The 75^th session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA 75) will mark the 75^th anniversary of the United Nations with a one-day high-level meeting on September 21 under the theme “The Future We Want, the UN We Need: Reaffirming our Collective Commitment to Multilateralism.”

The 75^th anniversary of the UN comes at a time of great disruption for the world, aggravated by an unprecedented global health crisis with severe economic and social impacts. The COVID19 pandemic has reminded us that there is an urgency to enhance cooperation within and between countries, sectors, and generations. Our collective response will determine how sustainable will be our recovery. Global dialogue and action are now more urgent than ever, and the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals must be our roadmap to build and secure a better future for all.

The negotiations of the Declaration to be formally adopted at the meeting have been concluded and the draft can be read here.

Parallel events

SDG Moment

In the framework of the UN General Assembly, the UN Secretary General will convene the first SDG Moment on September 18 at 8:00 am EST (tbc). This meeting will serve to kick-start the Decade of Action by engaging Heads of State and Government as well as leading SDG stakeholders around the critical actions that must be taken to recover better and accelerate SDG implementation to deliver by 2030. Particular emphasis will be placed on poverty and inequality; on climate change and a healthy planet; and gender equality while cross-cutting issues such as finance, governance and technology will be discussed throughout.

The virtual SDG Moment will be complemented by a fully virtual UN SDG Action Zone. It will be held on September 22-24 and will provide a space for multi-stakeholder engagement through big picture discussions, deep dive dialogues, challenging discussions, and inspiring showcases. The full programme is now available for consultation here.

Registration for the SDG Action Zone is now open and available at SDGActionZone.org

Global Week to #ACT4SDGs

The #ACT4SDGs movement is a global call to people and organizations everywhere to act for the Sustainable Development Goals, the roadmap that is needed for a just, equal and sustainable recovery from the current crisis.

This September 18-26 while world leaders meet virtually at the UN General Assembly, join millions of people and organizations everywhere to take action for the Goals and to demand governments stick to the plan.

To join the global movement, Regions4 is launching the #RegionsVoice campaign with the aim to share regional governments actions, messages and inputs regarding one or more of the following themes:

1. Achieving the SDGs for a sustainable, inclusive and resilient recovery
2. The Future We Want, the UN We Need: Reaffirming our Collective Commitment to Multilateralism – confronting COVID-19 through effective multilateral action
3. UN75: the role of local and regional governments in the future global governance

We encourage all of our members and other regions to join us and tell the world what your government is doing to #ACT4SDGs by sharing your views with us at info@regions4.org until 11 September.

Biodiversity Summit

The Biodiversity Summit will be held on September 30 and convened by the President of the UN General Assembly under the theme “Urgent Action on Biodiversity for Sustainable Development” with the support of the CBD Secretariat and UNEP.

The Summit will provide a unique opportunity to demonstrate ambition to accelerate action on biodiversity for sustainable development, and thereby give momentum to the development and eventual adoption of an effective post-2020 global biodiversity framework at the COP 15. Further details will be available soon.

Have your say

On January 2020 the UN launched the global dialogue initiative to provide views, concerns and ideas on what should be the priority themes of actions towards 2045. This will be presented to world leaders and senior UN officials at the official commemoration of the 75th Anniversary. You can have your say by completing the one-minute survey here.

Regions4 joined the Global Taskforce of Local and Regional governments Visioning Report in which local and regional leaders from all over the world provided their visions, their hopes and expectations for how the world will look like in 2045, and how multilateralism will have changed in order to meet this vision.

Regions4 shared their vision for shaping the future raising the voice of regional governments as essential leaders for co-governance and global cooperation, as they are key for the deployment of the international agendas and global goals.