HLPF 2024: Join our call to action

Help us put risk-informed development at the heart of achieving the global goals.

The HLPF will be held from Monday, 8 July, to Wednesday, 17 July 2024, under the auspices of the Economic and Social Council. The theme will be “Reinforcing the 2030 Agenda and eradicating poverty in times of multiple crises: the effective delivery of sustainable, resilient and innovative solutions”. 

The HLPF in 2024, will review in-depth: 

• SDG 1: End poverty in all its forms everywhere

• SDG 2: End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture

• SDG 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts; 

• SDG 16: Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels

• SDG 17: Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalise the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development

This will be 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.

Our members have identified seven priority action areas that decision makers, Member States and fellow civil society organisations need to work together on.

GNDR strives to apply a risk-informed development lens to the SDGs to support the international community to integrate expertise from the Sendai Framework for disaster risk reduction into the SDGs. 

Our network’s strategy (2020 – 2025) was co-developed by our members and has three overarching policy focuses: (1) localisation, (2) risk-informed development and (3) the role of civil society in convening the all-of-society approach.

Specifically we call on Member States and all stakeholders to:

1. Listen to communities

• Local communities on the frontline of risk have the knowledge and expertise required to guide risk-informed development. Therefore the implementation and monitoring of the SDGs must meaningfully engage with local communities.

• Our primary call is to listen to the community, to those on the frontline of risk, the first responders. Those living in communities on the frontline of risk have the local knowledge, expertise, and capacity to significantly strengthen risk governance in policy and practice.

• Meaningfully include local leaders in the implementation and monitoring of the SDGs

• Institutionalise community voices, knowledge and recommendations in decision making. Avoid tokenistic inclusion and empower local voices to lead decision making

• Promote the analysis of the systemic nature of risk and risk-informed development from the perspective of the communities most at risk. Within this, promote local knowledge, nature-based solutions and ecosystem protection

• This local knowledge is particularly important in understanding how to meaningfully eradicate poverty and hunger, as required to achieve the SDGs

2. Meaningfully engage civil society in the implementation and monitoring of the SDGs for risk-informed development

• Civil society has an essential role to play in coordinating localised and effective risk-informed development, which is essential to meaningfully and sustainably achieve the SDGs

3. Invest at the local level

• With this, risk-informed development can only be achieved if the international community invests at the local level. Therefore we call on all stakeholders to prioritise making sure risk reduction finance (both public and private) reaches the local level

• Hold both national governments and donor states accountable for making sure finance reaches the local level

• Empower and finance locally-led, grassroots action for risk reduction. Include local leaders in decision making spaces at local, national, and global levels

• Meaningfully include local leaders in deciding how risk reduction budgets are spent at the local level

• Listen to local voices on how climate change is a super driver of risk and integrate climate-related hazards and their impacts in local DRR planning; integrate both mitigation and adaptation in risk reduction planning

• Prioritise investment to adopt nature-based solutions, starting at the local level   

4. Empower women leaders

• Recognise and tackle gender inequality as a barrier to achieving all the SDGs
  
• Invest in action to meaningfully tackle gender inequality for strengthened DRR

• Empower women leaders to meaningfully engage in the SDGs at all levels

5. Strengthen risk-informed development and governance in conflict affected states

• Those on the front-line of disaster risk in fragile states specifically call on the global community to implement risk governance

• Support conflict-affected and fragile states to implement risk-informed governance, policy, and plans

• This includes supporting fragile states to access financial mechanisms for risk reduction

6. Meaningfully involve children and youth in the monitoring and implementation of the SDGs

• Recognise the importance of multigenerational action for risk reduction

• Meaningfully include children and youth leaders in all levels of risk-informed development and with this prioritise education on risk reduction and resilience

7. Integrate inclusion across all levels. Transition from seeing inclusion as a standalone topic

• Recognise the intersectional dynamics of marginalisation in relation to risk-informed development and meaningfully integrate inclusion across all areas of the SDGs

In summary, we strive to advocate for the essential role that civil society’s voice must play in order to meaningfully ensure risk-informed development and localisation is included and actioned in the implementation and monitoring of the SDGs.

We feel this is particularly important given this year’s HLPF theme: “Reinforcing the 2030 Agenda and eradicating poverty in times of multiple crises: the effective delivery of sustainable, resilient and innovative solutions”. 

We ask Member States and all stakeholders to commit to championing the voice, expertise and recommendations of our civil society members to enable a stronger focus on locally led, risk-informed development.

For more information please contact Rebecca Murphy, GNDR Policy Lead at: rebecca.murphy[at]gndr.org and Jekulin Lipi, GNDR Policy and Research Officer at: jekulin.lipi[at]gndr.org.

You can get involved in supporting our calls to action by downloading and sharing the images above – using #HLPF and tagging GNDR.

Download our full HLPF call to action document

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