Heads of State and Government will gather at UN Headquarters in New York on 18-19 September 2023 to review the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and provide high-level political guidance on transformative and accelerated actions leading up to the target year of 2030 for achieving the Goals. The outcome will be a negotiated political declaration.
The SDG Summit is the central UN platform for Heads of State and Government to provide political leadership on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its Sustainable Development Goals. It will provide high-level political guidance on the 2030 Agenda and its implementation, identify progress and emerging challenges, and mobilize further actions to accelerate implementation. The Summit will be the centerpiece of the UN’s work in 2023 and of the General Assembly’s High-level week this September.
Through the Summit, countries, both individually and collectively, have an opportunity to place the world on a sustainable development path. The international community can seize this opportunity to make significant transformations for integrated SDG implementation and how societies produce, consume and share benefits and risks, while leaving no one behind.
The Summit is envisaged to be forward-looking and action-oriented, with the aim of accelerating international action to improve people’s lives and reinvigorating the sense of hope, optimism and enthusiasm that characterized the adoption of the SDGs and the 2030 Agenda. It is expected to adopt a concise, action-oriented political declaration as its outcome document.
The Secretary-General has urged world leaders to deliver a Rescue Plan for People and Planet at the SDG Summit through deliverables in three areas. First, he requested countries to deliver global commitments to the SDGs, including through an SDG Stimulus by massively scaling up financing and other measures, such as debt relief. Second, he urged world leaders to convey a National Commitment to SDG Transformation. This could include clear benchmarks to reduce domestic poverty and inequality levels by 2027 and 2030, in tandem with nationally determined climate contributions. And third, all countries are urged to fully engage their domestic constituencies, particularly civil society and the private sector, in their Summit preparations. The SDG Summit will also be followed by the Summit of the Future in 2024, which will build upon the outcomes of the SDG Summit and turbocharge the implementation of the 2030 Agenda.