Major Group: Local Authorities
NINTH SESSION OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OPEN WORKING GROUP ON SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS (SDG OWG-9)
Intervention of Local Authorities Major Group
Delivered by Yunus Arikan, Head of Global Policy and Advocacy,
ICLEI- Local Governments for Sustainability, LAMG Organizing Partner
Mr. Co-Chair,
At the outset, as LAMG, we would like to express our sincere appreciations for your leadership in enabling us to engage actively in the whole process with the Member States, through inclusive, transparent and innovative modalities of interaction.
LAMG warmly welcomes both your Summary Paper and the Focus Area document.
We also happily acknowledge positive response in general from the Member States to consider this document as a basis on the way towards a Zero Order Draft, even though this does not necessarily guarantee the adoption of SDGs, as the birthday gift to Co-Chair Kamau, yet.
We are particularly pleased to read Focus Area 13 on Sustainable cities and human settlements and its numerous interlinkages with a great majority of other Focus Areas.
We are also happy to observe the great support received from a broad number of Member States and Major Groups so far, which definitely encourages us to remain positive for the next phases.
At this critical milestone in the course of negotiations, the LAMG strongly encourages Member States and global development community to adopt a stand-alone goal on sustainable urbanization (UrbanSDG) in the Post-2015 Development Agenda.
We believe, an UrbanSDG will:
a) Provide holistic, integrated, territorial-based, inclusive, visionary and transformative solutions to address and meet the complex social, economic, environmental, cultural and institutional challenges of the “Urban World” of the 21st century.
b) Seize the opportunities that local and subnational governments entail as actors and governmental stakeholders of development and through urban areas as agents of national economic growth and as the locus of technological, social, and governance innovation.
c) Foster multi-level and multi-stakeholder collaboration, necessary for concomitantly managing and planning urban areas, urban-rural continuums, surrounding areas, communities and ecosystems.
The adoption of such a goal will demonstrate the integrating and interconnecting role cities and regions play, their importance in global resource footprints, and their key contributions in achieving long-term sustainability for all by translating broad global goals into concrete real-world implementation efforts.
We also would like to underline that whatever the result of the final decision on sets of goals, targets and indicators for the post2015 agenda, “Implementation” will be the key question that remains.
In that sense, local and subnational governments, as being governmental institutions that are closest to citizens universally, commit to remain a strong partner of Member States and all stakeholders at the national and global level, to ensure implementation of SDGs, pursuant to our role as governmental stakeholders as, foreseen in para. 42 of the Rio+20 Outcome document.
In this regard, we also welcome the vision laid out in Focus Area 19 that refers to strengthening local and subnational governments and rule of law at all levels.
Within this spirit, we look forward to expanding and deepening our dialogues and collaboration with all of you to advance in the process.
Intervention of Local Authorities Major Group
Delivered by Yunus Arikan, Head of Global Policy and Advocacy,
ICLEI- Local Governments for Sustainability, LAMG Organizing Partner
Mr. Co-Chair,
At the outset, as LAMG, we would like to express our sincere appreciations for your leadership in enabling us to engage actively in the whole process with the Member States, through inclusive, transparent and innovative modalities of interaction.
LAMG warmly welcomes both your Summary Paper and the Focus Area document.
We also happily acknowledge positive response in general from the Member States to consider this document as a basis on the way towards a Zero Order Draft, even though this does not necessarily guarantee the adoption of SDGs, as the birthday gift to Co-Chair Kamau, yet.
We are particularly pleased to read Focus Area 13 on Sustainable cities and human settlements and its numerous interlinkages with a great majority of other Focus Areas.
We are also happy to observe the great support received from a broad number of Member States and Major Groups so far, which definitely encourages us to remain positive for the next phases.
At this critical milestone in the course of negotiations, the LAMG strongly encourages Member States and global development community to adopt a stand-alone goal on sustainable urbanization (UrbanSDG) in the Post-2015 Development Agenda.
We believe, an UrbanSDG will:
a) Provide holistic, integrated, territorial-based, inclusive, visionary and transformative solutions to address and meet the complex social, economic, environmental, cultural and institutional challenges of the “Urban World” of the 21st century.
b) Seize the opportunities that local and subnational governments entail as actors and governmental stakeholders of development and through urban areas as agents of national economic growth and as the locus of technological, social, and governance innovation.
c) Foster multi-level and multi-stakeholder collaboration, necessary for concomitantly managing and planning urban areas, urban-rural continuums, surrounding areas, communities and ecosystems.
The adoption of such a goal will demonstrate the integrating and interconnecting role cities and regions play, their importance in global resource footprints, and their key contributions in achieving long-term sustainability for all by translating broad global goals into concrete real-world implementation efforts.
We also would like to underline that whatever the result of the final decision on sets of goals, targets and indicators for the post2015 agenda, “Implementation” will be the key question that remains.
In that sense, local and subnational governments, as being governmental institutions that are closest to citizens universally, commit to remain a strong partner of Member States and all stakeholders at the national and global level, to ensure implementation of SDGs, pursuant to our role as governmental stakeholders as, foreseen in para. 42 of the Rio+20 Outcome document.
In this regard, we also welcome the vision laid out in Focus Area 19 that refers to strengthening local and subnational governments and rule of law at all levels.
Within this spirit, we look forward to expanding and deepening our dialogues and collaboration with all of you to advance in the process.