Council Event

VNR Lab on whole-of-government and whole-of-society VNRs in times of transformation

Organized by the German Council for Sustainable Development (RNE)

Date: 18. July 2023, 2 to 3 pm, EST
Location: The VNR Lab will be held in Conference Room 11 in the UN Building, New York
Language: English

Summary

Based on the 2019 and the 2023 Global Sustainable Development Report (GSDR), we will explore local approaches and processes to address complex transformation areas nationally and report about them in a VNR, as well as identify related opportunities and added values of institutionalized multi-stakeholder engagement.

This VNR Lab will start with an input from the current GSDR authors and their reflections on the question of “how to deliver transformative policymaking and what levers are crucial?”.

The debate will be across countries with insights from diverse stakeholders, debating the following key questions:

  • How are key transformation areas reflected in national contexts, with regard to delivering integrated policymaking?
  • What governance mechanisms are in place and how do they support delivery of transformative policymaking at national level?
  • How can the identification of key transformation areas be used for monitoring and measurement of SDG progress? And how can the related insights from the GSDR 2023 inform VNR processes?
  • How can multi-stakeholder advisory bodies support their governments in this context?

Considering that in many cases the VNR process created a momentum for concerted and coordinated action, governments might ask themselves if the VNR process could be used as a catalyst to implement the recommendations of the GSDR from 2019 and 2023. During this VNR Lab, we will debate these assumptions and above questions based on insights from different countries. Moreover, we will also look back at Germany’s 2021 VNR engagement process and discuss where it stands today, in order to prepare for the next VNR and upcoming revision of the German sustainability strategy.