Organizing information, understanding trends and making strategic decisions based on data is becoming an inexorable necessity. Many initiatives have highlighted the importance of using data to conceptualize and implement more effective development strategies: the Independent Expert Advisory Group’s report A World that Counts: Mobilizing the Data Revolution for Sustainable Development and the UN Sustainable Development Solution Network’s report Data for Development are just two examples showing that there is no way back from data in our field of work.
We all know that the Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals is an ambitious global plan, but if we are serious about it, building vibrant and systematic partnerships is a vital prerequisite for their successful implementation.
People are eager to talk about development if they are asked.
Last year, the UN Agencies in Albania embarked on a dynamic journey to develop the new United Nations Development Action Framework (UNDAF) - the UN strategic plan which aims to help Albania advance its development agenda and create a better life for citizens.
Health workers across Benin are dealing with the current outbreak of Lassa fever, while UN agencies are responding with outreach and treatment. Luckily there is an innovative new mechanism available to everyone involved: you can communicate directly with the UN, no matter who you are.
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development builds on Millennium Development Goal (MDG) priorities while setting the world’s sights on emerging health and development challenges. Tobacco control is among the greatest of these, as tobacco use is a major contributor to cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes and chronic respiratory illness – the four main non-communicable diseases (NCDs) that now account for the bulk of illness and deaths globally.
Do your new year’s resolutions include taking joint programming online in 2016?? We in Mozambique are moving in this direction. Working together with a team at HQ and Tanzania country office, we are on our way to fulfilling an aspiration of ours– to have an online United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF).
While many of us in the UN see 2015 as a triumphant year for multilateralism, there are those who hold lingering doubts about the agreement on Agenda 2030, an ambitious set of goals that establishes milestones of growth & equality within the limits of the planet. Many say they are too ambitious – 169 commandments according to the Economist and A free for all according to the New York Times.
Buckminster Fuller was a polymath and one of the most well regarded futurists of the 20th century. Bucky, as he liked to be called, astutely encapsulated the aim of foresight in a single phrase: “We are called to be architects of the future, not its victims.”
Will the next big tsunami occur in the Arabian Sea? Will ethnic strife erupt in the Horn of Africa? In this complicated world, it can seem hopelessly unrealistic to predict, prevent or ameliorate crises and disasters. We hope that INFORM will begin to change this.
