At a pivotal moment for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, UN DESA organized a Global Policy Dialogue on ¡°Bridging Systems, Building Trust,¡± on 9 July to explore how integrated policy solutions and stronger social foundations can accelerate progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) under review at the 2026 High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF), and to share these solutions with a wider audience. The dialogue was moderated by NPR host Roben Farzad of ¡°Full Disclosure.¡±
With only four years left to meet the 2030 deadline, the dialogue responded to increasingly complex issues facing countries, including climate change, demographic shifts, widening inequalities and declining public trust which threaten to slow or reverse progress on SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy), SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure), SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities) and SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals).
¡°The SDGs can only be achieved if all sectors, stakeholders, communities and people are a part of the conversation,¡± said UN Under-Secretary-General Li Junhua in his welcome remarks. He also said that ¡°by embracing different perspectives and working together across disciplines and borders, we can develop integrated solutions that improve people¡¯s lives and accelerate progress across the Sustainable Development Goals.¡±
David Smith, Director of the Centre for Environmental Management at the University of the West Indies and member of the UN High-level Advisory Board on Economic and Social Affairs (HLAB), addressing the topic of climate change impacting water security, emphasized that watershed protection is as critical as infrastructure. ¡°If you¡¯re going to provide water, that¡¯s great. It¡¯s very important to provide the pipes and access. It's as important to provide the watershed that the water is coming from,¡± he said. He pointed to the fact that Caribbean rainfall depends on Amazon forest cover as an example of how upstream decisions affect downstream communities.
Speakers also discussed the real-time impacts of digitized data collection in developing economies. Leonard Katova, a systems developer with the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency and a youth speaker at the event, explained how Zimbabwe¡¯s localized data systems identify silent gaps in SDG delivery by location, disability and age group, enabling targeted government action. ¡°Data is no longer a tool for reporting; data is the foundation of better governance, better decision-making and better lives, he said.
In her closing remarks, UN Assistant Secretary-General for Policy Coordination Bj?rg Sandkj?r acknowledged that progress made towards the 2030 Agenda ¡°remains far too slow and uneven.¡± On building trust, she noted that ¡°trust is built when people see that institutions can deliver integrated solutions to the challenges they face in their daily lives.¡± She called on attendees to have the ¡°collective will to act,¡± which involves returning the SDGs ¡°to the centre of global decision-making and strengthening the international cooperation needed to turn commitments into tangible results.¡±
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Watch the Policy Dialogue on UN Web TV .
Access event photo coverage on UN DESA¡¯s Flickr platform .