Mr. Chair,
I have the honour to deliver this statement on behalf of the five UN Regional Commissions
namely, ECA, ECE, ECLAC, ESCAP and ESCWA. Benefitting from the presence in NY of an
expert colleague from ECLAC, he will follow up with a statement providing additional more
elaborate perspective from the LAC region.
Mr. Chair,
Rio+20 laid the basis for the elaboration of the SDGs, to build on the achievements of the MDGs
and to become part of the post-2015 development agenda. Moreover, the Conference committed
to mobilizing financial resources and capacity building for the SDGs.
Rio+20 also recognized the important role of the Regional Commissions (RegComs) in
supporting their respective regions to effectively contribute to the SDG process. In this regard,
the Conference requested relevant bodies of the United Nations system, within their respective
mandates, to support the RegComs in collecting and compiling national inputs in order to inform
the SDG process. We are honoured by the trust bestowed on us by member States and are
committed to pursue this mandate in collaboration with our UN system partner organizations.
As an initial effort to carrying out this mandate, the RegComs have convened with their partners
a multitude of regional consultations on the post-2015 agenda and the SDGs, including through
the Regional Implementations Meetings held to follow-up on Rio+20. Allow me to bring herein
to the attention of this meeting a few key messages that we hope could be of use to the work of
the OWG:
1. The need to act on structural gaps
The benefits of the MDGs are well recognized and many countries would like to see some of its
elements reflected in the post 2015 development agenda. Ho wever, one key criticism of the
MDGs is that they did not address structural issues. Rio+20 and other sustainable development
summits have made it clear that we need a change of direction towards sustainability that makes
the achievements made so far irreversible and that makes progress more ambitious. This calls
for sustainable development goals which are universal, transformative, structural in nature, and
that are guided by a pursuit of equality, wellbeing and compatible with our planetary boundaries.
Our increasingly urbanized world therefore needs a structural shift to new consumption and
production patterns that are socially, economically and environmentally sustainable.
2. The importance to dovetail with the Post-2015 Development Agenda
Many countries expressed a strong desire for a single unifying development agenda for the post
2015 period. The SDGs must therefore encompass the three dimensions of sustainable
development (i.e., economic, social, and environmental). This will increase the likelihood of
convergence among the issues captured by the post-2015 development agenda and the SDGs. To
ensure such convergence, the principles, core dimensions, goals and key elements of the Rio+20
outcomes will need to dovetail neatly with those to be ultimately identified for the post-2015
agenda. As part of this process, the SDGs should embody the Rio principles and should be
identified with the overarching objectives of poverty eradication and achieving sustainable
consumption and production patterns.
3. The key role of science and technology
The SDGs should be science-based and allow for tracking progress towards sustainable
development over time. In this regard, they should include clear and measurable targets designed
taking into account different regional and national priorities, realities, capacities and
developmental levels. The process should consider approaches and means to strengthen the
capacity of countries to collect, manage and ana lyze data required for monitoring progress
towards meeting the SDGs. Supporting technological innovation and transfer would be critical in
meeting these goals. Means of implementation, including technology transfer, should be a key
part of the SDGs.
Mr. Chair,
The emerging consensus of the regional consultations on a Post-2015 development agenda is that
structural transformation is vital for strengthening the regions’ resilience to socio-economic and
climate related shocks. It is the hope that the SDGs will pave the way for such transformative
post-2015 agenda.
Finally, we believe that an inclusive bottom-up consultative process with inputs from the
broadest possible stakeholders would be most useful for members of the OWG to flesh out goals,
indicators and targets that should underpin the SDGs. To that end, the RegComs stand ready to
support their member States with related research on indicators, measures and innovative
solutions, as well as to harness their convening power and offer their most inclusive regional
platforms to the members of the OWG.
Thank you.
