Croatia
Post-2015 negotiations on Sustainable Development Goals,
Session on Follow-up and Review
Statement of the Republic of Croatia
New York, 19 May 2015.
Distinguished co-facilitators,
Ladies and gentlemen:
Croatia fully aligns itself to the statement delivered by the European Union; however, we would like to add some remarks in our national capacity:
First of all, we welcome the Discussion Paper prepared by the co-chairs, which in or opinion provides a very good and useful base for further elaboration of this extremely important topic of follow-up and review of the Sustainable Development Goals.
The review process should be based upon the principles of universality, transparency and inclusiveness, while at the same time respecting the notion of leaving no-one behind. In order to achieve the desirable effect, it requires willingness of national authorities to assume their leadership thereto, taking into account the inclusion of other major stakeholders such as academia, civil society, private and business sector, as well as media. Moreover, the said process should be duly communicated throughout the society in order to send a message of its importance to all our citizens.
Additionally, the inclusiveness of the follow-up and review also has to address the specific circumstances and needs of vulnerable social groups such as women and girls, youth and migrants or ethnical minorities.
We also highly value the importance of adequate data gathering in this evaluation process. It is of crucial importance the work of national statistical authorities, as well as of the UN Statistical Commission. The said process of data collection has to be based upon its timeliness and reliability.
We believe that both a follow-up and review framework needs to be nationally driven, with strong sense of national ownership. Nevertheless, we see added value of a complementary regional/international mechanism(s). Although we have different backgrounds and circumstances, sharing of experiences and best practices should help us in defining national policies for better implementation.
To adapt to vast diversity of stake-holders, who all have their own resources and skills in the field of sustainable development, the review should also be open to different non-governmental initiatives and partnerships that are interested to make their voluntary contributions to the implementation of Post-2015 goals. We remember that the HLPF resolution calls for a partnerships to be created in order to create a good review platform. This review platform, or framework, should support these initiatives and partnerships, as well as they could be able to help in order to detect and help curb potential failures.
Moreover, the process must be in line with the capabilities of UN the framework and its system and members. In other words, it should take into consideration the limited financial and time resources of the different actors and institutions who will potentially be involved.
We are aware that creation of additional “bureaucracy” and reporting could create more burdens to member states.
Finally, from past experiences we learned that the successful implementation of programs for sustainable development very much relies either on the political will of decision makers and/or on the capacities of political systems and on local service providers
The monitoring aspect of post-2015 development agenda should be appropriately fitted into the UN’s institutional structure, and should be made an unavoidable part of its reforming process. We highly praise the efforts made so far in this aspect. As a vital part of the ECOSOC reform, the HLPF was created. Therefore, as its very name suggests, a valuable body of high political level for the supervision of post-2015 development agenda and its implementation was set-up. We acknowledge its achievements so far and appeal to further continue and expand its leading activities. Moreover, the overall reform process of the UN is a very good moment to adjust itself in a way to make the post-2015 agenda more visible and its implementation more effective. The UN’s 70th anniversary should be valuable opportunity to reaffirm such position.
Thank you.
Session on Follow-up and Review
Statement of the Republic of Croatia
New York, 19 May 2015.
Distinguished co-facilitators,
Ladies and gentlemen:
Croatia fully aligns itself to the statement delivered by the European Union; however, we would like to add some remarks in our national capacity:
First of all, we welcome the Discussion Paper prepared by the co-chairs, which in or opinion provides a very good and useful base for further elaboration of this extremely important topic of follow-up and review of the Sustainable Development Goals.
The review process should be based upon the principles of universality, transparency and inclusiveness, while at the same time respecting the notion of leaving no-one behind. In order to achieve the desirable effect, it requires willingness of national authorities to assume their leadership thereto, taking into account the inclusion of other major stakeholders such as academia, civil society, private and business sector, as well as media. Moreover, the said process should be duly communicated throughout the society in order to send a message of its importance to all our citizens.
Additionally, the inclusiveness of the follow-up and review also has to address the specific circumstances and needs of vulnerable social groups such as women and girls, youth and migrants or ethnical minorities.
We also highly value the importance of adequate data gathering in this evaluation process. It is of crucial importance the work of national statistical authorities, as well as of the UN Statistical Commission. The said process of data collection has to be based upon its timeliness and reliability.
We believe that both a follow-up and review framework needs to be nationally driven, with strong sense of national ownership. Nevertheless, we see added value of a complementary regional/international mechanism(s). Although we have different backgrounds and circumstances, sharing of experiences and best practices should help us in defining national policies for better implementation.
To adapt to vast diversity of stake-holders, who all have their own resources and skills in the field of sustainable development, the review should also be open to different non-governmental initiatives and partnerships that are interested to make their voluntary contributions to the implementation of Post-2015 goals. We remember that the HLPF resolution calls for a partnerships to be created in order to create a good review platform. This review platform, or framework, should support these initiatives and partnerships, as well as they could be able to help in order to detect and help curb potential failures.
Moreover, the process must be in line with the capabilities of UN the framework and its system and members. In other words, it should take into consideration the limited financial and time resources of the different actors and institutions who will potentially be involved.
We are aware that creation of additional “bureaucracy” and reporting could create more burdens to member states.
Finally, from past experiences we learned that the successful implementation of programs for sustainable development very much relies either on the political will of decision makers and/or on the capacities of political systems and on local service providers
The monitoring aspect of post-2015 development agenda should be appropriately fitted into the UN’s institutional structure, and should be made an unavoidable part of its reforming process. We highly praise the efforts made so far in this aspect. As a vital part of the ECOSOC reform, the HLPF was created. Therefore, as its very name suggests, a valuable body of high political level for the supervision of post-2015 development agenda and its implementation was set-up. We acknowledge its achievements so far and appeal to further continue and expand its leading activities. Moreover, the overall reform process of the UN is a very good moment to adjust itself in a way to make the post-2015 agenda more visible and its implementation more effective. The UN’s 70th anniversary should be valuable opportunity to reaffirm such position.
Thank you.
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