1 - 2 March 2017, Abuja, Nigeria - In the framework of its initiative “Capacity for the 2030 Agenda”, UNITAR organized a learning conferences on “holistic approaches for the implementation of the 2030 Agenda” for African Least Development Countries (LDCs). This conference specifically targeted government officials from the 17 English-speaking African LDCs and took place in Abuja, Nigeria on 1 - 2 March 2017.

The conference took into account key issues faced by LDCs in Africa, how public institutions get mobilized to implement the 2030 Agenda, integrated planning and policy-making, monitoring and evaluation for the SDGs and stakeholder engagement.

Tools to mainstream the SDGs

In 2015, UNITAR developed - jointly with the UN Development Group (UNDG) - a toolkit entitled “Preparing for action national briefing package” to enable national experts to act as facilitators and launch national SDG roll-out workshops. This package is currently available in 4 UN languages and has been successfully tested with UNITAR’s support in several African LDCs, as well as middle-income countries in other world regions.

The training conference “Holistic approaches for the implementation of the 2030 Agenda” further elaborated and expanded this toolkit. It aimed to fill in the specific training and learning gaps identified by the Governments of LDCs drawing on the expertise of the UN and key partner institutions, in particular UNDP and UNDG Resident Coordinators.

Furthermore, it focused on country-level implementation challenges through a mix of discussions organized by technical expertise and aimed at promoting knowledge-sharing at the regional level, on the one hand, and action-planning discussions in groups organized by country and aimed at fostering context-specific participatory dialogues on national implementation, on the other.

“Eradicating poverty and promoting prosperity in a changing world”

This conference complemented the global-level work of UN-DESA on the preparations for the global review process, including the activities related to experience sharing between countries making Voluntary National Reviews at the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development in 2017. This year, the HLPF will indeed focus on the theme: “Eradicating poverty and promoting prosperity in a changing world”.

For more information: a2030@unitar.org