Organizational modalities for the September 2015 UN Summit to adopt the post-2015 development agenda

While there are two sessions of the Open Working Group  (OWG) on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) still to go, plans are already underway for the UN Summit that will be held in September 2015 to adopt the post-2015 development agenda. The President of the UN General Assembly has appointed HE Mr Robert Guba Aisi, Permanent Representative of Papua New Guinea and HE Mr Ib Petersen, Permanent Representative of Denmark as co-facilitators of the intergovernmental consultations to achieve agreement on the organizational modalities for the summit that will take place in September 2015 at the level of Heads of State and Government for the adoption of the post-2015 development agenda, in accordance with UN General Assembly resolution 68/6.

So far two informal sessions have been held and a paper has been prepared by the UN Secretariat at the request of the co-facilitators that outlines the procedures for similar meetings held in 2000, 2005 and 2010.

In order to give sufficient time for Heads of State and Government to speak it proposed that the meeting be of three days duration with the possible options of Saturday 19 September – Monday 21 September, Sunday 20 September – Tuesday 22 September or Monday 21 September  - Wednesday 23 September 2015. The setting of these dates means that the process for developing the SDGs will have to be completed well in advance of September 2015.

It should be noted that the background paper also includes information on arrangements for NGO participation in the previously held meetings.

The full text of background paper is available here.