The Sustainable Development Summit which wrapped up today, successfully galvanized support for the implementation of the ambitious and historic new Sustainable Development Agenda that countries adopted on Friday, 25 September.

Speaking at the closing press briefing, Amina J. Mohammed, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Advisor for Post-2015 Development Planning emphasised that implementation will be the litmus test of the Agenda and welcomed the new commitments made at the Summit across member states, businesses, civil society and international organizations that will support action on the 17 new Sustainable Development Goals.

The announcements, in the form of financial and partnership assistance, will kickstart action for the Agenda, which will run until 2030. They targeted many areas for action, including poverty, health, climate change, institution building, gender equality and women’s empowerment; with several commitments grounded in an integrated cross-sectoral approach.

Steps towards implementation
To achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, new initiatives announced at the Summit, included:

Ending Poverty – There was broad consensus that the overriding objective of the new Goals was to end poverty, and many countries announced that they were aligning their national development plans with the Sustainable Development Agenda.

Ethiopia committed 70 per cent of their domestic budget to pro-poor activities including education, health, agriculture and food security.

Oxfam International announced the launch, together with the UN Global Compact, of an enhanced poverty footprint methodology as a tool that companies can use to help fulfill their commitments to the Sustainable Development Goals. The tool enables companies and civil society partners to understand, communicate, and address, both positive and negative impacts that corporate practices have on people living in poverty.

Ending Hunger –Mali committed to allocating 10 per cent of their budget to put an end to hunger in their country, but aim to raise this to 15 per cent. Whereas, Namibia announced that the country’s national budget allocated 15.1 per cent to agricultural development.

Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health – The United Nations launched an ambitious public-private strategy to end preventable deaths of women, children and adolescents, with initial commitments of more than $25 billion for the next five years to provide life-saving treatments, from immunizations to perinatal care.

Quality Education – China pledged billions in development aid to the world’s poorest nations and announced they will forgive the debts due this year of those worst-off. China will commit an initial $2 billion to establish an assistance fund to meet post-2015 goals in areas such as education, health care and economic development. China seeks to increase the fund to $12 billion by 2030.

Gender Equality, Health – The Republic of Korea announced the Better Life for Girls Initiative, which will support vulnerable girls in developing countries with US$200 million dollars over the next five years.

Gender equality – China will donate US$10 million to the UN Women for the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and its Platform for Action and the realization of the related goals in the post-2015 development agenda. The Jordanian Government has committed to close the gender equality gap by 2030 through a variety of actions, including intensifying efforts to align national legislation with the Kingdom’s international and regional commitments.

Environment – Panama committed to restoring 50 per cent of Panama’s deforested areas over the next 20 years.

Climate – Brazil pledged to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 37 per cent by 2025 and 43 per cent by 2030 as its contribution to a United Nations climate agreement. Peru announced its national commitment to reduce of greenhouse gas emissions by 30 per cent by 2030. Sweden announced it would become fossil-fuel free.

Innovation – Facebook announced plans to help bring the internet to UN refugee camps.

Health – GSK (GlaxoSmithKline) GSK (Pharmaceutical, United Kingdom) commited to work with multiple partners, including in the private sector, Government and NGOs, to address health needs in the Least Developed Countries by supporting the development and strengthening of healthcare infrastructures.

For more commitments, go to: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/partnerships

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