Will national partnerships with private sector accelerate implementation if global obstacles remain?

New York, 17 July 2017: On Monday, 17 July, the sponsors of the High-Level Panel report on Women’s Economic Empowerment are presenting a panel on “Accelerating women’s economic empowerment to achieve the 2030 Agenda”, head-lined by the Secretary-General. They will be joined by a diverse Member State ‘group of champions for women’s economic empowerment’. Given the knowledge and expertise of the High-Level Panel and the national level experience of the group of champions, they will have many examples of opportunities, but will they highlight the risks?

Civil Society activists critique first week of deliberations at High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development.

New York City, 14 July 2017: With the first week of deliberations at the 2017 High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development coming to a close this Friday at the UN in New York, civil society activists are criticizing a piecemeal approach to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Especially worrisome to activists is a growing gap between aspirational goals and a lack of proper and comprehensive means of implementation.

Global Spotlight Report warns against risks of Public-Private Partnerships. Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs), usually portrayed as a useful tool towards sustainable development, actually “involve disproportionate risks and costs for people and the public purse”, claims a global coalition of civil society organizations and trade unions in the Spotlight Report 2017 launched earlier this week.

“The proponents of privatization and public-private partnerships (PPPs) present the state as impoverished and unfit to deliver, leaving the private sector as the only way to provide the necessary means for implementing the SDGs”.

Mr. Roberto Bissio, coordinator of Social Watch, demanded the need to better define the different roles of different stakeholders and the rules that bind them. There are regrettably too many examples of public-private-partnerships that went wrong.

In 2013 the World Bank's IFC published the report "Investing in Women's Employment: Good for Business, Good for Development" to highlight WINvest (Investing in Women), the World Bank Group's Global Partnership initiative with the private sector on women's employment. This initiative aimed to bring together IFC clients and private sector partners with a vested interest in substantiating the business case for improving working conditions and employment opportunities for women. Mining companies notorious for their environmental damage and fossil fuels coprorations were involved.

The ‘Civil Society Report on SDGs: Agenda 2030' of INDIA 2017 will be released on 12th July 2017 at Baha'i International Community Center, 866 UN Plaza, New York from 10:00 AM to 11:30 AM. The launching will be held in the framework of the HLPF 2017

Download the report here.