Business Engagement at the UN’s High-Level Political Forum on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

The High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) was held from July 11th- 20th at United Nations Headquarters in New York City.  The Forum serves as a platform to review country, major groups and other stakeholders’ progress on attaining the Sustainable Development Goals.

Key themes emphasized throughout diverse HLPF meetings and side-events included building the capacities of governments and local institutions to enable coherent data collection to aid policy-making initiatives that create an enabling environment for politically, environmentally, socially, and economically inclusive societies that leave no one behind.  Additionally, during the General Debate among Member States, several countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, and Myanmar, noted that corporate social responsibility, national ownership, and sustained, effective partnerships that address the root causes of issues such as poverty need to be harnessed to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).  Below, we highlight how these themes were elaborated upon in various HLPF meetings and side events, with a particular focus on the role of business.

Partnership Exchange

The Partnership Exchange was organized by the Division for Sustainable Development of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN-DESA), in cooperation with the United Nations Office for Partnerships (UNOP).  The theme of this event was supporting the SDGs through multi-stakeholder partnerships, ensuring that no one is left behind.

The Partnership Exchange featured over 20 partnerships that cover all 17 SDGs.  Some of the initiatives highlighted included:

• The Partnerships for SDGs Online Platform - a repository for multi-stakeholder partnerships hosted by UN-DESA, many of which originate from large international sustainable development conferences pre-dating the 2030 Agenda.  The Platform currently hosts  2,119 Partnerships registered through numerous “Action Networks.” Business for 2030 is the only business-led “Action Network” on the Platform.

• The UN Business Action Hub - designed to accelerate partnerships between the UN and the private sector, this Hub, hosted by the UN Global Compact, is being revitalized to help  achieve the SDGs.  The Hub is a UN-system wide interagency initiative, developed between 2009 and 2010, also pre-dating the SDGs.  The platform currently features 35 active UN entities with more than 450 projects, commitments, and pledges.  The platform is also used to connect the UN and business during emergencies.

• The Multi-Stakeholder Partnership for Enhancing Policy Coherence for Sustainable Development - focused on Target 17.14 (on policy coherence), this platform will host a virtual discussion starting in  September to support  policy makers and key stakeholders who want to formulate, implement, and monitor policy coherence for sustainable development as a key means of implementing the 2030 Agenda.

Furthermore, during the first session, Lise Kingo, the Executive Director of the UN Global Compact, announced the launch of the Partnership Data for SDGs Initiative, which is a joint project of UN-DESA, the UN Global Compact, and the UN Office for Partnerships.  Ms. Kingo noted that “the initiative hopes to bring more transparency, coherence, impact, and comparability to the work carried out through partnerships and voluntary initiatives in support of the SDGs.”

Launch of 2016 OECD Development Co-operation Report  

The OECD hosts the Development Assistance Committee (DAC), the main forum for policy alignment between the world’s donor countries. As part of its work, the OECD annually releases a Development Co-operation Report. This year’s report was launched during the HLPF at an event organized by the United Kingdom Mission to the United Nations, the OECD, and the Mexican Agency for International Development.  The report explores the potential and challenges of investing in developing countries, in particular through social impact investment, blended finance and foreign direct investment, and highlights the challenges in mobilising and measuring private finance to achieve the SDGs The report also provides guidance on responsible business conduct as a key component of implementing the SDGs.  Throughout the report, practical examples illustrate how business is already promoting sustainable development and inclusive growth in developing countries. Part II of the report showcases the profiles and performance of all donor countries, and presents DAC statistics on official and private resource flows.

Louise Kantrow, the International Chamber of Commerce’s Representative to the UN (USCIB’s global partner), spoke on the panel that reflected on the report, which was moderated by the Deputy Secretary General of the OECD, Douglas Frantz of the United States.  USCIB’s Ariel Meyerstein also made an intervention highlighting how the Business for 2030 website has already started the work of measuring business contributions to development cooperation and achieving the SDGs through philanthropic contributions or social impact activity and partnerships by collecting anecdotes of business activity.  But Mr. Meyerstein also noted that we need more formalized recognition by the UN and development actors of how existing corporate reporting frameworks align with the SDG targets and forthcoming indicators, so we can better measure corporate contributions to the SDGs and also identify gaps and opportunities for scaling-up in different sectors, countries and with respect to different Goals.  

This new category of development cooperation has been highlighted in a report by the UN’s ECOSOC Development Cooperation Forum, which points out that this form of development cooperation is poorly understood and that much data gathering and analysis needs to be done to understand it better, but that the evidence suggests that it is growing faster than Official Development Assistance.  Notably, the OECD’s proposed measurement of Total Official Support for Sustainable Development (TOSSD) - which received encouraging support in the Addis Ababa Financing for Development outcome document - would exclude this form of private sector development cooperation because such efforts are not ‘officially supported’ flows, so we still don’t have an agreed way of measuring them.

High-Level Side-Event on Leaving No Country Behind – Sustainable Industrialization and Infrastructure to Support Landlocked Developing Countries (LLDCs)

One of the main takeaways from this event was that opportunities exist in Landlocked Developing Countries (LLDCs) for the private sector to construct and amplify “LLDCs’ productive capacity, export growth, technology transfer, diffusion of productive know-how and skills, employment generation, infrastructure development,” and instituting new markets that encompass high-value added products and services. H.E. Mr. Jan Kickert, the Permanent Representative of Austria to the United Nations, outlined that “the old model of industrialization will not work,” so we need new kinds of industrialization “to achieve Agenda 2030.”  Mr. Kickert highlighted that addressing good governance and rule of law gaps and implementing structural reforms are all critical to attracting foreign direct investment.  To attain sustainable industrialization, Mr. Kickert stressed that sustainable energy is vital, and that LLDCs should pursue partnerships to achieve this objective.

Mr. Bernard Kamphasa, Former Secretary from Zambia, noted that Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) are important in bridging the digital divide, which has also led to a lack of adequate data.  This is a key challenge for LLDCs, he noted, as it pertains to the transportation sector.  Likewise, he observed that regional or sub-regional level challenges include lack of established knowledge sharing mechanisms.  

High-Level Side-Event on Partnerships to End Forced Labour in Global Supply Chains

The High-Level Side-Event on Partnerships to End Forced Labour in Global Supply Chains was co-organized by the Permanent Mission of Argentina, the United States Mission and the International Labour Organization (ILO).  The event focused on a critical aspect of business engagement in the SDGs, namely, doing no harm by ensuring responsible and sustainable sourcing and production practices. The key question addressed by panelists, as stated by Mr. Kevin Cassidy was: “how to ensure that supply chains can be a positive force for quality job creation as well as sustainable and inclusive social and economic development?” More specifically, the event explored “the challenges in supply chains, the responses of the private sector and beyond; the salient challenges in governance; and what guidance programs and initiatives are needed to achieve this goal.”

During her remarks, US Ambassador to ECOSOC Sarah Mendelson underscored that “it was a hard fought victory on including ending human trafficking as part of the SDGs” (Targets 5.2, 8.7, and 16.2 respectively).  Ms. Mendelson emphasized the importance of educating the public about the SDGs, consistent with her belief that “social marketing can change behavior” and that “[b]rand influence can transcend generations and borders and translate policies into effective action.”  Highlighting the scope of human trafficking and forced labor globally cited in the US State Department’s 2016 Trafficking in Persons Report (77, 823 identified victims, and 18,930 prosecutions that contributed to 6,609 convictions; 20.9 million people experience forced labor according to the ILO) she stressed the need for partnerships to combat these violations.

The event served as a launchpad and brain-storming session for such a partnership: the Dignity Partnership to End Forced Labor in Supply Chains, which will be a collaboration by Member States and companies across different sectors to (i) adhere to “The Dignity Partnership Declaration,” a mission statement of the Partnership to be shaped at the event, (ii) develop social marketing campaigns with domestic and international outreach with the goal of making the public, especially youth, aware of the SDG commitments on eradicating human trafficking with a particular focus on supply chains (iii) enforce laws, and enact where necessary, addressing human trafficking (iv) agree to report instances of human trafficking to appropriate national authorities, and (v) engage in peer-to-peer, B2B, learning on best practices.

The 2016 SDG Business Forum - A Recap

The High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development held from July 11-20 2016 at United Nations Headquarters in New York is an annual platform for reviewing progress and guiding global efforts on the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.  During the first HLPF oriented towards the SDGs, the global business community was present in a very substantial way, organizing an SDG Business Forum to share business efforts already under way during the first year of SDG implementation  The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and the UN Global Compact were the lead organisers of the SDG Business Forum along with the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs and the ICC-led Global Business Alliance for 2030.

Business for 2030 helped curate one of the day’s sessions, which featured a 17 person ‘rapid fire’ review of 17 different business people addressing each SDG.  Below are key points and outcomes from a few of the SDG Business Forum’s sessions.

High-Level Welcome Plenary

H.E. Mr. Thomas Gass, Assistant Secretary-General, Policy Coordination & Inter-Agency Affairs, UN Department of Economic & Social Affairs, stated that “the 2030 Agenda is the product of a transparent, inclusive, and participatory process,” that the spirit of shared ownership must live on, and that stakeholders must feel the agenda is theirs to implement.  Additionally, Mr. Gass noted that diverse partnerships must be formed for the implementation of the SDGs and that there is a great opportunity to build partnerships across businesses.  

Carolyn Miles, CEO, Save the Children, highlighted the work her organization has completed in collaboration with the private sector.  For instance, in 2012, Save the Children worked with UNICEF on developing a framework for the rights of children in business “UNICEF’s Children’s Rights and Business Principles.”  Ms. Miles noted that the launch of the SDGs allows Save The Children to pair private profits with public good through partnerships with, companies such as GlaxoSmithKline, with whom it has co-developed a heat-stable gel for umbilical chords, which has saved thousands of lives.

Following the opening of the Forum, John Danilovich, the ICC Secretary General and Lise Kingo, the Executive Director of the UN Global Compact, signed a Memorandum of Understanding that formalized many of the ways the two organizations have already been closely collaborating.  The MOU stressed, among other things, the need to enhance UN engagement with business around the SDGs and the potential for further increasing business and industry engagement in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda.

Session 1: Business for Agenda 2030

In a series of rapid fire presentations, business representatives highlighted examples of what they are doing to implement each SDG and move Agenda 2030 forward.  Click here for a brief recap of all 17 presentations.  Most of the initiatives are now also featured on the Business for 2030 website, created by USCIB, which now has 160 initiatives by 45 companies taking place in over 150 countries that relate to 80 of the 169 SDG targets.  Several USCIB members, including Baker McKenzie, MasterCard, Novozymes, and Pfizer provided case studies during the panel.  The dynamic session was ably moderated by H.E. Mr. Ib Petersen, Ambassador to the UN for Denmark, who kept the diverse interventions from the 17 business speakers and several Member States and others from the floor all within the two-hour time limit, setting, what Mr. Petersen said, must have been a UN-record.

Session 2: Private Sector Investment in the 2030 Agenda: Going from Billions to Trillions

This session analyzed, from a private and public sector viewpoint, how business can be more engaged in defining the policy reform agenda, particularly with respect to anti-corruption, peace and the rule of law, which ultimately can facilitate private sector investments and operations.

Jay Collins, Vice Chairman of Corporate and Investment Banking of USCIB member Citigroup Inc., focused on the importance of measurement in working towards the SDGs: more indicators are needed to help smaller businesses report their progress. Mr. Collins also referred to green bonds as an example of utilizing markets to achieve the SDGs. The green bonds market has blossomed into a $40 billion business, and still has room for improvement. Moreover, Mr. Collins underlined the need for markets to impact multiple SDGs in order to move “billions to trillions.” To target more SDGs, Mr. Collins recommended creating new metrics so that markets can be created around them. Mr. Collins concluded with the remark that partnerships have yielded progress toward multiple SDGs, and should be continued as a result.

Manuel Sager, Director General, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, discussed improving the investment climate, beginning with eliminating corruption. Secondly, Mr. Sager used the example of the Swiss Capacity Building Facility as a way to reduce costs by providing grants for financial service providers in other countries so as to assist the poorer population. Thirdly, Mr. Sager spoke about leveraging private funds through guarantees, derisking, and microfinance. The latter now amounts to over $1 billion in investments, but Mr. Sager warned that one has to be particularly careful with microfinance, as it could cause heavy losses in the job market. Mr. Sager concluded by highlighting the importance of sharing information.

Li Yong, Director General of the United Nations Industrial and Development Organization (UNIDO), spoke about the past success of Private Public Partnerships (PPPs), referring to a repertoire of government partnerships he worked on under UNIDO and in China.  Mr. Yong noted that PPPs are very much a proven method and should be continued. In particular, Mr. Yong cited his experience at the Asian Development Bank (ADB), in which the government’s involvement tripled Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in only one year from $50 billion to $150 billion. Mr. Yong extended this approach under UNIDO through the Programme for Country Partnership (PCP), which created jobs and increased income in many countries.

Session 3:  Private Sector Participation in Partnerships

Florinel Andrei spoke about the success and rapid expansion of the International Arbitration Court for Transport. The initiative offers the global sector of transport a modern resolution instrument for a variety of travel: road, rail, maritime, air, energy, etc... The international arbitration court for transport is a multimodal institution—the court has 25 arbitrators from 12 countries. The organization has worked specifically toward SDGs 8, 9, and 16 (specifically worked on by The International Network of Specialized Arbitration). The heavy expansion of this committee—most recently extending to Spain and Azerbaijan—shows the success.

Joy Marini discussed the involvement of Johnson & Johnson in working toward SDGs 5 and 6 (on a commitment made in 2010). They have reached 400 million women and children since then. All these people have been reached through partnerships. J&J has over 500 partnerships, many of which are public/private. Survive and Thrive has been a partnership that has trained 300k health workers in the last 5 years. Survive and Thrive had started as a 6 component partnership. Today the initiative has expanded to 16, including another private sector corporation. Ms. Marini remarks that partnerships have been essential to the success of these programs, however, they are definitely tough undertakings.

Sean Tompkins of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors emphasizes the importance of standards to the SDGs, with his specialty being in the building/construction/infrastructure industry. Standards are crucial as they increase investor confidence and help reduce risk. Mr. Tompkins used the example of buildings to underline this proposition. Buildings emit 40% of the world’s carbon through their construction and use, and 30% of the world’s resources. However, no two places in the world measure the size of building in the same way. Thus, having even rigorous and accessible indicators is not enough to measure SDG progress with regards to emissions—building measurements vary up to 24% throughout the world. Mr. Tompkins focuses on creating standards that will help solve these problems. His organization managed to bring together 70 corporations under one standard of measurement (these standards are also being adapted by governments).

Jong II Lee spoke about Korea Telecom's involvement in the SDGs. KT has 131 years of history and has formed numerous partnerships throughout these years which reach poor populations and provide them with educational opportunities and other resources.  KT forms partnerships with both central and local governments to help improve conditions in less developed and remote areas. Mr. Lee also noted that partnerships are key for business to showcase new technology and provide opportunities for new market entry.

Session 4: Monitoring the SDGs: The Business Perspective

This session discussed how business can continue to help develop indicators, as well as the extent to which business is examining the value and role of indicators developed at sectoral and sub-national levels. 

Dr. Lisa Bersales, Co-Chair, Inter-Agency Experts Group on the SDGs (IAEG-SDGs) noted that the UN Statistical Commission has agreed upon 230 indicators for the SDG targets.  The expert group was instructed that each target should have at least one indicator.  The initial list, she noted, is not cast in stone, but rather, was just the first set of indicators used to measure the SDGs. The initial list has been categorized into three tiers: 

• targets with existing methodology with data

• targets with existing methodology with little data

• and targets with no methodology and no data

Annika Lindblom, Ministerial Adviser, National Commission on Sustainable Development of  Finland noted that Finland is one of the countries that had volunteered to report on its progress during this first HLPF.  Ms. Lindblom noted that Finland has managed to reach out to and engage individual companies, 60 of whom have committed to follow up with concrete and measurable indicators.  In addition, indicators have been Finland’s key integration tools.  Finland has already developed 39 unique indicators, which it will now align with the 2030 Agenda indicators. Of the indicators proposed by the Statistical Commission, Finland already gathers data on 42% of them, whereas another 43% will require specialized collection for the 2030 Agenda.

Claudio Volonte, Principal Results Measurement Specialist in the Development Impact Department of the International Finance Corporation (IFC) underscored that the private sector will need support from governments by way of enabling environments for their new investments.  Specifically, SMEs have limited capacity in reporting their contributions to SDGs.  Consequently, the IFC has made sure that the indicators are simple and relevant to SME’s businesses.  The IFC analyzed their individual business, and customized the indicators, aligning the systems to avoid asking for additional information the company wouldn’t find beneficial.  The IFC has attempted harmonizing key indicators of private sector development with their methodologies: about 30% of indicators are in tier 3 (no methodologies and no data).  Nevertheless, he noted, the private sector can invest in developing new methodologies to improve overall coverage of the indicators by business metrics.

Concluding Remarks

Wrapping-up the very successful event, which had a full audience for the entire day, The ICC Secretary General John Danilovich noted:

“Our message to governments and the UN High Level Political Forum is simple: work with us to put in place the policy frameworks needed to unleash new waves of business investment, innovation and trade in support of the Global Goals.”

How Many P's in a PPP?

Guest post by Justin Perrettson, Senior Advisor, Corporate Sustainability and Public Affairs, Novozymes

After recent international agreements on Climate Change, Sustainable Development and Financing For Development, “Public-Private-Partnerships” are now seen as a way to combine economic, environmental and social criteria that result in multiple and mutually reinforcing benefits for a number of stakeholders.  

However, a “PPP” is more than just “Public”, “Private” or a “Partnership”. It is a series of underlying behaviors:

Patience – as a virtue and a value: If “Rome wasn’t built in a day”, and a “Week is a long time in politics”, in an era of intense pressure to deliver results fast, seamless real time reporting of current events and seemingly even faster analysis, the time required to build and execute complex multi stakeholder partnerships might seem glacial.  And although taking too simplistic a view would miss the point, these types of partnerships need to be able address potential perception issues. Whatever the external pressures or environment, how such a partnership attracts, obtains and maintains support from key stakeholders is critical to its overall success.

Perseverance – with a side order of passion:  Even the most well aligned, thoroughly researched and supported partnership is going to have a bad day – or week – at the office. Given the complexities often involved this is almost inevitable. But when a team needs to dig deep, the upfront investment in aligning interests, agreeing on approaches and building a strong team on all sides can be the difference between giving up and keeping going.   

Potential – with an eye on the future: Innovative approaches towards Sustainable Development and Multi Stakeholder Partnering are being pioneered by a number of Corporations such as Novozymes, Multilateral Financing Institutions such as the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), and Academic Institutions such as McGill University.  Why? Because over the longer term, many stakeholders –including a growing number of investors – believe that stakeholder support for their activities are likely to help yield better short term results across a number of inter-connected social, environmental and economic ecosystems.  

When it comes to the “How”, and especially in terms of further expanding the sustainable development modus operandi, for many stakeholders, PPPs are very much a “learning by doing” exercise, albeit building on some of the best expertise available.

So to help encourage even more free-flowing thinking – and doing – around partnerships for Development, supported by some of the most out of the box thinkers on the planet at Google, The IDB and McGill have invited a host of stakeholders, including Novozymes, to spend some time together this summer. 

The aim is that by bringing some great minds to share learnings and ideas, ways in which the PPP model for Sustainable Development can be taken to the next level will emerge- enhancing another PPP: People, Progress, and Planet.