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The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2019 Year of publication: 2019 Corporate author: United Nations (UN) Four years after signing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, countries have taken action to integrate the Goals and targets into their national development plans and to align policies and institutions behind them. The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2019 uses the latest available data to track global progress on the SDGs and to take stock of how far we have come in realizing our commitments. The report shows that, while advances have been made in some areas, monumental challenges remain. The evidence and data spotlight areas that require urgent attention and more rapid progress to realize the 2030 Agenda’s far-reaching vision. Member States agree that these challenges and commitments are interrelated and call for integrated solutions. It is therefore imperative to take a holistic view of the 2030 Agenda and to identify the highest impact areas in order to target interventions. The most urgent area for action is climate change. If we do not cut record-high greenhouse gas emissions now, global warming is projected to reach 1.5°C in the coming decades. As we are already seeing, the compounded effects will be catastrophic and irreversible: increasing ocean acidification, coastal erosion, extreme weather conditions, the frequency and severity of natural disasters, continuing land degradation, loss of vital species and the collapse of ecosystems. These effects, which will render many parts of the globe uninhabitable, will affect the poor the most. They will put food production at risk, leading to widespread food shortages and hunger, and potentially displace up to 140 million people by 2050. The clock for taking decisive actions on climate change is ticking. The other defining issue of our time is increasing inequality among and within countries. Poverty, hunger and disease continue to be concentrated in the poorest and most vulnerable groups of people and countries. Over 90 per cent of maternal deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries. Three quarters of all stunted children live in Southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. People living in fragile States are twice as likely to lack basic sanitation, and about four times as likely to lack basic drinking water services as people in non-fragile situations. Youth are three times more likely to be unemployed than adults. Women and girls perform a disproportionate share of unpaid domestic work and lack autonomy in decision-making. Just as problems are interrelated, the solutions to poverty, inequality, climate change and other global challenges are also interlinked. Valuable opportunities exist to accelerate progress by examining interlinkages across Goals. For example, tackling climate change requires a shift to clean energy, reversing the trend in forest loss, and changing our production and consumption patterns. Promoting sustainable agriculture can help reduce both hunger and poverty, since close to 80 per cent of those who are extremely poor live in rural areas. Increasing access to safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene can save millions of lives per year and improve school attendance. Improving proficiency in reading and mathematics of some 200 million children who are falling behind in sub-Saharan Africa will help them climb out of poverty and ultimately enable the region to better compete in the global marketplace. This report also highlights the importance of investing in data for the full implementation of the 2030 Agenda. Most countries do not regularly collect data for more than half of the global indicators. The lack of accurate and timely data on many marginalized groups and individuals makes them “invisible” and exacerbates their vulnerability. While considerable effort has been made to address these data gaps over the past four years, progress has been limited. Increased investment is urgently needed to ensure that adequate data are available to inform decision-making on all aspects of the 2030 Agenda. Towards that end, the Dubai Declaration, launched at the second World Data Forum in October 2018, outlines a demand-driven funding mechanism under Member States’ oversight that will respond quickly and efficiently to the priorities of national statistical systems.
The Sustainable development goals report 2016 Year of publication: 2016 Corporate author: United Nations (UN) This inaugural report on the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is a first accounting of where the world stands at the start of our collective journey to 2030. The report analyses selected indicators from the global indicator framework for which data are available as examples to highlight some critical gaps and challenges. The list of SDG indicators agreed upon by the UN Statistical Commission in March 2016 will be subject to refinements and improvements as methods and data availability improve. Every journey has a beginning and an end. Plotting that journey and establishing key milestones along the way requires accessible, timely and reliable disaggregated data. The data requirements for the global indicators are almost as unprecedented as the SDGs themselves and constitute a tremendous challenge to all countries. Nevertheless, fulfilling these requirements through building national statistical capacity is an essential step in establishing where we are now, charting a way forward and bringing our collective vision closer to reality
The Lazy Person’s Guide to Saving the World Corporate author: United Nations (UN) End extreme poverty. Fight inequality and injustice. Fix climate change. Whoa. The Sustainable Development Goals are important, world-changing objectives that will require cooperation among governments, international organizations and world leaders. It seems impossible that the average person can make an impact. Should you just give up?No! Change starts with you. Seriously. Every human on earth—even the most indifferent, laziest person among us—is part of the solution. Fortunately, there are some super easy things we can adopt into our routines that, if we all do it, will make a big difference.Have a look at just a few of the many things you can do to make an impact!For more information: https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/takeaction/
2017 UN Global Citizenship Education Seminar Year of publication: 2017 Corporate author: United Nations (UN) 2017 UN GCED SeminarThe Role of Global Citizenship Education in the 2030 Agenda and Beyond: How does global citizenship education (SDG Target 4.7) contribute to the values and vision of the United Nations?
Address by Mr Koïchiro Matsuura, Director-General of UNESCO, on the occasion of the Valedictory session of the 4th International Conference on Environmental Education; Ahmedabad, India, 28 November 2007 Year of publication: 2007 Corporate author: UNESCO. Director-General, 1999-2009 (Matsuura, K.) This address was given by Mr Koïchiro Matsuura, Director-General of UNESCO, on the occasion of the Valedictory Session of the 4th International Conference on Environmental Education.
Address by Mr Koïchiro Matsuura, Director-General of UNESCO, on the occasion of the International Forum on ESD dialogue 2008: to be delivered by Mr Mark Richmond, Director of Division for the Coordination of United Nations Priorities in Education Year of publication: 2008 Corporate author: UNESCO. Director-General, 1999-2009 (Matsuura, K.) This address by Mr Koïchiro Matsuura, Director-General of UNESCO, on the occasion of the International Forum on ESD Dialogue 2008 was delivered by Mr Mark Richmond, Director of Division for the Coordination of United Nations Priorities in Education.
Address by Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO on the occasion of the Seminar on Climate Change and Education at the UN University: Responding to Climate Change Starts with Education; Tokyo, 26 November 2010 Year of publication: 2010 Corporate author: UNESCO. Director-General, 1999-2009 (Matsuura, K.) This document is an address of Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO on the occasion of the Seminar on Climate Change and Education at the UN University “Responding to Climate Change Starts with Education” in Tokyo, 26 November 2010. She highlighted the importance of climate change education for the sustainable future and underlined the importance of several programme such as Sandwatch and YouthXchange which have been lead by the UNESCO.
Address by Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO, on the occasion of the Opening of the UNESCO World Conference on Education for Sustainable Development; Aichi-Nagoya, Japan, 10 November 2014 Year of publication: 2014 Author: Irina Bokova Corporate author: UNESCO Director-General, 2009- (Bokova, I.G.) This address by Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO was presented on the occasion of the Opening of the UNESCO World Conference on Education for Sustainable Development.
Address by Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO, on the occasion of Ministerial Breakfast Meeting: Scaling up Action on Education for Sustainable Development; UNESCO, 8 November 2013 Year of publication: 2013 Author: Irina Bokova Corporate author: UNESCO Director-General, 2009- (Bokova, I.G.) This address was given by Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO, on the occasion of Ministerial Breakfast Meeting "Scaling up Action on Education for Sustainable Development." 