for civil society
Ensuring that the implementation and tracking of the SDGs takes a whole of society approach and meaningfully involves all stakeholders, including civil society, is essential and has been widely recognised by UN bodies and member states alike. However, events such as HLPF are becoming increasingly difficult for civil society observer organisations to meaningfully engage in. The feeling that the political space for civil society across the Agenda 2030 Frameworks is shrinking is not new, and this was certainly felt at this year’s HLPF.
Despite this, the GNDR team pushed forward with full energy in an attempt to secure as much space as possible for our members and fellow civil society organisations. Represented by our Executive Director, Marcos Concepcion Raba, our member representative, José Ramon Avila, and myself as head of policy, we did our best to:
- Advocate for our member-led Call to Action policy demands
- Capture the high level discussions and share them in daily updates on our community platform and website for those unable to attend
- Negotiate space for civil society to speak from the floor high level sessions
- Organise an official side event sharing our member’s expertise on locally led anticipatory action
- Support the Sendai Stakeholder Engagement Mechanism (SEM) in their side event on the climate negotiations
- Represent the Sendai SEM in UNDRR’s side event on the road to the Sendai regional and global platforms and
- Meet UNDRR’s new SRSG, Kamal Kishore and hear directly from him on what his expectations are of the GNDR network at the upcoming regional and global platforms and beyond
Policy analysis: we cannot end poverty without ending conflict
When reflecting on the SDGs in focus: ending poverty, ending hunger, combating climate change, promoting peaceful and inclusive societies and strengthening global partnerships for sustainable development, we see a familiar story; whilst effort and commitment is being made and we see some success stories, nowhere near enough progress is being made for us to reach the SDG targets, with only 17% of the SDG targets on track to being achieved by 2030.
It is clear that ending conflict is essential if the global community is to sustainably make progress on ending hunger, ending poverty and combating climate change. The global community cannot meaningfully make progress on the SDGs without peace.
Here at GNDR, we know conflict is a driver of risk. With a growing occurrence of fragility and conflict in different forms, we are again reminded that there is an urgent need to better understand and prioritise the link between conflict and risk-informed development.
The issue of integrating development, humanitarian, and peace-building actions is one that has gained relevance in the international space. While the importance of the so-called ‘triple nexus’ (development – humanitarian action – peace) is well understood, its operationalisation remains a challenge. This is something our Locally Led Humanitarian Solutions programme aims to tackle. We are committed to documenting analysis and recommendations coming from local communities in Yemen, Iraq, DRC, Côte d’Ivoire, Benin, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Armenia, Colombia, Guatemala, and Honduras with the aim of supporting decision-makers in reducing risk, ending conflict and making progress on the 2030 Agenda targets.
Ultimately, we must work together in a global partnership to end conflict and promote peace otherwise there is no doubt we will fail to implement sustainable development for all. Member states did acknowledge this at HLPF but there was a clear lack of commitment to tackling the problem. Conflict across the globe is increasing, and stopping development in its tracks; yet it is still being seen as a separate political issue to the SDGs. Therefore, civil society has an incredibly important role to play in holding decision makers accountable, to demand an end to existing conflict and see meaningful efforts made to prevent future conflict. Without this, frankly, we will not achieve the SDGs and we will continue to see communities in cycles of poverty and hunger.
Successes
Our biggest successes this year included:
- Being able to support our member from Honduras, José, as an official stakeholder speaker in the high level space
- Showcasing our members’ work on the importance of locally led risk informed development in our official side event, and supporting UNDRR with a stakeholder’s perspective at their side event exploring the road to the UNDRR Global Platform 2024. And of course, meeting the new UNDRR Special Representative to the Secretary General to advocate for continued collaboration between UNDRR and civil society.
Challenges
The forum was not without challenges. The biggest obstacle was the ever shrinking space for civil society. This included logistical challenges in registering and attending the conference, which resulted in our Africa Regional Lead, as well as many of our members, not being able to travel to attend the conference.
Likewise, there was less and less space for civil society to meaningfully engage in the high level discussions. This must change if we are going to see a truly whole of society approach applied to the 2030 Agenda and make meaningful progress on the SDGs.
What next?
GNDR commits to writing an open letter to the organisers of HLPF to address the worrying trend of civil society’s growing exclusion as we get ready to participate in September’s Summit of the Future (SF). The meaningful inclusion of civil society must be included in the agenda of the SF. Here, we also commit to champion the need to end conflict, promote peace and work together to achieve the 2030 Agenda targets.
Watch this space as we continue to insist on the need to meaningfully include civil society in the monitoring and implementation of the SDGs, Paris Agreement, Sendai Framework and wider Agenda 2030 frameworks.
For more information on our policy work please reach out to me, Becky Murphy, head of policy at: rebecca.murphy[at]gndr.org.