The eighth North East Asia Multi-Stakeholder Forum on Implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals began today with a strong call for effective delivery of sustainable, resilient and innovative solutions to accelerate much-needed progress in SDG implementation.
"This call is important given the Asia-Pacific region still has a long way to go to achieve the SDGs. Economies across the region are confronted by multiple crises, increasingly severe impacts of climate change and constrained development financing," underscored UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana in her opening remarks.
East and North-East Asia has made impressive progress on targets related to vaccination and essential health services, and the expansion of marine protected areas. However, more efforts are required to improve the targeted responses by all sectors on several pressing issues such as gender equality and youth unemployment.
"Sustainable development is about fostering progress that meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the resources and potential needed by future generations. For this, setting the direction for change and ensuring the participation of related stakeholders is essential," said Hwang Hyo-Jin, Vice Mayor for Political Affairs of Global City, Incheon Metropolitan City.
"To achieve inclusive and sustainable development, evidence-based policies must consider the needs of the most disadvantaged groups," added Jin Kim, Director-General of the Statistics Research Institute of Korea, while further noting, "Relying on averages that do not reflect the realities of these groups risks overlooking their needs and distorting our understanding of their circumstances."
Convened by ESCAP, the meeting is part of a series of five subregional forums which serve as a collaborative platform for governments, development partners, civil society, and other stakeholders to assess progress on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and identify solutions.
The two-day event focuses on five key SDGs - Goal 3 on health and well-being, Goal 5 on gender equality, Goal 8 on decent work and economic growth, Goal 14 on life below water, and Goal 17 on partnerships, and follows last month's Summit of the Future where global leaders adopted the Pact for the Future, emphasizing international cooperation to achieve shared goals and tackle new challenges.
Inputs from the subregional forum will feed into the 12th Asia-Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development (APFSD) and global UN High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) in 2025.
