Remarks by the President of ECOSOC, Her Excellency Inga Rhonda King, at the
briefing on the high-level political forum on sustainable development (HLPF)
convened under the auspices of the Council (9 July 2019-18 July 2019), the highlevel segment (16 July 2019-19 July 2019) and the Integration Segment (8 July
2019)
Excellencies,
Distinguished Delegates,
Ladies and gentlemen
Thank you very much for coming to this briefing. I am going to talk about the
entire two-week period from 8 to 19 July. The GA, in its resolution on
strengthening ECOSOC (72/305), decided that ECOSOC would hold three
meetings in the following order: the Integration segment, this year on 8 July, the
high-level political forum on sustainable development (HLPF) under the auspices
of the Council from 9 to 18 July and the High-level segment of ECOSOC from 16
to 19 July.
Integration segment
This will be the first Integration Segment since the GA decided to change the
duration, mandate and scope of work of this segment in resolution 72/305. The
segment will be held for one day immediately before the HLPF.
You may recall that the theme of the segment is now the same as the main theme
of HLPF and ECOSOC.
An important moment of the segment will be the introduction of the report of the
Chief Executive Board (CEB) by the Secretary-General. This responds to a longstanding request of Member States. I am pleased to announce that the SecretaryGeneral has confirmed his participation and will present the annual overview
report of the United Nations System Chief Executives Board for Coordination.
Senior representatives of United Nations system entities and Chairs of the
subsidiary bodies of the Council and the Regional Coordinator of Regional
Commissions will also be present. I hope that all PRs will attend this presentation
and engage with the Secretary-General.
In order to fulfill the mandate that the 2019 Integration segment will improve its
role, functioning and impact, a program has been prepared that I believe will be an
important and substantive contribution to HLPF.
Working with the Vice President, His Excellency Valentin Rybakov, Permanent
Representative of Belarus to the UN, we have decided that the segment will focus
on the interlinkages among the SDGs that will be reviewed at the HLPF namely
SDG 4 on quality education, SDG 8 on inclusive growth and decent work; SDG10
on inequalities; SDG 13 on climate action; SDG 16 on peaceful and inclusive
societies and robust institutions and SDG 17 on global partnership. It will examine
the interlinkages among the SDGs through the lens of people, planet, prosperity,
peace and partnerships.
The segment will also discuss and consolidate all the inputs to ECOSOC and the
HLPF notably those from the subsidiary bodies of the Economic and Social
Council and the United Nations system. It is an important development that the
Integration Segment prepares the ground for the thematic reviews.
As the Vice-President responsible for the Segment, Ambassador Rybakov will be
sharing the key messages and action-oriented recommendations from the
Integration Segment at the opening of the HLPF on 9 July.
The segment is also mandated to coordinate the work of the subsidiary bodies of
ECOSOC and United Nations system entities. We should bear it in mind as we
interact with the Heads of specialized agencies and the Chairs of subsidiary bodies
through the various panels.
High-level political forum on sustainable development (HLPF)
This year the theme of the High-level political forum on sustainable development
convened under the auspices of the Council is “Empowering people and ensuring
inclusiveness and equality”. This is an important theme for the implementation of
the 2030 Agenda. The SDGs under review are education (SDG 4), inclusive and
sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for
all (SDG 8), inequalities (SDG 10), climate change (SDG 13), peaceful and
inclusive societies for sustainable development, access to justice and effective,
accountable and inclusive institutions (SDG 16) as well as SDG 17 on global
partnership and MOIs as every year.
Methods of work
As many of you know, I have reiterated throughout the year that I want this to be
the best HLPF ever. It is a milestone HLPF as it finishes the first four-year cycle
since the adoption of the 2030 Agenda. The 2019 HLPF should again play its
central role for the follow-up and review of the 2030 Agenda. This year’s HLPF
will also be an important contribution to the HLPF held under the auspices of the
General Assembly: the SDG Summit in September. It will also contribute to the
ensuing discussions on the review of the format and organizational aspects of the
HLPF during the next session of the General Assembly.
But in order to make HLPF the best ever, I need the cooperation from all of you,
governments, intergovernmental organizations and the UN system as well as major
groups and other stakeholders as you are the HLPF. Whether you come prepared
for the discussions and formulating important messages through our deliberations,
will define the success of HLPF. I would like the HLPF to conduct its work in an
interactive way and strengthen its deliberative function. This means we are not
going to have panelists speak for 15 minutes as is often the case as this reduces the
time for discussions. We will usually have resource persons who kickstart
conversations. With the assistance of able moderators, the conversation will go
back and forth between resource persons, lead discussants and all participants who
will take the floor. This means that each intervention should not last more than 2-3
minutes. But it also means that many more participants will be able to speak
possibly several times. Thus, this will create a conversation. We will also have
other formats such as townhall meetings.
However, for this format to be successful, you need to prepare your delegations on
what to expect and to let them know that I very strongly discourage any prepared
statements and would like to have a dialogue instead. We will have a general
debate, about which I am going to speak later, where all prepared statements could
be read and submitted for the record of your national positions. I count on the
cooperation all of you. The HLPF is a dynamic platform where we need to
exchange views, find solutions and learn from each other’s experience to advance
the implementation of the 2030 Agenda.
Documentation
In order to best prepare your delegation for the HLPF, I would also like to draw
your attention to the wealth of documentation that is available to you. You have the
reports from regional forums on sustainable development, a synthesis of written
contributions from intergovernmental bodies and other intergovernmental
platforms, a document from major groups and other stakeholders on the theme of
the HLPF. You have extensive background notes with executive summaries for all
SDGs under the discussion. These background notes are the result of robust
substantive preparatory process on the review of the SDGs. They include leading
questions that we will use in our discussions. There are also two Secretary-General
reports for the high-level segment presented on the day of that segment, and the
report of the Committee on Development Policy. The GSDR is also a key
reference for our work and will be introduced. Last, but not least, I encourage you
to read the report of key messages from the 47 VNRs countries will be presenting
this year as they are a treasure trove of various actions used for national
implementation of the 2030 Agenda. I would also like to reiterate my call here to
consider being a friend to one or two VNR countries to support them in their VNR
presentation at the HLPF. As you know the DPR of Mexico is chairing this Group
of friends of VNRs, follow-up and review of HLPF so do get in touch with him.
Participation
Invitation letters to Member States have been sent to all Permanent Missions. The
registration of Member States, Intergovernmental Organizations and NGOs are
going smoothly. We already have over 75 Ministers and Vice Ministers even if we
are still at a fairly early stage. In addition to Ministers and governmental
representatives and UN system and other organizations, more than 1,500
representatives of major groups and stakeholders have registered for the
HLPF. The Secretariat has prepared an extensive information note that you can
access at the 2019 HLPF website. As you know the meetings of HLPF will be held
in conference room 4 except for the opening of the ministerial segment, about
which I am going to speak a bit later, as well as from 3-4 p.m. on the afternoon of
16 July and the conclusion of the forum from 5:30 to 6 pm. on 18 July when the
meetings will be held in the Trusteeship Council Chamber.
Programme
Proceeding to the programme, I, with the advice from the Bureau and help from
the Secretariat, have conceived an interactive and substantive HLPF programme.
You have both the annotated and short programme at the 2019 HLPF website so
you can see what each sessions aims to discuss and who are resource persons and
lead discussants in each session. It is an interactive programme so you can get
deeper into different aspects of the programme if you wish. We have over 110
invited resource persons and lead discussants including those from major groups
and other stakeholders. We have also invited a number of keynote speakers and
eminent persons in their fields.
Apart from discussions on the theme and the goals under review, we are going to
have a session on the progress on SDGs at all levels and in countries in various
situations. It will be kick-started by the Under-Secretary-General of DESA who
will present the special edition of the Secretary-General SDG Progress report. We
will also have sessions on SIDS, LDCs and LLDCs, the science-policy interface,
the outcome of STI forum, and sustainable development financing. There will be a
multi-stakeholder session organized by major groups and other stakeholders. We
will also examine the implementation of SDGs through the lens of voluntary
national reviews and we will discuss lessons learned from the four years of HLPF.
In this regard, you will soon get a request to fill in a survey in order to collect all of
your views on how the HLPF has worked and how to improve it. The results may
be presented by the Under-Secretary-General of DESA on the last day of the
Forum as basis for discussion on experiences and lessons learned from the first
cycle of HLPF. I kindly ask you to fill it in so that we get a good response rate.
The survey will start before the beginning of the HLPF and will continue through
Friday, 12 July. It will be administered by DESA.
I also would like to inform you that some sessions will have instant polling and a
moderator will ask a question and participants will need to choose an answer.
Results will be used to boost the discussions. Technical details will be explained at
these sessions.
The Secretary-General and President of the General Assembly speak at the opening
of the ministerial segment of the HLPF on 16 July. We have prepared a full
programme that will be starting at 8:30 am in the General Assembly Hall. I will
send you a letter with a detailed programme and am asking you to make sure that
your delegation is seated by 8:30 in order to be able to start on time with the
voluntary national reviews that will follow the opening of the ministerial segment.
The ministerial segment will hear 47 VNR presentations, of which 40 are coming
for the first time and 7 for the second. Once they present their VNRs this year, we
will have 142 countries that have presented their VNRs so far.
I would also like to draw your attention to the last session of HLPF before closing.
We will hear the main messages from the eight days. They will be collected and
presented by the ministers from Colombia and Liechtenstein and I thank both
governments for taking on this task. We will also have a townhall meeting on the
lessons we have learned on how the HLPF has worked over the last four years and
ideas for improving it.
Also, as you are all aware, HLPF under the auspices of ECOSOC will not have a
negotiated outcome this year as per GA resolution 70/299. There will be a political
declaration at the SDG Summit. I use this opportunity to commend my colleagues
from the Bahamas and Sweden for expertly conducting the negotiations on a
consensual document to be adopted at the Summit which is under silence
procedure expiring a few hours from now. I am in the process of appointing 5
countries as rapporteurs who will assist me in preparing a robust President’s
summary. It will detail the discussions and contain recommendations.
As each year, there will be a general debate starting in the afternoon of the first day
of the ministerial segment of the HLPF/HLS on 16 July and finishing on 19 July in
the morning. Before the general debate starts on the first day, we will hear about
the outcomes from the five regional sustainable development forums presented by
their respective chairs. This will be followed by main messages to the HLPF where
the President of the UN Environment Assembly and the High Commissioner for
Human Rights will speak among others. As in previous years, the general debate
will start by the presentation of the two Secretary-General reports on future trends
in general and scenarios related to the theme presented by the Under-SecretaryGeneral of DESA. This will be followed by the presentation of the report of the
Committee for Development Policy by its chair Professor Jose Antonio Ocampo.
As you know, the Journal contains relevant organizational information including
the details for the inscription to the general debate, which opened on 12 June and
will remain open until 5 pm on 15 July. Also, kindly note that the allotted time for
statements is 4 minutes for individual speakers and 6 minutes if speaking on behalf
of a group. In order to assist speakers in managing their time, a digital clock will
be used, and the microphone will be automatically switched off at the end of the
time limit. You may wish to sensitize your principal of these time-keeping
measures ahead of the general debate. I am sure that all delegations understand that
need to abide by the time limits in order to allow all inscribed speakers to deliver
their statements in the limited time available for the general debate.. Let me
reiterate once again that this is the place where prepared statements should be
delivered and not during interactive dialogues at the HLPF.
High-level segment of ECOSOC
As you know GA resolution 72/305 on strengthening ECOSOC stipulates that the
high-level segment of the Council will focus on future trends and scenarios related
to the theme and will discuss the long-term impact of current trends, such as the
contribution of new technologies, in the economic, social and environmental areas
on the realization of the SDGs. This will be done based on the work of the United
Nations and other regional and international organizations and bodies as well as
other stakeholders. You will see that the invited speakers are experts in the area of
future trends and scenarios. It will be an interesting day and I hope that your
ministers and other members of the delegation will stay for these discussions as
looking at long term projections can inform our actions now, including for those
countries who have a long term plan or vision document on their development.
Special meetings, side events, VNR Labs and exhibitions
Special meetings
As you all know, the HLPF is accompanied by a series of unofficial events that
enrich the meeting and deepen our knowledge of the many issues around the 2030
Agenda and the SDGs. This year we have six special meetings organized by DESA
and various UN system and other partners. They are on the Higher Education
Sustainability Initiative on integrating 2030 Agenda into higher-education
institutions’ curricula; an SDGs in Action Festival that will feature the six winning
short films from a global contest on implementing the SDGs; Philanthropy and the
SDGs which will assess philanthropic contribution to SDGs; SDG Learning, which
includes Training and Practice capacity building workshops running the whole of
the first week on topics related to SDG implementation. There will also be a Chief
Sustainability Officers meeting to explore the challenges that companies are facing
with regard to integrating and advancing the SDG agenda; and a forum on Local
Actions for Global Commitments. The latter is a two-day event facilitated by the
UN-wide Local 2030 network focusing on local level financing of the SDGs and
local implementation of the SDGs under review at the 2019 HLPF. The list with
more information can be accessed at “Other events tab” on 2019 HLPF website.
DESA colleagues have also distributed a leaflet.
Side events
There will be 146 side events at the UN. The list can be accessed at the “Other
events tab” on 2019 HLPF website and they range from discussing various SDGs
under review to many initiatives undertaken by various actors to implement SDGs.
VNR Labs
The VNR Lab will run throughout HLPF. Their schedule is available on the HLPF
website together with contacts in case you would want to get in touch with
organizers from DESA who prepare the Labs in partnership with various UN
system and other organizations. I particularly encourage VNR countries to
participate in these Labs to exchange experiences, lessons learned and best
practices on a number of VNR-related topics, including data and leaving no one
behind.
Exhibitions
There will also be 36 exhibitions in the neck area in front of the Vienna café. They
will be connected to the SDGs discussed at the HLPF this year and I encourage
you to visit them.
Outreach
The Secretariat is also working on the media and outreach strategy via all websites
and social media channels. This includes using video clips and geo-spatial
information and pictures to promote the HLPF and implementation of the 2030
Agenda and SDGs. As in previous years there will be a Media zone, so if you have
as part of your delegations those that might want to share their experience with the
media, please kindly get in touch with DESA.
Conclusion
I know I have spoken for quite a long time. But I have run you through 14 days of
meetings, which is not an easy task. I will circulate this statement through
ECOSOC Place as it contains some useful links so if you have missed something,
you can go back to it and also share with your colleagues in capitals.
I thank you very much and open the floor for any comments and/or questions.
…
Before closing I would like to take the opportunity to announce that I will
cohost with the five United Nations Regional Commissions (ECA, ECLAC,
ESCAP, ESCWA and UNECE) a Ministerial Luncheon “Translating the 2030
Agenda into national sustainable development realities: regional perspectives”,
which will be held on 17 July 2019 at 1:15 – 2:45 pm in the Delegates Dining
Room at United Nations Headquarters in New York. I look forward to your
greeting your Ministers and or heads of delegations on July 17.
I would like to bring to let you know that copies of the programme can be
found on the side, please remember to take a copy. It can also be found on the
website. Additionally an annotated programme with a list of speakers and
resources will be posted on ECOSOC and the HLPF website by the end of this
week.
The briefing is concluded.