NEW YORK, Jul 12 (IPS) – Yearly, the worldwide group gathers on the United Nations Headquarters in New York to evaluate progress in direction of sustainable growth. This yr’s Excessive Stage Political Discussion board (HLPF) shall be held from July 8 to 18. Based on the United Nations Excessive-Stage Political Discussion board web site, representatives from 36 international locations will showcase their achievements towards the commitments outlined within the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Growth and submit their Voluntary Nationwide Evaluations (VNRs).
This yr’s Excessive-Stage Political Discussion board takes place at a sobering time, underlined by findings from the current United Nations Sustainable Growth Targets (SDGs) 2024 report. The report highlights rising inequality, the escalating local weather disaster, accelerating biodiversity loss and disappointing progress on gender equality. Conflicts in Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine and elsewhere have exacerbated these challenges, ensuing within the pressured displacement of almost 120 million folks worldwide. Worryingly, solely 17% of the sustainable growth objectives are on observe, about half of them have made weak or average progress, and greater than a 3rd of progress has stalled or regressed.
One of many SDGs beneath evaluate this yr is SDG 16, which incorporates commitments to responsive, inclusive, participatory and consultant decision-making, entry to data and elementary freedoms. These hard-won commitments acknowledge the significance of transparency, accountability and participation in reaching the sustainable growth objectives. These suggestions had been achieved by means of persistent advocacy by civil society activists. For civil society, delivering on these commitments is essential if the transformative promise of the SDGs is to be realized, significantly as they permit civil society to work with governments to assist obtain the objectives.
One of many predominant causes for uneven progress in direction of the SDGs is the constraints on civic house in lots of international locations world wide. Based on the CIVICUS Monitor, a participatory analysis collaboration, solely 2% of the world’s inhabitants lives in situations of open civic house, the place civil society can exist and act freely. Of the 36 international locations planning to launch VNR this yr, solely three – Austria, Palau and Samoa – have open civic areas.
Civic house encompasses the rights of individuals to arrange, mobilize and specific their opinions in an effort to form the political, social and financial buildings that form their lives. The place civic house isn’t open, communities’ establishments to pursue progress are severely restricted and constrained—precisely what the sustainable growth objectives envision. Those that expose corruption, advocate for accountability and defend the rights of excluded teams are beneath assault.
In lots of international locations world wide, civil society organizations and activists are beneath menace. A technique international locations do that is by abusing anti-terrorism legal guidelines, cybersecurity legal guidelines, and well being emergency legal guidelines towards them. International locations comparable to Cambodia, Egypt, India, Israel, Russia and Venezuela are subjecting civil society organizations to a fancy set of regressive legal guidelines and practices to stop them from elevating funds from home and worldwide sources. This reduces the power of civil society to drive modern insurance policies, ship providers to those that want them most, and monitor the usage of public assets.
Significant participation of civil society in any respect ranges is essential to reaching sustainable growth objectives. Nevertheless, even inside UN platforms such because the Excessive-Stage Political Discussion board, there may be nonetheless no official solution to embody civil society voices within the VNR course of, resulting in civil society organizations producing parallel “shadow studies” on the sidelines of boards. In its present kind, this undermines the potential for significant civil society participation, results in duplication of efforts, knowledge inconsistencies and hinders state accountability.
If the Sustainable Growth Targets are to be achieved, it’s essential to create an enabling surroundings the place civil society can thrive and take part meaningfully in decision-making and accountability processes with out worry of reprisal. That’s the reason many civil society organizations have united beneath the Unmute Civil Society initiative to advocate for sensible options to beat the challenges of engagement on the worldwide degree. The United Nations should create extra space for civil society to exhibit management in high-level political boards.
Jesselin Lana is a advisor on citizen engagement with the United Nations on the United Nations Heart in New York Metropolis.
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