As the Economic and Social Council began today its Development Cooperation Forum in Incheon, Republic of Korea, senior United Nations officials emphasized the need to build on the success of the Millennium Development Goals and to deliver sustainable development for all by finding strategies to mobilize significant financial resources.
Such means of implementation for the development agenda, which can come from many private, public, national and international sources, will be vital once the world adopts its new sustainable development plan for the next 15 years.
“A unique, unparalleled in history, path forward is taking shape, with the crafting of a transformative, unified and universal post-2015 development agenda, focused on poverty eradication and sustainable development,” said ECOSOC President Martin Sajdik (Austria).
“There is broad consensus that the agenda’s successful implementation will depend on a comprehensive financing framework for sustainable development.”
The Forum, held under the slogan, ‘Development cooperation for people and planet: What will it take?’ brought together leaders from Government, the private sector, academia and civil society for a three-day high-level symposium to grapple with the topic.
The event aims to generate concrete ideas and policy recommendations to explore how to deliver ‘the future we want’ – an economically, socially and environmentally sustainable future for our planet and for present and future generations.
“The post-2015 era is poised to elevate the importance of development cooperation, as an integrating force for sustainable development, for engaging all stakeholders and for ensuring no one is left behind”
Wu Hongbo
UN DESA’s Under-Secretary-General and Conference Secretary-General
As well as ensuring availability of means of implementation, Mr. Sajdik said that success of the new agenda would also hinge upon the effective review of progress on substantive goals and follow-up to commitments made, especially on the full spectrum of means of implementation – financial and other, from capacity building to technology transfer.
“This requires a flexible, multi-layered global framework,” he said. “It must build on existing mechanisms at all levels, following a bottom-up approach.”
The symposium comes as countries are gearing up for the Third International Conference on Financing for Development in Addis Ababa this July, the Sustainable Development Summit in New York, and climate negotiations in Paris. The DCF high-level symposium is geared to produce new ideas and policy recommendations into the preparations of the summits.
Mr. Wu Hongbo, UN DESA’s Under-Secretary-General and the Conference Secretary-General, also addressed the opening of the event, outlining some of the key tasks at hand.
“First, to support the negotiations leading up to the Third International Conference on Financing for Development and the Post-2015 Summit; and second, to assist practical preparations by countries and all stakeholders for development cooperation in a post-2015 setting,” he explained.
“The post-2015 era is poised to elevate the importance of development cooperation, as an integrating force for sustainable development, for engaging all stakeholders and for ensuring no one is left behind,” he said, also adding that the implementation of this new agenda will require “international support of an unprecedented scale and scope.”
Mr. Wu also discussed the importance of understanding and advocating for “development cooperation in all its forms” and the need to unlock new means of implementation. “Building on the strengths of the MDGs, new ways must be found to mobilize and allocate resources,” he said. “We should also unlock and make efficient use of unprecedented amounts of domestic and international, public and private, financial and non-financial resources and other Means of Implementation.”
Photos: Government of the Republic of Korea
Source: UN News Centre
