Are we leaving no one behind in eradicating poverty and working towards the 2030 Agenda?
Thursday, 9 July 2020
10:30 AM - 12:00 PM
Virtually (held New York time)
Official meeting
Statements
Statements
With the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, Member States committed to achieving sustainable development for all nations and peoples and for all segments of society. They pledged that no one would be left behind, and that they would endeavour to reach the furthest behind first.
Against this pledge, considerable progress has been made in economic and social development over the past decades. However, such progress has been uneven across and within countries and among groups of people; more than 10% of the world population are left living in poverty and the pace of poverty reduction has been decelerating in recent years.
Now, in the year 2020, the global community is facing the greatest health and human crisis since the creation of the UN 75 years ago. COVID-19 is upending billions of lives across regions and is likely to push the global economy down to the worst recession since the Great Depression in 1929; it has exposed and exacerbated vulnerabilities and inequalities in both developing and developed countries, deepening poverty and exclusion and pushing the most vulnerable even further behind.
This session will examine implications of the current crisis for the furthest behind. It will discuss comprehensive policies and strategies to “recover better” and use the recovery from the pandemic to build the kind of social and economic systems that will leave no one behind and improve the lives of the poorest and most vulnerable, including women and girls exposed to multiple discriminations.
Proposed guiding questions:
- What did COVID-19 show us about our social and economic systems’ ability to cope with shocks and their impact on the poorest and most vulnerable?
- How can we resume and accelerate progress towards SDGs while leaving no one behind, in particular by eradicating poverty and building more just, equitable and inclusive societies?
- What lessons have we learned from the implementation of the SDGs and the response to COVID-19 thus far? How can we take advantage of policies and measures already being introduced to implement the 2030 Agenda, to address systemic vulnerabilities and recover better towards more sustainable, just, equitable and inclusive societies?
- Which groups are especially vulnerable during and in recovering from the COVID-19 crisis? What are some promising actions to improve the situations of these groups and leave no one behind? How can we ensure that actions taken to respond to COVID-19 leave no one behind?
- What kind of mechanisms (i.e., early-warning systems, rapid response funds) are necessary to enable coordinated actions at global, regional and national levels and among all segment of society to mitigate risks and enhance resilience of individuals, groups and communities in vulnerable situations, amid the current crisis?
Chair:
- H. E. Ambassador Mher Margaryan, Armenia, Vice President of ECOSOC
Moderator:
- Ms. Diane Elson, Professor Emeritus, University of Essex, UK, and Research Affiliate, Centre for Women’s Global Leadership, Rutgers University, US, and Member of the Committee for Development Policy (CDP)
Resource persons:
- Ms. Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of UNAIDS
- Ms. Ifeyinwa Ofong, National Coordinator, WorldWIDE Network Nigeria and Board Member of the Habitat International Coalition, Nigeria
Lead discussants:
- Ms. Rola Dashti, Executive Secretary of ESCWA
- Ms. Anriette Esterhuysen, Chair of the Internet Governance Forum’s Multi-stakeholder
Advisory Group, South Africa
- Ms. Sophia Bachmann, German UN Youth Delegate on Sustainable Development
- Mr. John Patrick Ngoyi, Director, Justice, Development and Peace Commission of the Catholic Diocese of Ijebu-Ode, Nigeria (Together 2030)
Followed by interactive discussion
Respondents:
- Ms. Natalia Kanem, Executive Director of UNFPA
- Mr. Paul Ladd, Director of the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD)
H. E. Ambassador Mher Margaryan
Armenia, Vice President of ECOSOC
H.E. Mr. Mher Margaryan is the Vice-President of the Economic and Social Council. In 2019, he was elected Chair of the Commission on the Status of Women for the sixty-fourth and sixty-fifth sessions. He was appointed Permanent Representative of Armenia to the United Nations in 2018. Before that, from 2017 to 2018 Ambassador Margaryan was his country’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations. From 2015 to 2017, he was Minister Plenipotentiary to the Permanent Mission of Armenia to the United Nations Office and other International Organizations in Geneva. He worked as Head of the European Union Division at Armenia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 2009 to 2015. With Government experience exceeding two decades, he has served his country in many capacities at Armenia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and at Missions abroad.
Mr Paul Ladd
Director of the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD)
Mr. Paul Ladd has been Director of UNRISD since October 2015. Before taking up this position he had been at UNDP, where he had most recently been Director of the team supporting consultations and technical inputs for the 2030 Development Agenda.
Previously he led UNDP’s policy team on ‘inclusive globalization’ – including trade, development finance, and migration. From 2008-2009, he provided support to the Office of the UN Secretary-General on the financial and economic crisis, and engagement with the G20.
Before moving to New York, Paul was a policy adviser on international development for the UK Treasury, including the period building up to and through the UK’s Chair of the G8 and European Union in 2005.
Previously he had been Chief Economist and acting Head of Policy with UK charity Christian Aid, the UK Department for International Development’s economic adviser for South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland, and a financial adviser in the Central Bank of Guyana.
Mr. John Patrick Ngoyi
Director, Justice, Development and Peace Commission of the Catholic Diocese of Ijebu-Ode, Nigeria (Together 2030)
John Patrick Ngoyi (JDPC Ijebu-Ode (Nigeria) is the Director of the Justice, Development and Peace Commission of the Catholic Diocese of Ijebu-Ode, Nigeria. JDPC is a grassroots based organization that sought adequate representation of people’s voices in the outcome of the post 2015 processes through participation in the Beyond 2015 Campaign and its Executive Committee for 4 years. He is now committed to securing the implementation of the SDGs at the global, regional and national levels through the JDPC of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Africa and the African CSOs engaging the African Union on the post 2015 and the 2063 Agendas
Ms. Anriette Esterhuysen
Chair of the Internet Governance Forum’s Multi-stakeholder
Ms. Esterhuysen was appointed Chair of the Internet Governance Forum’s Multistakeholder Advisory Group and currently serves as a Commissioner on the Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace. She was the executive director of the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) - the largest ICT-focused civil society network in the world - from 2000 to 2016. She continues to work with APC as a consultant and convenes the African School on Internet Governance (AfriSIG) a joint initiative of APC, the African Union Commission and Research ICT Africa.
Ms. Esterhuysen has served on the African Technical Advisory Committee of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa's African Information Society Initiative (1996-1999), the United Nations ICT Task Force (2002-2005), the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Working Group on Financing Mechanisms (2003-2005), the Commission on Science and Technology for Development Working Group on Internet Governance Forum (IGF) Improvements (2011-2012) and on Enhanced Cooperation (2017-2018), the Global Commission on Internet Governance and the Multistakeholder Advisory Group (MAG) of the IGF (2012-2014). She was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame as a Global Connecter in 2013.
Ms. Diane Elson
Professor Emeritus, University of Essex, UK, and Research Affiliate, Centre for Women’s Global Leadership, Rutgers University, US, and Member of the Committee for Development Policy (CDP)
Ms. Elson is Emeritus Professor in sociology at the University of Essex, UK, and is a member of the Essex Human Rights Centre. She is also Member of United Nations Committee for Development Policy. She has served as adviser to UNIFEM, UNDP, Oxfam and other development agencies and is a past vice-president of the International Association for Feminist Economics.
She is the chair of the UK women’s organization, the Women’s Budget Group, which analyses government economic policy and advocates for budgets that support gender equality and low- income women. She publishes widely on gender and development.
Ms. Ifeyinwa Ofong
National Coordinator, WorldWIDE Network Nigeria and Board Member of the Habitat International Coalition, Nigeria
Dr. Ifeyinwa Ofong started her career as a lecturer at the University of Jos, Nigeria. She then progressed to the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Nigeria, where she held various positions, including Senior Lecturer, Head of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Senior Research Fellow and Course Coordinator at the Institute for Development Studies.
She is the National Coordinator of Women in Development and Environment, and is very committed to empowering women to participate in decision making and governance. Her work has spread across many civil society committees and organizations including UN NGO Committee on Social Development, Board Member of Habitat International Coalition; member of the Steering Committee of African Network of Women’s Shelters, where she is working with other civil society groups to end violence against women /girls and provide safe spaces and shelters for women survivors of violence and abuse.
Ms. Natalia Kanem
Executive Director of UNFPA
Dr. Natalia Kanem is the Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). UNFPA is the United Nations sexual and reproductive health and rights agency. Appointed by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres in 2017, Dr. Kanem has more than 30 years of strategic leadership experience in the fields of preventive medicine, public and reproductive health, social justice and philanthropy. She started her research career in academia with the Johns Hopkins and Columbia University schools of medicine and public health.
Ms. Rola Dashti
Executive Secretary of ESCWA
Rola Dashti was appointed Executive Secretary of ESCWA in January 2019. From 2012 to 2014, she served as Minister for Planning and Development of Kuwait, and as Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs. She has also held key positions in research and development institutions, and has worked for major national and international financial and development organizations.
She won the 2010 North-South Prize of the Council of Europe with Mr. Mikhail Gorbachev. She also received the Clinton Global Citizens Award for 2009, the Vital Voices Global Leadership Award for 2006, and the King Hussein Humanitarian award for 2005.
Ms. Dashti holds a doctorate degree in population dynamics from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, a master’s degree in economics and finance from California State University in Sacramento, and a bachelor of science in agriculture economics from California State University in Chico.
Ms. Winnie Byanyima
Executive Director of UNAIDS
Ms. Winnie Byanyima was appointed as the Executive Director of UNAIDS by the United Nations Secretary-General on 14 August 2019.
SheMs Byanyima was the Executive Director of Oxfam International from 2013 to 2019. Prior to that, she served for seven years as the Director of Gender and Development at the United Nations Development Programme.
Ms. Byanyima began her career as a champion of marginalized communities and women 30 years ago as a member of parliament in the National Assembly of Uganda. In 2004, she became the Director of Women and Development at the African Union Commission, working on the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa, an international human rights instrument that became an important tool for reducing the disproportionate effect of HIV on the lives of women in Africa.
