The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development sets out a universal plan of action to achieve sustainable development in a balanced manner and seeks to realize the human rights of all people. It calls for leaving no one behind and for ensuring that the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are met for all segments of society, at all ages, with a particular focus on the most vulnerable—including older persons. Preparing for an ageing population is vital to the achievement of the integrated 2030 Agenda, with ageing cutting across the goals on poverty eradication, good health, gender equality, economic growth and decent work, reduced inequalities and sustainable cities. Read more

Posted in : United Nations For Ageing

The 2017 High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF), convened under the auspices of the Economic and Social Council, took place from  10 to 19 July 2017, and concluded in New York on 19 July by adopting its Ministerial Declaration.* Disability has been given 5 specific references in the Ministerial Declaration this year, including in the context of eradicating poverty and promoting prosperity; multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination, especially faced by women and girls with disabilities; improved and coordinated collection, analysis, dissemination and us of statistics and disaggregated data; as well as localizing and communicating the SDGs to all stakeholders including persons with disabilities. Read more

Posted in : United Nations Enable

An important step towards meeting the 2030 Agenda’s aspiration of leaving no one behind is to identify who is being left behind and from what. Hoping to contribute to this discussion, the recently released Report on the World Social Situation 2016 (United Nations, 2016) examines group-based inequalities, with the focus being mainly on the disadvantages faced by youth, older persons, persons with disabilities, racial and ethnic minorities and migrants. The report’s analysis shows that disparities in access to education, health care, infrastructure and employment as well as inequalities in political participation are pervasive and symptomatic of the exclusion of members of these groups. Regarding employment opportunities, the report shows that the share of ethnic and racial minority workers in skilled -managerial, professional and technical- occupations is lower than that of workers in the majority or dominant ethnic group in a majority of countries with data.  Read more

Posted in : Social Perspective on Development

By resolution 49/214 of 23 December 1994, the United Nations General Assembly decided that the International Day of the World’s Indigenous People shall be observed on 9 August every year. The date marks the first meeting of the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations in 1982.

This year’s International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples will be commemorated on Wednesday, 9 August at UNHQ in New York from 3.00pm to 6.00pm in the ECOSOC Chamber.

This year is of particular importance, as it is the Tenth Anniversary of the adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), and at the same time the theme of the event. Read more

Posted in : DSPD

The theme of International Youth Day 2017 (IYD) is “Youth Building Peace”. Since the adoption of Security Council Resolution 2250 in 2015, there is growing recognition that as agents of change, young people are critical actors in conflict prevention and sustaining peace. International Youth Day 2017 is dedicated to celebrating young people’s contributions to conflict prevention and transformation as well as inclusion, social justice, and sustainable peace. The current generation of youth are the largest in history and young people often comprise the majority in countries marked by armed conflict or unrest, therefore considering the needs and aspirations of youth in matters of peace and security is a demographic imperative. Read more

Posted in : DSPD

"Indigenous Voices at the HLPF” is a one-day space for indigenous media to cover the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development 2017 through indigenous worldviews, perspectives and languages. Indigenous journalists and speakers will broadcast information about the six Sustainable Development Goals under review in 2017, the outcomes of the Voluntary National Reviews and the 2017 HLPF Theme: “Eradicating poverty and promoting prosperity in a changing world". Highlights from the Programme:

• 6 SDG reflection sessions: indigenous speakers will analyse the 6 SDGs under review in 2017
• 4 panels: indigenous perspectives on the 2030 Agenda, the 2017 theme and progress so far
• Individual interviews: indigenous participants will interview their governments on theexperience of the 2017 Voluntary National Reviews
• Indigenous story tellers will tell inspiring stories from their ancestors about Mother Earth Read more

Posted in : DSPD

Addressing the critical needs of indigenous peoples, the elderly, people with disabilities and other marginalized groups is the best way of ensuring that no one is left behind by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This was one of the key messages of an animated SDG Live interview held on the sidelines of the High‑Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, which featured some of the most prominent civil society activists, global experts and local leaders attending the event. The panelists called on governments and other stakeholders to resist the temptation of helping those that are easiest to reach first in order to boost their statistics. Instead, they proposed allocating more resources to the most excluded and hardest to reach groups. Inclusiveness, sense of ownership and adequate funding were identified in the debate as the issues that will make or break the SDGs implementation. Read more

Posted in : DSPD

The 2030 Agenda sets out a universal plan of action that seeks to eradicate poverty as its overarching goal. It envisions shared prosperity and respect for the human rights of all people. It calls for ensuring that no one is left behind and that the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are met for all segments of society, at all ages, with a particular focus on the most vulnerable—including older persons. Population ageing is a major global trend that affects all countries and reflects significant achievements of human development such as improved health, greater longevity and lower mortality (UN 2017). In 2017, there are an estimated 962 million people aged 60 or over, comprising 13 percent of the global population, and this number is projected to reach 1.4 billion in 2030 (UNDESA 2017). Over the next 15 years, the number of older per­sons is expected to grow fastest in Latin America and the Caribbean, with a projected 71 per cent increase in the population aged 60 or over, followed by Asia (66 per cent), Africa (64 per cent), Oceania (47 per cent), Northern America (41 per cent) and Europe (23 per cent) (UNDESA 2015). Read more

Posted in : United Nations For Ageing