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Building upon the 2014 Prototype report,the current Report responds to the Rio+20 mandate to contribute to strengthening the science-policy interface (SPI) for sustainable development, particularly in the context of the High-level political forum (HLPF).
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Sustainable Development Goals Targets 17.6 and 17.8 respectively aim to
“Enhance North-South, South-South and triangular regional and international cooperation on and access to science, technology and innovation and enhance knowledge sharing on mutually agreed terms, including through improved coordination among existing mechanisms, in particular at the United Nations level, and through a global technology facilitation mechanism“ and
“fully operationalize the technology bank and science, technology and innovation capacity-building mechanism for least developed countries by 2017 and enhance the use of enabling technology, in particular information and communications technology”.
The Prototype Global Sustainable Development Report defines a set of potential content, alternative approaches, and various ways of participation, in order to support Member States' deliberation on the scope and methodology of future editions of the Report.
It maps sustainable development assessments and related processes and highlights emerging issues identified by scientists;
assesses sustainable development progress;
tells the “stories” of future pathways toward sustainable development based on the literature and discusses investment and technology needs;
assesses various approaches to measuring sustainable development progress;
identifies lessons learnt from national, regional and global case studies of the climate-land-energy-water-development nexus;
presents illustrative science digests for decision-makers and summarizes various views of Member States and others on the process, methodology and scope of future reports.
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The Plan of Implementation adopted by WSSD underlined the importance of science-based decision-making, inter alia, by:
integrating scientists' advice into decision-making bodies; partnerships between scientific, public and private institutions;
improved collaboration between natural and social scientists, and establishing regular channels for requesting and receiving advice between scientists and policy makers;
making greater use of integrated scientific assessments, risk assessments and interdisciplinary and intersectoral approaches;
increasing the beneficial use of local and indigenous knowledge.
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Decisions related to science were adopted by the Commission on Sustainable Development at its sixth session in 1998.
As determined at UNGASS, the economic, sectoral and cross-sectoral themes considered were industry, strategic approaches to freshwater management, and technology transfer, capacity building, education, science and awareness raising.
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In 1995, the Commission in its third session took note of the report of the Secretary-General on science for sustainable development (E/CN.17/1995/16), including the initiatives taken by national Governments, the United Nations system, other international organizations, major groups and the scientific and technological community to implement science-related policies and programmes.
The Commission also welcomed the proposals for action contained in section III, which identified areas for priority actions that should be taken by countries and regional and international organizations, with a view to further enhancing the contribution of science to sustainable development, in particular in developing countries.
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"As main outcome of the UN Earth Summit held in Rio in 1992, Agenda 21 calls for a global partnership able to address the problems of the present and prepare the International Community for the challenges of the upcoming century."
Chapter 35 of Agenda 21 is devoted to science for sustainable development and calls for: strengthening the scientific basis for sustainable management; enhancing scientific understanding; improving long-term scientific assessment and building up scientific capacity and capability.
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Expert Group Meeting on Science and Sustainable Development Goals
20 Mar 2013 - 21 Mar 2013
New York
One of the main outcomes of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), held in Rio de Janeiro in June 2012, was the agreement by Member States to launch a process to develop a set of sustainable development goals (SDGs). A 30-member open working group (OWG) of the General Assembly is tasked with preparing proposals on the SDGs. The Rio+20 outcome document provides that the OWG should develop modalities to ensure the full involvement of relevant stakeholders, including the scientific community.
The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN-DESA), International Council for Science (ICSU) and International Social Science Council (ISSC) are jointly organising the Expert Group Meeting on 'Science and Sustainable Development Goals'. The Expert Group Meeting will take place at the United Nations Headquarters in New York on 20-21 March 2013.
The Expert Group Meeting is meant as an occasion both for the scientific community to discuss among itself how science can best inform the SDG process, and for the scientific community to initiate a dialogue with the policy makers, who are engaged in intergovernmental deliberations on the SDGs.
The aim of the EGM is to support informed policy-making by the OWG as it begins to deliberate on some of the key questions surrounding the conceptualization and formulation of the SDGs. The two-day meeting will be structured around expert panels, breakout group sessions and plenary discussions. On day two the EGM will present a summary of its work to Member States and other stakeholders at the UN Headquarters in an interactive dialogue.
An extensive meeting report will be posted soon as well.