Excellencies,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The 2030 Agenda and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals provide a common framework and language for coherent action for people, planet, prosperity and peace at all levels of governance. If there was ever a case to be made for a whole of government approach to implementing development policies, the SDGs offers us that opportunity. The goals allow us to join hands and work together for the common good at all levels - the global, regional, national and sub-national levels. They also allow us all to communicate here at the global level, and at the local level, what kind of a world we wish to live in.
After five years of implementation efforts, it is clear that local and regional authorities have a key role in implementing the SDGs and in ensuring that no one is left behind in their regions, cities and towns. The recent months, as the world has had to deal with the devastating impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, have further demonstrated the centrality of so many actors, particularly so, the sub-national actors in containing the spread of the virus and mitigating its harsh health and socio-economic impacts.
As the Secretariat of the High-level political forum on sustainable development, the Department of Economic and Social affairs is deeply committed to ensuring a robust monitoring and review of progress of SDG implementation.
Throughout the first five years of reporting, the Voluntary National Reviews have allowed the Member States to take stock of their SDG implementation, share best practices, highlight challenges, or even find new partners for their implementation efforts.
We have seen first-hand how beneficial the VNR processes have been for the Member States. In this spirit, we are extremely happy to see that the subnational reviews of SDG implementation, also called Voluntary Local Reviews, are gaining momentum.
While the VLRs hold no official status through the 2030 Agenda on sustainable development, we are very excited about the work cities and regions are doing and we wish to do our part to support it.
We are very aware of how much of the actions needed for the achievement of the SDGs will need to be taken, and are being taken, at the subnational level, and we are keen to hear from how cities and regions are utilizing the VLRs as a tool to enhance their SDG implementation.
While both processes can bring great benefits in their own right, we are also keen to facilitate a dialogue between the VNRs and VLRs. We believe that these processes can enrich each other in unique ways. We are happy to see that more and more Member States are utilizing the findings of these sub-national reviews in their VNRs and including local and regional governments as partners in their review processes and SDG implementation at large.
The UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs has from the start supported the Voluntary National Reviews including by organizing peer learning workshops for the countries that participate in this process annually. We have noticed that the best experts in the process are those who have gone through the full cycle themselves or are preparing their reports.
Hence, we were very happy to hold our first peer learning VLR workshop virtually last week, bringing together cities, regions and national governments that have either conducted a review of their SDG implementation or are in the process of doing so. We are eager to continue this work and will do so together with our partners from the UN system and outside.
Colleagues, and this is my final consideration,
Still today, SDGs can sometimes be seen by different parts of the governments as an externally imposed burden that is detached from national, regional and local policies. Also, at the same time, the COVID-19 pandemic is tightening the budgets and belts of local, regional and national governments in many places in unprecedented ways.
However, this is not the time to forsake the 2030 Agenda, quite the contrary. This is the time to engage in a strengthened dialogue between different levels of government and all stakeholders on how the SDGs can provide a way for us all to build back better or build forward better, as someone prefers to say.
We hope that the VNRs and the VLRs together can provide us with concrete examples of how we can all benefit from joint actions towards a better future. The Department of Economic and Social Affairs looks forward to supporting this learning journey at all levels of government.
Thank you for your attention.