Watch out – Upcoming activities around the UN & the SDGs
While 2020 has been so far a challenging year for all of us, it also marks the 75th anniversary of the UN, the 20th anniversary of the UN Global Compact and the 5th anniversary of the Agenda 2030. September and October will therefore be special months hosting a series of events organised by the UN, the Global Taskforce of UCLG, together with PLATFORMA partners and CEMR members.
Here are a series of ongoing and upcoming activities… and some that have already taken place (in case you missed them).
18-25 September: VVSG’s third edition of the ‘Week of the Sustainable Municipality’ took off! 92 Flemish municipalities are participating in this year’s campaign! The website www.duurzamegemeente.be (only in Dutch) shows a list of all participating municipalities, their heroes (by municipality and by SDG) and their planned activities. The campaign week will end with a joint moment in which the SDG-flag is raised at all city halls on September 25th.
VVSG encourages participants to have special attention for heroes who have a sustainable impact not only in their community but also in the global south. Most of these heroes are marked with SDG 17 (for example these heroes in Diksmuide, Kasterlee, Ternat…) but also under the other SDGs, there are heroes with a global link (for example these heroes in Wachtebeke, Turnhout, Edegem…).
18-26 September: The 2020 Global Week to Act4SDGs is a joint call to action for everyone – leaders, citizens, organizations and institutions – to commit to make this a Turning Point for People and Planet and put the Goals at the heart of their recovery plans, to use the next ten years to deliver all the Sustainable Development Goals, together. Visit act4sdgs.org, find the campaign materials here and check out the global map of actions 2020.
25 September : Fons Mallorqui is organising a webinar on the Sustainable Development Goals and the 5 years of the 2030 Agenda! Speakers confirmed include Carlos Berrozpe García, Head of Sector for the Global dimension of SDG implementation at DG DEVCO, José Hila, Mayor of Palma, Pilar Diaz, Deputy Councillor of International Relations of the Province of Barcelona and Miguel Angel Morcillo, Responsable of monitoring, evaluation and reporting at the Covenant of Mayors Brussels for Climate and Energy. The meeting will be held in Spanish and web streamed on https://www.facebook.com/FonsMallorqui . Don’t hesitate to follow the debate! Contact Vanesa for more information.
1 October: UN Women high level event to celebrate 25th anniversary of the Beijing Platform for Action – more information coming soon.
5 October: FAMSI will organise a session on the occasion of the European Week of Regions and Cities on “How sub-national authorities act to transform and galvanise their societies and practices localising and raising awareness about SDGs” – this session will be held virtually and will take place on 5 October from 14H30 to 16H00. PLATFORMA’s Lur Fernandez will be speaking! The workshop will welcome an exchange with other LRGs and stakeholders on how to localise SDGs in local public policies and the role of education for sustainable development in promoting SDGs in their territories. Click here for more information on the session and registration.
8 October: Joint high-level event on UN 75 organised by UCLG with the UN – more information coming soon. PLATFORMA partners and CEMR members who are interested to take part to this session can contact Sarah Bentz and Martin Revault.
21 October: PLATFORMA, together with CEMR, the Committee of the Regions (CoR), Regions4 and Eurocities are organising a session on the occasion of the European Week of Regions and Cities (EWRC). The session will focus on “The role of the SDGs in the crisis recovery” and will take place on Wednesday 21 October from 11h30 to 13h00. PLATFORMA and CEMR Spokesperson on SDGs, Councillor Tine Soens from Kortrijk (Belgium) and Mindaugas Sinkevicius, Mayor of Jonava municipality, President of the Association of Local Authorities in Lithuania (ALAL) will be speaking ! Click here for more information on the session and registration.
Have you missed these events? Watch the recordings!
18 September : The Political Declaration of the SDG Summit in September 2019 requested the UN Secretary-General to organize an annual moment in the context of the general debate of the General Assembly to highlight inspiring SDG Action. The first SDG Moment convened virtually on 18 September 2020, with a focus on identifying changes needed to recover better from COVID-19 and deliver the SDGs over the next decade. You can watch the recording of the SDG moment 2020 here and read more about it here.
21 September: The United Nations 75th Anniversary: A model UN for a Model World. On this occasion, the UN organised a livestreamed high-level event on Facebook – Leaders adopted a Declaration agreed last July among Member-States. The celebration gathered only the UN Secretary-General, the 193 Ambassadors to the UN, plus some representatives from the youth constituency in the UN Headquarters.
21 September: The Global Taskforce of local and regional governments released its report on UN 75 through an online campaign. Discover the interactive presentation (with infographics and videos) and read the full report. Also look at UCLG/GTF social media channels and retweet the messages!
2 September: UN SDG Action campaign together with UCLG and the GTF streamed a session on “New Pathways: Cities leading the way”. Mayor Wobine Buijs-Glaudemans from the city of Oss in the Netherlands (VNG International) was one of the speakers! More information can be found here.
More info:
Check the discussions on social media with #UN75 #Listen2Cities #UNGA and #LocalizingSDGs
Please contact Sarah Bentz if you are organising anything that isn’t yet in this list.
