The forum, which will held through July 15, will be focused on Covid-19 pandemic recovery and how it can be used to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). According to organizers, the gathering will have a hybrid format, that is, it will include virtual events and other in-person ones at the UN.
Leading figures from governments, companies and civil society will have the chance of debating avenues to recover from the impact of the pandemic and turn such a crisis into an opportunity to move on a more sustainable global economy, UN´s official website reported.
During the meeting, lessons, successes, shortcomings and plans emerging from this unprecedented health crisis will be tackled down, where achieving the SDGs will also be discussed as the best way to build much more inclusive, resilient and healthy societies.
According to agreed schedule, 43 nations will present their actions on improving people’s living standards, despite the impact of the pandemic.
To date, 168 UN member countries have already submitted their SDG progress since the first forum, held in 2016, one year after the adoption of the 2030 Agenda.
While for many nations the response to the pandemic deeply involves outlaying on their citizens, enhancing social protection systems and labor markets to aid the most vulnerable people, the health crisis wiped out years of progress on SDGs, ECOSOC warned.
ECOSOC Chair Munir Akram stressed that this year’s HLPF will be an opportunity to share and reflect on actions taken to overcome the present health crisis, address its impacts and better rebuild.
An HLPF´s main issue would be to ascertain whether SDGs are being used as a model for the response to Covid-19, Akram said.
As such, delegates are expected to identify areas that need more attention and policies with potential to have maximum impact on achieving those 17 goals.
Even earlier the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, widespread inequalities, hunger, strong impact of climate change, lack of access to education, growing unemployment and extreme poverty already existed in many countries.
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