An international group of weather presenters on Tuesday, June 27, 2017 formally launched an organisation called “Climate Without Borders” in Brussels, Belgium. The new body is designed to connect, equip and empower other weather presenters around the world to accurately report and inform audiences about climate science and climate action.
Weather presenters with officials of the UNFCCC, WMO and IPCC at the launch in Brussels
The new group is supported by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
“Weather forecasters can deliver information, complex data, evidence and facts about climate change in an accessible way. And they are amongst the most trusted communicators on climate change. They therefore have significant potential to influence the public opinion about climate action,” said Climate Without Borders founder Jill Peeters, who works as weather presenter for the Belgian TV channel VTM.
No fewer than 25 weather presenters who collectively reach around 375 million people on traditional news and social media gathered for the launch of the new group in Brussels, which was also attended by the Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC, Patricia Espinosa. She called on the weather presenters to be strong voices in the critical era of the implementation of the Paris Climate Change Agreement.
She said: “I applaud the launch of this exciting new initiative. People need to understand how climate change affects them – they need to know the difference between limiting the global average temperature rise to less than two degrees Celsius, which is the central goal agreed in Paris in 2015, and runaway warming of four, five or six degrees Celsius.
“And they have to understand how they can be part of keeping warming to the safer level outlined in the Paris Agreement. Weather presenters have a major potential to reach people and help build up this understanding.”
Ms. Espinosa also encouraged the weather presenters to report on how countries are fulfilling their national climate action plans under the Paris Agreement, the so-called “Nationally Determined Contributions” or “NDCs”.
The new group intends to encourage weather presenters around the world to not only talk about the growing number of extreme weather events as impacts of climate change, but also about the many economic opportunities that arise from rapidly implementing the Paris Climate Change Agreement and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
This includes increased research, innovation and clean energy entrepreneurship. For example, notes Espinosa, weather presenters can set out the solar and wind energy generation potential for their respective countries and regions on any given day as part of their forecasts.
“This is already happening in countries such a Belgium and Portugal.”
The idea for Climate Without Borders was born after the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris in 2015, at which the Paris Agreement was clinched. Over the last two years, more than 130 weather presenters from 110 countries, from all five continents of the world have been exchanging information in a closed online group.
The new network intends to create a public-facing weather and climate digital platform to exchange information on weather, extreme events, climate change, policy and action. It also aims to set up a wide variety of local and national educational, cultural and art projects in cooperation with schools, institutions, governments and the private sector.
Over the next years, Climate Without Borders will organise regional “boot camps” to help more weather presenters to raise climate awareness and promote the transition to a sustainable, low-carbon society. Leading weather presenters plan to attend the UN Climate Change Conferences in Bonn, Germany in November of this year (COP23) and the UN Climate Change Conference in Katowice, Poland in 2018 (COP24).
The Green Climate Fund (GCF) has disbursed $296,000 to Vanuatu to increase this vulnerable island country’s capacity to access climate finance.
Charlot Salwai, Prime Minister of Vanuatu
The transfer of these funds is part of GCF’s readiness support, which assists developing countries ensure the climate finance they receive matches their own development needs.
GCF is working with its delivery partner the Global Green Growth Institute, a Korean-based international organisation, to assist Vanuatu set up procedures to more easily access GCF finance.
The Small Island Developing State is one of the most vulnerable countries to disasters which can be exacerbated by climate change, including cyclones, storm surges, landslides, floods and droughts.
The Government of Vanuatu has stated it is moving to integrate climate change and disaster risk reduction more closely in its efforts to progress national development.
At the end of last year, GCF approved a $23 million funding proposal to expand the use of Climate Information Services (CIS) in Vanuatu to help achieve this aim.
The herbicide glyphosate, the main ingredient in Monsanto’s weed killer Roundup, will be classified by California as a carcinogen, “known to the state to cause cancer.” The state’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment reported the news on Monday, June 26, 2017 although it will officially take effect July 7.
A farm is treated with a weed-killer
Monsanto sued the state earlier this year to prevent the listing, but lost. However, the St. Louis-based company is appealing the ruling, which forces Monsanto, and any other company using glyphosate, to issue a warning label on packaging. The state environmental office told Reuters that Monsanto has not been granted a stay so the listing will go ahead next month despite the appeal.
“This is not the final step in the process, and it has no bearing on the merits of the case,” said Scott Partridge, Monsanto’s vice president of global strategy, in an email. “We will continue to aggressively challenge this improper decision.” He added that the listing is “unwarranted on the basis of science and the law.”
In March 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) – part of the World Health Organisation (WHO) – classified glyphosate as a “probable carcinogen.” That ruling has been controversial, to say the least, and is the basis for California’s actions.
A Reuters investigation published earlier this month has raised question about the classification, however. That piece shows that Aaron Blair, the head of the IARC’s glyphosate research group, had access to data from a large study (which hadn’t yet been published) suggesting that the weed killer likely wasn’t linked to cancer. That study notwithstanding, numerouspapers published as of March 2015 (and since) do seem to suggest a link a link between glyphosate and certain cancers, and IARC has said it’s sticking with its classification.
California is required under the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, better known as Proposition 65, to publish a regularly updated list of chemicals thought to cause cancer or birth defects.
“California’s decision makes it the national leader in protecting people from cancer-causing pesticides,” said Nathan Donley, a former cancer researcher and senior scientist at the Centre for Biological Diversity, an environmental group, in an emailed statement. “The U.S. EPA now needs to step up and acknowledge that the world’s most transparent and science-based assessment has linked glyphosate to cancer.
The African Academy of Sciences (AAS) on Tuesday, June 27, 2017 inaugurated a new Governing Council (GC) led by prominent scientist, Prof Felix Dapare Dakora, became President of the Academy for a three-year term running from 2017-2020.
Prof Felix Dapare Dakora, President, African Academy of Sciences (AAS)
The 15-member GC, which comprises seven new members, four re-elected members, a member elected to a new post, the immediate past president, a retained member, and the Executive Director who is an ex-officio member, will serve a three-year term running from 2017-2020.
Prof Dakora, A Ghanaian, replaces Prof Aderemi Kuku, a Nigeria-born mathematician who was President from 2014 to 2017.
The new President is a Professor of plant and soil biotechnology at South Africa’s Tshwane University of Technology; a recipient of the UNESCO-Equatorial Guinea International Prize for Research in the Life Sciences and the African Union Kwame Nkrumah Scientific Award; and a Fellow of the Academy of Science of South Africa.
“This new leadership will steer the Academy to even greater heights in its mission of developing science, technology and innovation in Africa,” said AAS Interim Executive Director, Dr Thomas Kariuki. “We will work with them to elevate the Academy and to contribute to Africa’s development.”
The Governing Council meets twice a year and are tasked with policy oversight, formulating and reviewing the programmes of the Academy within the framework and priorities set by the AAS General Assembly of Fellows. The GC receives and approves the annual reports and audited financial accounts of the Academy; and identifies, approves and inducts new members into the fellowship of the Academy.
Prof Dakora said: “I am honoured to have been elected as President and look forward to working with the Secretariat and Fellows to drive the agenda of the Academy and science in Africa forward. “It will take our collective efforts to ensure that science is harnessed to improve the lives of Africa’s people and contributes to socio-economic development.”
The GC members are prominent scientists who the the AAS says bring a wealth of experience to the organisation. They and are from Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda, the Republic of the Congo, the Republic of South Africa, and Zimbabwe.
The Governing Council comprises:
New members
President: Felix Dapare Dakora (Plant and Soil Biotechnology Professor at the Tshwane University of Technology in Pretoria, South Africa)
Secretary General: Barthelemy Nyasse (Chemistry and Research Methodology Professor at the University of Yaoundé I, Cameroon)
Vice President E. Africa: Elly Sabiiti (Crop Sciences Professor at the Makerere University, Uganda)
Regional Rep C. Africa: Juma Shabani (Professor of Theoretical and Mathematical Physics, University of Burundi)
Regional Rep E. Africa: Theonest K. Mutabingwa (Professor, Department of Community Medicine, Hubert Kairuki Memorial University, Dar-es-Salaam)
Regional Rep N. Africa: Akissa Bahri (Professor at the National Agricultural Institute of Tunisia)
Regional Rep S. Africa: Colleen Masimirembwa (Founding President and Chief Scientific Officer African Institute of Biomedical Science & Technology (AiBST) Wilkins Hospital, Zimbabwe)
Re-elected members
Vice President C. Africa: Vincent P.K Titanji (Vice Chancellor and CEO of the Cameroon Christian University, Cameroon)
Vice President N. Africa: Mahmoud Abdel-Aty (Head of the Mathematics Department at the Zewail City of Sciences and Technology, Egypt)
Vice President W. Africa: Robert Guiguemdé (President of the National Academy of Sciences of Burkina Faso)
Regional Rep W. Africa: Richard Awuah (Professor, plant pathology, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana)
Elected to a new post
Vice President S.Africa: Boitumelo Kgarebe (Head of the Analytical Services Division at the National Institute for Occupational Health (NIOH), South Africa). Kgarebe was Regional Rep for Southern Africa in the outgoing GC.
Retained post
Treasurer: Dominic W. Makawiti (Biochemistry Professor at the University of Nairobi, Kenya). Makawiti was appointed to the GC as Acting Treasurer in 2016.
Aderemi Kuku (Distinguished Professor of Mathematics, National Mathematical Centre, Abuja, Nigeria) will sit in the Governing Council as immediate Past President.
The AAS is a pan African organisation headquartered in Kenya, which aims to drive sustainable development in Africa through science technology and innovation.
It has a tripartite mandate of:
Pursuing excellence by recognising scholars and achievers;
Providing advisory and think tank functions for shaping the continent’s strategies and policies; and,
Implementing key science, technology and innovation programmes that impact on developmental challenges through the new agenda setting and funding platform, the Alliance for Accelerating Excellence in Science in Africa (AESA).
Energy ministers and high-level representatives from 24 countries and the European Commission who met in Beijing, China from Tuesday, June 6 to Thursday, June 8, 2017 for the eighth Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM8) meeting, reviewed the latest advances in clean energy technology and discuss how to advance the global clean energy transition.
Energy ministers and representatives at the CEM8 in Beijing, China
“CEM is becoming a leading international cooperation platform for clean energy development and deployment responding to global challenges,” said Minister Wan Gang of China.
CEM members were joined by representatives from a number of prominent international organisations in the energy sphere, such as the International Energy Agency (IEA), the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the International Partnership for Energy Efficiency Cooperation (IPEEC), World Energy Council, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO), Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL), and over 600 representatives from the private sector and industry.
The primary goal of the CEM8 meeting was to launch a new era of “shared global leadership” for the CEM. CEM members were called upon to pledge their participation and leadership of CEM activities. A stronger multilateral approach is at the heart of the CEM 2.0 vision launched at the sixth Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM6) in Mexico in 2015. The Beijing, according to the organisers, meeting marks a new phase of activity for the CEM, characterised by increasingly shared global leadership in clean energy.
Ministers and heads of delegation took the opportunity to announce more ambitious goals for the CEM’s work in the area of electric vehicles (EV30@30), urban energy systems, buildings efficiency, and advanced power plant flexibility (APPF). These topics will be the focus of intensive, targeted activities over the coming year, it was gathered.
CEM members also explored new areas for the CEM to focus on in the future. These discussions were inspired by a wide range of side events which took place in the margins of the ministerial meeting. Suggestions varied according to the respective priorities of CEM members.
Ministers and heads of delegation also exchanged views with global business leaders, energy experts from industry, academia, and international organisations in four public-private roundtable discussions.
Looking ahead, CEM members reflected on emerging energy trends and the strategic implications of the ‘shared global leadership’ model. They recognised the opportunity to further streamline, enhance, and strengthen the work of the CEM with the support of the newly established, multilateral CEM Secretariat based at the IEA in Paris.
These will be important topics at upcoming CEM meetings, which will be jointly hosted by the European Commission, Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden in 2018 (ninth Clean Energy Ministerial/CEM9) and Canada in 2019 (tenth Clean Energy Ministerial/CEM10).
The CEM is said to be the only annual meeting of energy ministers dedicated to clean energy supported by year-round work streams which span energy supply, energy demand, energy systems, and cross-cutting issues.
CEM members currently account for approximately 90% of global energy investments and 75% of global greenhouse gas emissions who have prioritised clean energy advancement and participate on a voluntary basis to achieve this goal.
Manchester United manager, José Mourinho, on Tuesday, June 27, 2017 buried his father, former Portugal goalkeeper José Manuel Mourinho Felix, who died at the age of 79.
José Mourinho with undertakers during the burial
Mourinho was surrounded by fans and family members as he attended church service with his father’s coffin in his home town of Setubal in Portugal.
The coffin, which was draped in the flag of Felix childhood club, Setubal Victoria, saw José heartbroken.
It is believed that Felix passed away on Sunday, 45 years to the day of his first and only appearance for his country.
He coached his youngest child José during the now Manchester United boss’ early playing days, inspiring Mourinho Jnr to become one of the greatest football managers in history.
“My father was a good manager. He was in the Portugal Premier League eight or nine years, he was champion of the championship there four times, so he was a good manager in that generation,” José explained.
Felix Mourinho managed several clubs in his native Portugal, winning the Portuguese second division on four occasions in a career which saw him take charge at the clubs, including Rio Are, Belenenses and Victoria Setubal.
He made one appearance for his country as a goalkeeper, coming on as a substitute for the last few minutes of a game against Ireland on June 25, 1972.
Portuguese club, Victoria Setubal, who Mourinho Felix played for and managed during his career from 1968 to 1974, had confirmed the news in a statement, regretting the death of its former player, coach and director.
“We express our solidarity and deepest condolences to the bereaved family, friends, especially his wife and son, José Mourinho.”
Seeds and fertiliser for more than one million people are being distributed by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in north-eastern Nigeria for the planting season that began in June, 2017. It is part of efforts, led by the Federal Government, to restore livelihoods and combat critical levels of food insecurity and malnutrition in areas affected by Boko Haram violence.
FAO Country Representative, Nourou Macki Tall
The emergency distributions come as Germany contributes €4 million ($4.5 million) to alleviate food insecurity in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states – the largest contribution FAO has received so far for the Nigeria operation. The funds will support FAO’s work to further improve agricultural production and safeguard the livestock assets of vulnerable people affected by the violence including displaced people, refugees and host communities.
“Investing in agricultural assistance today will provide food for tomorrow; and can ensure people have a source of food even when they are cut off from other forms of humanitarian aid,” said FAO Country Representative ad interim, Nourou Macki Tall.
Agricultural support is critical
The FAO operation is providing around 2,000 tons of cereal, pulse and vegetable seeds and 3 500 tons of fertilisers to vulnerable farmers in 46 Local Government Areas, reaching 1.1 million people. Those taking part have access to land, so sufficient agricultural support is critical to enable them to benefit from the coming rainy season.
“Eighty per cent of the people in the area are farmers, and need support to return back to their farms,” said Alhaji Maina Gana, chairman of the Fune Local Government Area in Yobe State.
The World Food Programme provides food rations to the beneficiaries of FAO’s kit to protect seeds from direct consumption. This ensures immediate hunger needs are addressed while also enabling a future harvest. FAO is also working with the Government and national and international non-government organisations.
High levels of food insecurity
Around 5.2 million people are struggling with high levels of food insecurity in the three states and require immediate and enhanced support.
The critical planting season intervention is possible thanks to the governments of Belgium, France, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States of America as well as the European Commission (ECHO) and the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF).
For 2017, FAO is requesting $62 million under the Humanitarian Response Plan for Nigeria and the FAO Lake Chad Response Strategy. Additional support is urgently needed to reach the millions in need in the coming months, including to protect livestock assets, strengthen livelihoods, rehabilitate infrastructure and support food security coordination and analysis.
Santiago’s metro system – which transports approximately 2.4 million passengers each day – will become one of the first subways in the world to source most of its power needs from renewable energy.
Chile’s Santiago metro system
Next year, Latin America’s second largest subway system, will source 60 per cent of its energy from solar and wind projects.
In a statement, Metro de Santiago said that it had signed two 15-year agreements, one with a solar energy provider, and another with a wind power company.
According to The Wall Street Journal, California-based SunPower’s will supply 42 per cent of the subway system’s power with a 100-megawatt (MW) solar plant using 254,000 panels covering an area the size of 370 football fields, located in northern Chile’s Atacama Desert.
The remaining 18 per cent will be provided by a recently developed wind farm located just north of the SunPower solar project, The Wall Street Journal said.
Metro de Santiago is one of the capital’s biggest energy consumers.
The transition of the majority of the Chilean capital’s metro system power demand to renewable energy therefore marks a significant step towards the country’s climate action targets.
By 2050, renewables are expected to provide 70 per cent of the Chile’s electricity needs, up from 15 per cent in March 2017.
Last year, a number of renewable energy developers won contracts in Chile’s largest-ever auction to supply power to the country’s northern and central electricity grids.
Chile’s President, Michelle Bachelet, applauded the initiative, stating that the transition to renewable energy sources would generate enough power for the equivalent of 100,000 homes and reduce Chile’s CO2 emissions by around 130,000 tonnes each year.
Furthermore, according to experts, the metro system has the capacity to further increase its use of renewable energy in the network’s power mix through the installation of solar panels on the roofs of its stations and alongside its 20 miles of overground track.
Jorge Amaya, a Researcher at the University of Chile’s Centre for Mathematical Modeling, reportedly said that this would further cut costs and reduce emissions by about 18 per cent.
The UK is investigating the feasibility of installing solar panels along tracks to power the nation’s electric trains.
According to plans laid out in India’s union budget, almost every railway station in the country will soon be powered by solar.
Melbourne’s tram network will become entirely powered by solar energy under a new proposal by the Andrews government to build large-scale solar farms in northern Victoria.
The news follows the announcement that the world’s first zero-emission hydrogen train has successfully completed its first trial in Germany.
The acceptance by President Nana Addo Danquah Akuffo Addo of Ghana to chair the national High Level Inter-ministerial Committee on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has been described as a move that has given the needed political backing to the implementation of the global goals in the country.
President Nana Addo Danquah Akuffo Addo of Ghana
And, to further demonstrate his commitment to this move, the President has assigned an official to regularly update him on the SDGs.
“This is good news indicating that the SDGs have been accepted politically and so we’re looking forward to leveraging more support from government,” says Dr. Felix Addo-Yobo, Deputy Director in-charge of Environmental Policy at the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC).
He was addressing the annual meeting on Tuesday June 20, 2017 in Accra, of the Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) Platform on SDGs organised by CARE International, which is the SDG Focal Point for International NGOs in Ghana.
The CSOs Platform is of the view that Ghana has attained significant progress in including the SDGs in development planning and data collection. The Platform has noted that the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) has made important first steps in ensuring a more open and inclusive data environment in Ghana, with focus on timely and reliable data. The National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) is also integrating the goals into the future planned national development plans.
Briefing the meeting, on the Status of the Implementation of the SDGs in Ghana, Dr. Addo-Yobo said as the lead institution, the NDPC adopted an approach that utilised existing institutional arrangements to which were added a few new ones, to constitute the base for implementing the SDGs.
These include the High Level Inter-Ministerial Coordinating Committee chaired by the President to provide strategic guidance; the National Implementation Coordinating Committee made up of representatives of public institutions and key civil society organisations to provide strategic directions for implementing activities; and the National Technical Steering Committee with members drawn from other relevant institutions, to support the work of other committees.
The other aspect of the implementation arrangements involve working within the decentralised planning system of the metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies to incorporate the targets of the SDGs into their activities on one hand; and on the other collaborating with non-state actors, particularly the corporate and business sector as well as civil society organisations.
Monitoring and reporting is another key component of the institutional arrangement to keep track of the nation’s performance in implementing the SDGs.
Dr. Addo-Yobo said the strategy utilised in localising the process has been to align and adopt SDG targets to the local context, then adapt and incorporate them into national and district development plans, and subsequently to report on the progress.
In reporting on where Ghana is in delivering the SDGs, he observed that that may be difficult to do, because activities have been focused on developing the structures and systems to facilitate implementation.
“Therefore, the impact in establishing the values in relation to actual attainment of SDGs, are difficult to quantify and report on at this stage,” Dr. Addo-Yobo added.
He said “70 percent of the SDGs are already aligned in the Ghana Shared Growth Development Agenda (GSGDA) II 2014 – 2017, while, at the metropolitan, municipal and district levels, the targets are being aligned where gaps have been identified.”
Dr. Addo-Yobo announced that GSGDA II will expire at the end of this year and hinted that “a new draft GSGDA is ready for further discussions and consultations.” On the next steps, he hinted that “the current focus is to finish the new development agenda by the end of this month, which is just a few days from now.”
He mentioned other next steps as including training and raising awareness through the civil society platform; strengthening planning, data collection and reporting at all levels with the aim of improving the content of information being turned out; developing a National Data Base on SDGs to share knowledge; and mobilising resources through innovative ways to implement the SDGS.
With regards to monitoring the SDGs, Ghana is following procedures of the Inter-Agency Expert Group on the SDG Indicators (IAEG-SDG), established by the United Nations Statistical Commission in March last year, to develop indicator framework for monitoring the goals and targets of the SDGs.
Accordingly, the IAEG-SDG has classified the 230 targets of the goals into three tiers to ensure simple and practical monitoring. Tier 1 is made up of targets that are conceptually clear, have established methodology and standards available, with data regularly produced by countries. Tier 2 is made up of those indicators that have all the elements of Tier 1, but data is not regularly produced by countries and Tier 3 consists of the indicators for which an internationally agreed methodology has not yet been developed.
The Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) is the state institution mandated to develop the Data Ecosystem for SDGs Monitoring in the country. An official of the GSS, Omar Seidu, who was also at the CSOs meeting, said that, as at December 2016, 155 indicators have been highlighted in the framework for Tier 1, Tier 2 and the multiple indicators.
He said Ghana currently produces data on 62 indicators, many of which are inherited indicators from the MDGs, and that there also exists some data with limitations, which if strengthened could be used as data for additional 63 indicators. What this means is that the country is for now not producing data on 30 indicators.
Mr. Seidu explained that, of the indicators for which data is available, administrative sources provide the highest volume of data, followed by that from censuses and surveys and the least data provider is from the combination of census and survey, and administrative sources.
He said this indicates the need to invest in administrative data and highlights the key role censuses and surveys will continue to play in the nation’s data regime, while proving the need to explore new sources and types of data.
Mr. Omar mentioned several efforts that have been made towards building Ghana’s Data Ecosystem. These include concluded discussions with the Office of the USA Chief Statistician, for Ghana to clone and customise USA’s National Reporting Platform for SDG indicator tracking. There is also on-going discussions with the UN Global Pulse Kampala Lab to use satellite imagery in poverty estimation, a move in which Hewlett and World Bank have shown interest. Additionally, the GSS has begun discussions with the Office of the National Statistics (UK) on a DFID funded project to build capacity on data science in Ghana.
Members of the CSO Platform on SDGs welcomed the progress made on the data ecosystem and additional moves being made to strengthen it. But they were also concerned about the implications of the outcome of some of the moves and queried them.
For instance, they wondered who the eventual owner will be of Ghana’s National Reporting Platform that is to be cloned from that of the USA. They also questioned the credibility of data from administrative sources and inferably if there is need to invest in that area. The representative of the Disability Group was particularly concerned about how this group is captured in national data in terms of numbers and definition.
Some of the members wanted to know how detailed the data captured will be and questioned if the data could be disaggregated enough to, for example, provide absolute information on the exact hectares of land degraded by galamsey or illegal mining.
The formation of the CSO Platform on the SDGs in 2015 formed part of global and national processes towards the evolvement of the SDGs, which officially came into force in January 2016, replacing the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which formerly ended in 2015. Since then, nations have been addressing the core elements of translating the goals into national development agendas.
These core elements are identifying effective partnership schemes, mainstreaming SDGs at the national level through development strategies, and developing an accountability mechanism. To this end, governments, civil society and the private sector, have within this one and a half year period, been preparing the grounds and laying the needed sound foundation.
Nations started this process with the formation of coalitions and collaborative arrangements to identify and align their strategies, and measure and manage their contributions for the attainment of the SDGs.
This is to ensure that related activities are rolled out on schedule towards the realisation of the goals within the rest of the 13 and a half years left to the 2030 deadline set for the SDGs to end.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has welcomed Achim Steiner as he begins a four-year term as Administrator of the organisation.
UNDP Administrator, Achim Steiner. Photo credit: David Fisher/Oxford Martin School
Mr. Steiner’s appointment as the new head of the UN’s lead development agency was confirmed by the UN General Assembly last April, following his nomination by Secretary-General, António Guterres.
The UNDP works in some 170 countries and territories across the world to help them eradicate extreme poverty, strengthen good governance, and prevent and respond to crises.
Steiner, former head of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), will also chair the UN Development Group, which unites the 32 UN funds, programmes, specialised agencies and other bodies that work to support sustainable development.
Speaking after the confirmation of his nomination, Steiner said he was honoured by the Secretary-General’s decision to appoint him as the next Administrator of UNDP, and grateful for the trust and confidence that Member States had expressed in the General Assembly.
“I very much look forward to working with all UNDP staff and UN Member States to continue the fight to end poverty, protect the planet, and promote peace and justice around the world,” he said.
Steiner brings more than three decades of leadership experience in global development issues and international cooperation. He has been described as a passionate advocate for the Sustainable Development Goals and the need for unprecedented global cooperation to deliver on the ambitious agenda.
