Walking the Talk: Transformative Pathways for Achieving the SDGs — An Official Side Event of the 2016 High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals are a global commitment to “transforming our world” and eradicating poverty in all its forms everywhere. The challenge now is to put this vision into action. How can this be achieved?

At this event, panellists will provide some answers to this question, based on a preview of the UNRISD 2016 Flagship Report by Director Paul Ladd.

A handout summarizing the key points from Paul Ladd's presentation accompanies the event.

In keeping with the High-Level Political Forum’s mandate to provide guidance and recommendations on implementing the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs, panellists will explore how innovative policies that integrate social, environmental and economic aspects can lead to inclusive societies that leave no one behind.

Panellists

• Philipp Schonrock (Centro de Pensamiento Estratégico Internacional / CEPEI, Colombia) (moderator)
• Magdy Martínez-Soliman (Bureau for Policy and Programmes, UNDP) (see his statement)
• Nicole Ruder (Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, Director of the Global Institutions Division)
• Uchita de Zoysa (Ministry of Sustainable Development and Wildlife, Sri Lanka)
• Cristina Diez (ATD Fourth World)

The discussion will focus on three key aspects of the 2030 Agenda:

1. Which policies can lead to transformative change? Which policies change social institutions and relations as well as socioeconomic structures to make them more equal and inclusive, ensuring that we leave no one behind.
2. How can policies be made integrated and indivisible? What policies and innovations support transformative change across the social, environmental and economic pillars of sustainable development?
3. How can policies be used to affect universal change? How can societies in the Global North and the Global South be transformed?

This event will be video and audio recorded. If you would like to be notified when the video and the podcast are online, please send an email with "Audio/video notification: HLPF Side Event” in the subject line to sandoval@unrisd.org.

Background

UNRISD’s 2016 Flagship Report, Policy Innovations for Transformative Change, goes beyond buzzwords and brings to the development community an evidence-based definition of transformation which can be used as a benchmark for policy making towards the Agenda 2030. Bringing together five years of UNRISD research across six areas (eco-social policy, care policy, social and solidarity economy, social policy, domestic resource mobilization, and politics and governance), the report explores what transformative change really means for societies and individuals. It provides guidance on how to turn the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs into concrete actions that:

• go beyond palliative approaches to substantively and sustainably address the root causes of poverty, inequality and environmental destruction;
• are integrated, innovative and policy-driven, and demonstrate an eco-social turn in discourse and practice;
• are informed by inclusive, multi-level partnerships; and
• are grounded in evidence and normative values such as social justice and sustainability.