Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, Vice-Chair of the Committee of Development Policy (CDP), represented the Committee in the 2023 ECOSOC coordination segment.
On 1 February, Prof. Fukuda-Parr participated in a panel discussion on “Energy access and energy transitions” sharing the perspectives emerging from the CDPs work on Just Transitions and highlighted the need for such transitions to be context specific. LDCs and other low-income countries that have made only marginal contributions to climate change should not have their other urgent development needs compromised for the sake of emission mitigation. She also pointed out that green transition strategies worldwide should be formulated in ways that do not push other countries - particularly LDCs - further behind through but rather support these countries in their energy transitions.
On 2 February, in the session of the “Reflections on the work of ECOSOC Subsidiary Bodies” Prof. Fukuda-Parr provided the committee’s view on what is holding us back from progress on the 2030 Agenda. Among the findings and recommendations emerging from CDP analyses in recent years she emphasized that even though the interdependent and integrated agenda is implicitly acknowledged in the increasing number of countries that are setting up inter-departmental coordination frameworks for SDG implementation, the strategies for implementation generally do not reflect an integrated approach and remain siloed and fragmented without a coherent vision. She further pointed out that while the pledge to ‘leave no one behind’ is a pillar of the 2030 Agenda, strategies are often limited in scope and focus on support to vulnerable groups instead of addressing the structural determinants of inequalities and exclusion.