SANTIAGO, Chile, CMC – The sixth meeting of the Forum of the Countries of Latin America and the Caribbean on Sustainable Development began here on Wednesday with the representatives of 33 countries from the region agreeing on the urgency of promoting bold and transformative actions to speed and correct the course towards achieving the 2030 Agenda’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The Forum has brought together more than 1,000 participants, between government delegates and representatives of international and United Nations System organizations, the private sector, academia, and civil society under the theme “Accelerating the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and the full implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development at all levels”.
Argentina Foreign Minister, Santiago Cafiero, said the region faces a colossal challenge. “Even though technological advances amaze us day after day, in many cases giving us greater tools and instruments to confront these multiple crises, we are experiencing unprecedented social, economic, and environmental degradation and deterioration,” he said.
He told the Forum that a new reorganization would place human rights at the center in all sectors, at all levels, in policy design, and all the dimensions of sustainable development.
“The SDG Summit in September, which will mark the halfway point to 2030, constitutes a key moment for designing a global plan to accelerate the implementation of these goals. The commitment to carry this agenda forward must continue to be unwavering for all of us, and we must leave no one behind as we carry it forward,” he added.
Vice President of the United Nations Economic and Social Council, Paula Narváez, urged the regional countries to be capable of defining priorities and commitments to joint work and identifying the cooperation the region can achieve to accelerate the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and its Goals.
“Seven years ahead of 2030, the path to be tread is as important as the outcome to be achieved since it will lay the foundation for the paradigm shift needed to build the world we will leave to our children. The 2030 Agenda provides the conditions for making progress on these major shared goals, and Latin America and the Caribbean is an opportunity for the world,” she said.
The Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs, praised the region’s extraordinary commitment to the 2030 Agenda as a road map for building a better future that would leave no one behind. However, halfway through the period to 2030, he warned that only one-fourth of the targets have been achieved or are forecast to be achieved.
ECLAC estimates that only 25 percent of the targets for which information is available to exhibit behavior that would enable foreseeing their fulfillment by 2030. In contrast, an estimated 48 percent of them show the right trend, but it is insufficient to achieve the respective target, while the remaining 27 percent exhibit a regressive movement.
ECLAC said 75 percent of the targets are at risk of not being fulfilled unless decisive action is taken to resume the correct path.
“This situation urgently demands that the region’s countries reinforce the commitment to the SDGs. Bold, innovative, inspiring, and especially transformative actions are needed. Otherwise, we will live through another lost decade,” Salazar-Xirinachs said.
He stressed the need to strengthen public strategies, policies, and programs, accompanied by initiatives and partnerships with the private sector, civil society, and international cooperation, to resume the path toward full implementation of the SDGs by 2030.
He also called on countries to focus on the “how” of policies and on implementing high-impact, transformative initiatives with multiplier effects that can speed and correct the course toward achieving the SDGs.
On the Forum’s first day, ECLAC presented the document” Halfway to 2030 in Latin America and the Caribbean: Progress and Recommendations for Acceleration,” the sixth report on regional progress and challenges about the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
The report examines overall progress towards the attainment of all the SDGs. Then it analyzes more in-depth progress towards achievement of the five Goals that will be reviewed at the High-level Political Forum (HLPF), to be held on July 10-19 at UN headquarters in New York.
These are clean water and sanitation (SDG 6); affordable and clean energy (SDG 7); industry, innovation, and infrastructure (SDG 9); sustainable cities and communities (SDG 11); and partnerships for the Goals (SDG 17).
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