Blog post #1: UNESCAP side event
“It takes everyone, from Government, private sector, civil society, academia, individuals and communities.”
We are super excited to have commenced a series of planned engagement workshops, delving into the application and use of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) framework, both by our Pacific neighbours and right here in Australia.
Our first official workshop occurred on Friday 25 March. This workshop ran as an official side event of the 9th Asia Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development (APFDS)*, an annual intergovernmental forum designed to support countries implement the SDGs, organised by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP).
MSDI’s Chair, Professor John Thwaites, welcomed attendees to the workshop. He highlighted the role of MSDI’s own Dr Shrin Malekpour, one of fifteen UN appointed scientists to the independent panel responsible for writing the 2023 Global Sustainable Development Report (GSDR), noting that the outcomes of these workshops will be provided directly to Dr Malekpour for broader consideration.
Professor Thwaites also highlighted the partnership MSDI has forged with Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, (DFAT), to ensure voices of the Pacific are captured along the road to the 2023 GSDR report as well as looking to 2030 and beyond.
Indeed, we were fortunate to have Ms Julia Feeney, the Minister and Deputy Head of Mission and Permanent Representative to UNESCAP, Australian Embassy, Bangkok, attend this workshop. In the Minister’s welcoming statement, she noted that Australia is looking forward to working with our Pacific friends and neighbours to capture Pacific priorities as they pertain to sustainable development, both across these workshops along with other projects.
We have designed highly interactive workshops that seek to capture the challenges and opportunities presented by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) framework.
Our aim for these workshops is to have an open and interactive discussion with attendees that:
- captures the challenges and opportunities presented by the SDGs framework;
- assesses familiarity with the 2019 GSDR report;
- provides guidance on how to think about sustainable development moving forward; and
- paints a comprehensive picture of who is involved in working on sustainable development and who is missing.
While Friday’s workshop was our first, we can already see that we will have plenty of material to analyse.
In this workshop, participants were very eager to reflect on the utilisation and implementation of the SDG framework. The hour we had been allocated absolutely flew past as we discussed how the SDGs are being used, the framework set out in the 2019 GSDR and suggestions and ideas for action between now and 2030 and beyond 2030.
Words that we heard more than a few times over the hour included: vulnerability, political will and interlinkages. We expect that these words will continue to make an appearance as our consultations continue. More specific words relating to the definition of sustainable development can be seen in this image below, showing the results from one of the many polls we conducted over the course of the workshop.
Over the next six weeks or so, we are intending on running at least three more of these workshops focused on Pacific countries. As a direct outcome from Friday’s event, we have been able to add more names to our already extensive list of organisations and individuals who are working to deliver sustainable development across the Pacific. We will use this list as the basis of invitations for our workshops planned for April and May.
Please get in touch with us if you have any questions, comments or would like to be involved in this project in some way,
Looking forward to sharing more updates with you shortly.
Domi and Julie.
E: Julie.Boulton@monash.edu or Dominique.mccollumcoy@monash.edu
W: https://www.monash.edu/msdi/initiatives/projects/global-sustainable-development-report-2023
* The Asia-Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development (APFSD) is an annual and inclusive intergovernmental forum and a regional platform for supporting countries, in particular those with special needs, in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development while serving as a regional preparatory meeting to the high-level political forum. See here for more information about APFDS.