On the eve of the (virtual) United Nations 75th anniversary event and the Global Goals Week authors presented this year's global civil society report Spotlight on Sustainable Development.
If you missed the virtual launching event you can watch the recording here.
Find the report & further information here.
New York, 18 September
The COVID-19 crisis and the worldwide measures to tackle it have deeply affected communities, societies and economies around the globe. The implementation of the United Nations 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has been put at high risk in many countries. COVID-19 is a global wake-up call for enhanced international cooperation and solidarity.
But calls for “building back better” by just pushing the reset button will not change the game. We need structural changes [...]
New York, 8 July 2019: “The world is off-track to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Most governments have failed to turn the transformational vision of the 2030 Agenda into real transformational policies. Even worse, xenophobia and authoritarianism are on the rise in a growing number of countries.”
“The implementation of the 2030 Agenda is not just a matter of better policies. It requires more holistic and more sweeping shifts in how power is vested, including through institutional and governance [...]
By Maureen Penjueli, Pacific Network on Globalization (PANG)
Global powers and Pacific Island nations are racing to divide up the ocean's resources using the narratives of Blue Economy and Blue Growth to justify their exploitation. Technology advances make once-unfeasible seafloor depths increasingly viable and will allow corporations to plunder oceanic resources in a bid to secure food security and alternative sources of minerals and energy for rapid growing populations.
The Blue Economy concept grew out of the broader green growth [...]
By Marina Lent, Global Policy Forum
Fulfillment of the vision laid out in the 2030 Agenda means creating conditions in the inextricably related economic, environmental and social dimensions of life that enable people to individually and collectively create and enjoy their vision of a good life in a manner that also permits the flourishing of the planet.
Individual and collective visions of a good life will occasionally conflict or even preclude the realization of one over another. But the essence [...]
By Francisco J. Marí, Bread for the World – Protestant Development Service
The inclusion in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of a stand-alone goal addressing the conservation and sustainable use of the oceans – SDG 14 – has resulted in a veritable boom in global ‘blue’ initiatives. No doubt it is encouraging to see the world’s largest habitat receiving more political attention. At the same time, however, one has to take a very close look at what enthusiasm over a [...]
New York City, 14 July 2017: With the first week of deliberations at the 2017 High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development coming to a close this Friday at the UN in New York, civil society activists are criticizing a piecemeal approach to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Especially worrisome to activists is a growing gap between aspirational goals and a lack of proper and comprehensive means of implementation.
On many occasions – during side-events as well [...]
By Maureen Penjueli, Pacific Network on Globalization
You reap what you sow.
Moana (sea). Rich! Moana (sea)
But now mind got mines.
Haiku by Tekura Moekaá, 2014
Despite the importance of a healthy Pacific Ocean, evidence is mounting that this unique ecosystem is in real danger from anthropogenic threats such as overfishing, habitat destruction, and pollution and probably the most severe threat of all, climate change and resulting sea level rise. The rush to mine the deep seas is representing [...]
By Christine von Weizsäcker, Ecoropa
Biodiversity is at the basis of human life and well-being. The rich diversity of life is being locally and historically contextualized into ecosystems. These ecosystems are models of resilience, from which one could learn a great deal. Many peoples, communities and cultures actually have learned a lot and have made it part of their traditional knowledge.
Unless there is a serious disruption of their functions, ecosystems provide benefits/services to humans which are essential to their [...]
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