Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ

Csaba?K?r?si, President of the 77^th session of the General Assembly

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Second Townhall with Civil Society

20 April 2023

???(As delivered, includes Menti questions and interaction with audience) ?

Thank you much indeed USG, Melissa Fleming, my good friend.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,

Good morning, New York and Americas, good afternoon Europe and Africa, good evening, Asia and Australia.

Welcome on board.

My special thanks go to the Department of Global Communications, DESA, the SDG Action Campaign and OHCHR for their support in organizing this second Townhall meeting.

As the seventy-seventh session moves into its second half, the General Assembly is preparing for the SDG Summit in September, as we heard just a couple of minutes ago, which will be the pivotal event of the High-Level Week ¨C the most important event in September.

Dear colleagues and friends,

A cornerstone of my Presidency has been the involvement of actors from outside the Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ into our work.

I have held several consultations with scientists, youth representatives, civil society organizations, with many of you personally involved, as well as private sector actors and financial institutions.

My aim is bringing the ¡°outside¡± in, to improve the quality of policymaking by ensuring that decision-makers have a better understanding of the issues they are creating policies for.

My expectation is that this approach contributes to more evidence-based proposals on how to address the challenges we are facing today. ?

It worked very well in the run up and during the March Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ Water Conference, where with your help, we achieved a breakthrough after 46 years.

Something similar is needed on a number of issues in the forthcoming months to help real transformation and crisis management in this world.

Recent reports, as we heard from USG Fleming, tracking the progress on the achievement of the SDGs by 2030 have contained sobering conclusions.

We are seriously off track due to the combination of complex and intersecting crises.

In recent years, we have even regressed on some SDG targets.

So, not that progress is lacking. We actually, we are moving backwards.

The way we have been trying to implement change is not working good enough.

We need an overhaul. We need a transformation.

Our Goals and targets must remain, as we agreed, but transformation means a profound change of implementation.

I mean not only a change of gear but a change of the game.

We need civil society practitioners¡¯, scientists¡¯ experience to inform Member States¡¯ deliberations to advance progress towards the achievement of SDGs by 2030.

While the SDG Summit will take place in September, the moment to start bringing bold and action-oriented ideas ¨C gamechangers ¨C is now.

We need civil society to be a critical part of the preparatory process leading up to the Summit.

And here, I would like to involve you now, immediately, to act.

To kick off our discussion on how to make the SDG Summit a watershed moment, please take your phones.

I hope all of you have it. Okay, fine.

The first question you will be requested to answer might be very soon on the screen:? In one or two words, please define success for the 2023 SDG Summit.

In order to achieve that, you have to go to the browser and type:

And when you reach the site ¨C type the following code: 31991784.

Should I repeat it?

The code is 31991784.

So, please send one or two words, describing your best choices and best opinion how to define success for the SDG Summit.

We have about almost 70 opinions so far. Anybody else still in the process of sending his or her opinion?

Okay, we will wait for a couple of seconds more.

We are reaching 100.

Let me stop this first opinion polling right now. As you see, the most demanded, expected action from your side is ¡°inclusion¡±.

It¡¯s not a surprise from an NGO community.

But almost at the same level: ¡°Collaboration¡±. Collaboration in a world that is deeply divided today. I fully agree with you.

¡°Action¡± ¨C because and I also agree with you ¨C because we have many Goals, many targets many programmes.

But the action for implementation is lagging way behind.

Is see youth, ¡°diversity¡± and ¡°equity¡± as very strongly prominent figuring notions from your side.

Thank you much indeed.

Then Let¡¯s move to the next question: What are the biggest challenges in the way of achieving the SDGs?

You will see here multiple choices. Please distribute 100 points among those options what you see: Multiple choice: armed conflicts, geopolitical divides, inequalities, inadequate financing, lack of political will, corruption, inability to measure implementation, or other/

If you wish, you may give all 100 points to one of the options. Or you distribute according to your liking. So, what are the biggest challenges in the way of achieving the SDGs?

We are approaching 80. Anybody else to send his or her opinion?

Ok, then let¡¯s stop it here.

We have about 114, 115.

The first is ¡°inequalities¡±. Thank you much.

Actually, inequalities in the world have been huge during the crafting of the SDGs.

Today, inequalities are much bigger.

In the last seven years, inequalities grew much, much faster than anything else, within countries and among countries as well.

We knew when we adopted the SDGs that this is an agenda that requires joint efforts, requires solidarity among the members of the different communities and among countries as well.

If we cannot turn around inequalities, the trends of growing inequalities, the whole Agenda will be in jeopardy.

Just today I saw the latest figures that the largest and fastest growing inequalities in the world, in terms of continent, are now in Africa.

The continent that very badly needs a sustainability transformation.

Let¡¯s go to the third question: What transformative changes are necessary to get the SDGs back on track?

Please distribute your 100 points among the options: SDG Stimulus (Increased Financing); IFI reform; Beyond GDP ¨C a concept which is one of the targets in the SDG17, which means a renewed economics; Multi-stakeholder partnerships; Political will; Restoring the credibility of commitments

It is still not closed, you can do it. But hurry up, we are at the level 104, 105 now.

So, we are going to close it very soon.

We are at the level 120.

So now, we have to stop it being conscious of time.

So about one third of the votes went to ¡°political commitments¡±.

Could I get the ¨C thank you.

One third of the votes about ¡°political commitments¡±.

It¡¯s a good message to our good colleagues and friends, the PRs of Qatar and Ireland.

We definitely need a renewed political commitment before September and during the Summit meeting in September.

We need a ¡°multistakeholder partnership¡± ¨C what you ranked in the second place.

Governments don¡¯t have the monopoly for the wisdom.

Governments don¡¯t have the means for the implementation or to the success of the transformation.

Governments have your cooperation ¨C cooperation of the civil society, of the scientific academic area and the practitioners, and many other stakeholders. And certainly, we need to do something with finances.

If I combine SDG stimulus with IFI reform ¨C which are going hand-in-hand ¨C it¡¯s almost one third of your expectations.

And I would like to draw your attention to the last point, which only received 12 per cent of the vote.

But basically, it is one of the most revolutionary ones.

If we go to develop further the notion of ¡°Going beyond GDP¡±, it means we¡¯re going to renew our economic thinking.

It means it¡¯s the economics of sustainable development.

What we don¡¯t have today.

Thank you much indeed for your contributions.

It was very, very informative. Very helpful to both our co-facilitators and to myself. And I think the Secretariat as well.

As we move forward, I pledge to remain fully committed to working hand in hand with all of you.

We take your opinion very close to our hearts

I¡¯m eager to hear your ideas and to learn from you experience later today.

Thank you very much.