By Javier Surasky-
The
plan was simple, and the timing fit perfectly: in September 2023, the
second SDG Summit would convene; in July 2024, the High-Level Political Forum;
and in September 2024, the Summit of the Future. The three events built an
almost perfect continuum: one meeting examined the state of progress of the
SDGs at a global level, the next acted as a bridge maintaining momentum, and
the final one provided multilateralism with the tools it needs to be more
effective in achieving the 2030 Agenda.
To
reinforce the connections, the SDG Summit was paired with a preparatory meeting
for the Summit of the Future. However, due to demands from the G77, they were
held successively rather than in parallel, and the High-Level Political Forum
included official sessions on the Summit of the Future. Even the five regional
sustainable development forums included debates on the September 2024 meeting
in their agendas.
What could
go wrong? What could interfere with this virtuous timeline?
The answer
is associated with a concern that we have been pointing out for some time in
several of my works for Cepei: the Voluntary National Reports prepared by
States to present to the international community are of low quality, and on
this occasion, they demonstrated it undoubtedly: they broke the chain that
linked the three events.
How is this
possible? Of the 36 countries that finally presented their reports, one did not
make it public in its written version (Samoa). Reducing the remaining 35 to
those I can analyze because they are written in Spanish or English, I have
reviewed 28 of the voluntary national reports presented to the 2023 HLPF (the
list is at the end), which is equivalent to 80% of these, looking for
references to the 2023 SDG Summit and the Summit of the Future and each of the
instruments it is expected to adopt: The Pact for the Future, The Declaration
on Future Generations, and the Global Digital Compact.
The result
has been, to say the least, sad. Another verification of countries preparing their VNRs as if efforts to implement the SDGs were taking place in a vacuum,
isolated from any other process, without history and, more seriously, without a
future.
- Only 13 of the 28 VNRs (46%) include at least one mention of the 2023 SDG Summit.
- Five reports (18%) explicitly reference the Summit of the Future.
- The Global Digital Compact is only mentioned by three countries. However, almost all make references to the importance of digital technologies for sustainable development and the need for cooperation between countries, and even between sectors in several cases, to reduce digital inequalities, which are linked to specific issues such as health, hunger reduction, decent work, energy, public function fulfillment, data processing, the well-being of future generations, environmental care, and even the transmission of culture and traditional knowledge.
- No report mentions the Declaration on Future Generations, even though 19 highlights the importance of considering future generations in designing sustainable development policies, plans, and strategies. To make matters even worse, several countries confuse children and youth with future generations when these are three different categories.
- No report mentions the Pact for the Future.
In a
regional view, we found that:
- Of the nine reports presented by African countries that entered our universe of analysis, none refer to the Summit of the Future or any of the documents to be adopted there.
- In the eight analyzed reports presented by Asian countries, we could only find a single reference to the Global Digital Compact and none to the Summit of the Future, the Pact for the Future, or the Declaration on Future Generations.
- Of the three analyzed reports presented by European countries, only one mentions the Summit of the Future, and none refer to its documents.
- Out of eight analyzed reports from Latin America and the Caribbean, we found that four refer to the Summit of the Future and two to the Global Digital Compact, with no mentions of the Declaration on Future Generations or the Pact for the Future.
Costa Rica has become the only country that mentions the Summit of the
Future and one of the documents it is expected to adopt: the Global Digital
Compact. None of the other analyzed reports mention the summit that will take
place next September and at least one of the documents to be adopted at that meeting (nor are there reports that mention two documents).
In a less ambitious view, if that's possible, only four countries include references in their reports to both the 2023 SDG Summit and the Summit of the Future: Belize, Costa Rica, Spain, and Honduras. Nevertheless, none of them establishes links between the two summits.
To put it
more directly, countries have left behind in their consideration of accelerated
implementation of the 2030 Agenda both the SDG Summit and the Summit of the
Future (which has yet to happen!).
The poor
quality of the Voluntary National Reports and the mindset behind their drafting not only make them of little use for sharing lessons
learned and knowledge or to accelerate the SDGs implementation. Instead, they fail to connect essential elements in front of the eyes of anyone who wants to look.
2024 Voluntary National Reports analyzed:
Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belize, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Georgia, Honduras, Kenya, Lao (PDR), Mauritius, Mexico, Namibia, Nepal, Palau, Peru, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, South Sudan, Spain, Uganda, Vanuatu, Yemen, Zimbabwe.
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