Second session of the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals

The second session of the Open Working Group (OWG) on Sustainable Development Goals will take place in New York, 17 -19 April 2013.

As stated on the UN Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform, the meeting will be broadcast through UN webcast.

According to the Draft Programme of Work, the Overarching framework for the work of the OWG is poverty eradication and sustainable development. The following cross-cutting issues have been identified that will underpin all discussions, namely: governance, inequality and equity, gender equality and women’s empowerment, human rights and rights-based approaches and means of implementation and its deliberations will be guided: by the principles affirmed in the Rio+20 outcome document, the need to balance the economic, social and environmental dimensions, ensuring coherence, implementation and assessing progress.

In the morning of 17 April, following the introduction of the issues note prepared by the UN Technical Support Team, there will be an interactive exchange of views on conceptualizing the SDGs and the SDG process. (The UN System Technical Support Team has been established by the Secretary-General to provide input and support the OWG and comprises over 40 UN entities and works under the umbrella of the UN System Task Team on the post-2015 development agenda.) It will be followed in the afternoon by a panel session on the same topic with Ms Claire Melamed, Head of the Growth and Equity Unit of the Overseas Development Institute (London) and Professor Sakio Fukuda-Parr, Professor of International Affairs, New School (New York). This exchange of views will be continued on the morning of 18 April.

During the afternoon Professor Abhijit Banerjee. International Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will give a Keynote address on poverty eradication, followed by the introduction by Olaf Kjørven, Assistant Secretary-General of UNDP, of an issues note prepared by the UN System Technical Support Team. A panel session and moderated exchange of views on poverty eradication will follow with the following panelists: Mr. Jomo Kwame Sundaram, Assistant Director-General, FAO and Professor Sabina Alkire, Director, Oxford University Poverty and Human Development Initiative.

On the last morning of the meeting there will be a moderated interactive exchange of views on poverty eradication. It will continue into the final session, after which there will be stock-taking on the second meeting, a summary of discussions and other organizational matters before the Concluding remarks by the Co-Chairs.

The Draft Programme Of Work - Second Session Of The General Assembly Open Working Group On Sustainable Development Goals is available here.