Background

UNDESA/DSD is organizing an Expert Group Meeting (EGM) on NSDS in Conflict-Affected Countries to be held in UNON-Nairobi, KENYA, during the period 18-19 November 2009.

The meeting will bring together 17 leading experts from within and outside the UN-system with expertise in NSDS and sustainable development planning, in particular, at the country level in post conflict development.

The EGM will be held as part of a larger effort to improve capacities of countries emerging from conflict to integrate sustainable development principles into development strategies and, thereby, to increase the likelihood of sustainable peace. It is one element of a project currently under implementation by DESA entitled “Strengthening national capacity for the integration of sustainable development principles into development strategies in countries emerging from conflict”.

Project activities include establishing an ‘expert advisory group' to guide methodological work and key elements of project implementation, creating a scalable toolkit of appropriate yet flexible methodologies for use by key actors, testing these methodologies, as applicable, according to national circumstances in a number of pilot countries and making them available through a forum for information sharing, and building capacities at the regional level. This expert group meeting will contribute to this overall effort, including by taking initial steps in identifying potential members for the project expert advisory group.

Aim

The expert group meeting will:

1. Review and evaluate experiences and status of methodologies for integrating sustainable development principles in overall development strategies in countries emerging from conflict.

2. Highlight key challenges, their causes and areas of concern related to sustainable development planning.

3. Identify and assess the critical gaps in the area of NSDS and comprehensive development planning in conflict-affected countries.

4. Develop selection criteria of the pilot countries to be considered under the project.

5. Make recommendations and propose areas to be tackled to achieve the main project objectives of:

Increasing capacities to utilize sustainable development principles in policy-making in countries emerging from conflict;
Producing methodologies (scalable toolkit) based on NSDS guidelines that explain and illustrate ways to integrate sustainable development principles into national development strategies as part of peacebuilding.