Future Earth participates in UN panel on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

The High-Level Political Forum (HLPF), the deliberating body for sustainable development in the UN, is meeting this week at the UN headquarters in New York. This year's session is particularly important as it will shape the role the Forum will play in the follow-up and review of the post-2015 development agenda.

As part of its role, The HLPF aims to “strengthen the science-policy interface through review of documentation bringing together dispersed information and assessments, including in the form of a global sustainable development report, building on existing assessments”.

In line with this aim, representatives of Future Earth and of members of its Governing Council will take part in different panels of the Forum. 

On Monday 29 June Executive Director Paul Shrivastava moderated a panel entitled 'Keeping science involved in Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) implementation'. This session focused on how the HLPF could strengthen the science-policy interfacing, highlighting the need for strengthening scientific capacity, especially within less developed countries, and supporting enhanced dialogue between science and policy. 

This discussion will help HLPF to strengthen Science Policy Interfaces, and infuse scientific analysis in implementation of SDGs over the coming decades, through science conferences, foresighting workshops, and systematic participation of scientists in the Global Sustainable Development Report, and a SWAT-team of scientists offering solutions to SDG challenges on a realtime basis, said Paul Shrivastava.

The panelists were Maria Ivanova (Associate Professor, University of Massachusetts Boston and Member of the UN Secretary General's Science Advisory Board), Wu Hongbo (Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs), Lucilla Spini (Head of Science Programmes, International Council for Science), Cheikh Mbow (Senior Scientist on Climate Change and Development, World Agroforestry Centre, Kenya; and member, Future Earth Science Committee), Luiz Augusto Galvao (Head of the Special Program on Sustainable Development and Health Equity at the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO)). 

Watch a recording of the session here: