Country Progress Snapshots

1. Outcomes of Rio + 20 & impact on the new development framework Country Progress Snapshots Yongyi Min United Nations Statistics Division Workshop on Millennium Development Goals Monitoring: 2015 and Beyond (Bangkok, 9-13 July 2012)

2. Overview • The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) was held from 20-22 June in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It represented a global movement of change in which governments, the private sector and civil society all contribute to achieve global prosperity while protecting the environment. • More than 40,000 people, including parliamentarians, mayors, UN officials, chief executive officers and civil society leaders , attended Rio+20. • The outcome document is titled ‘The Future We Want’. • More than 700 voluntary commitments to advance sustainable development was registered.

3. The Future We Want: Common vision and overarching objectives • Poverty eradication, changing unsustainable and promoting sustainable patterns of consumption and production and protecting and managing the natural resource base of economic and social development are the overarching objectives of and essential requirements for sustainable development. • Promote sustained, inclusive and equitable economic growth, social development, and environment protection • Strengthen international cooperation

4. The Future We Want : Renewing political commitment • Reaffirming the Rio Principles and the past action plans Reinvigorate political will and to raise the level of commitment by the international community to move the sustainable development agenda forward, through the achievement of the internationally agreed development goals, including MDGs. • Advancing integration, implementation and coherence: assessing the progress and the remaining gaps • Engaging major groups and other stakeholders

5. The Future We Want:Green economy in the context of SD and poverty eradication • Apply green economy policies as a useful tool in advancing sustainable development and ending poverty • Recognize the importance of linking financing, technology, capacity-building and national needs for SD policies and green economy • Recognize the need for broader measures of progress to complement GDP • Request the United Nations Statistical commission, in consultation with relevant United Nations system entities and other relevant organizations, to launch a programme of work in this area building on existing initiatives.

6. The Future We Want:Institutional framework for sustainable development • Strengthen the role of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) • Establish a high-level political forum to address the three pillars of sustainable development in an integrated way

7. The Future We Want:Framework for action It was agreed: • to accord the highest priority to poverty eradication and encourage initiatives to enhance social protection for all people • To improve the health of women, men, youth and children, and to promote education for sustainable development • to promote gender equality and the empowerment • to support sustainable tourism and sustainable transport • to strive for sustainable consumption and production, • to ensure food security, clean water and sanitation, and affordable, and sustainable energy for all, • to act on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity, • to curtail marine pollution, overfishing and ocean acidification, • to strengthen social protection floors and tackle global unemployment, especially youth unemployment, • to build more lovable and sustainable cities and communities with decent housing and sustainable transport for all, • to enhance support to small island developing States, the least developed countries and other countries in special situations

8. The Future We Want:Sustainable development goals • Establish an inclusive and transparent intergovernmental process on SDGs • An open working group of 30 representatives shall be constituted no later than at the opening of the sixty-seventh session of the GA. • The group will submit a report, to the sixty-eighth session of the Assembly, containing a proposal for SDGs for consideration and appropriate action.

9. The Future We Want:Sustainable development goals • SDGs should be action oriented, concise and easy to communicate, limited in number, inspirational, global in nature and universally applicable to all countries while taking into account different national realities, capacities and levels of development and respecting national policies and priorities. • Progress towards the achievement of the goals needs to be assessed and accompanied by targets and indicators.

10. The Future We Want:Means of implementation • Mobilize financial resources for sustainable development • Explore options for accelerating technology transfer to developing countries • Enhance capacity-building for sustainable development and strengthen technical and scientifically cooperation, including North-South, South-South and triangular cooperation. • Reaffirm the critical role that a universal, rules-based, open, non-discriminatory and equitable multilateral trading system, as well as meaningful trade liberalization.

11. Impact on the new development framework • Rio+20 reaffirmed the international commitment to accelerate the achievement of the internationally agreed development goals, including the MDG by 2015 • The process to develop the SDGs will be coordinated and coherent with the processes to consider the post-2015 development agenda. • Many SDG thematic areas and cross-sectoral issues are covered by the current MDG framework and other areas are under consideration for the new development framework.