Mr. David Donoghue:

It is a pleasure to be here. While serving as Ireland’s permanent representative to the United Nations from 2013 to 2017, I was asked to take on the role of co-facilitator, or co-chair, for global negotiations to agree a new development agenda in succession to the millennium development goals with which many members of the committee will be familiar. This appointment was, frankly, a great honour for Ireland. I was teamed up with my counterpart from Kenya. It is a UN convention to combine ambassadors, that is, one ambassador from the global north and one from the global south. It was our responsibility to lead the negotiations towards an agreement which all 193 member states of the UN could support. This we achieved on 2 August 2015. In the following month, a special summit formally launched the new sustainable development goals, SDGs, and the wider 2030 agenda for sustainable development of which they are the key part.

In this document, every country in the world agreed on an ambitious collective plan to guide the development of humanity and the planet over the 15-year period up to 2030. Nothing like this had ever been attempted before. The 17 interconnected goals and 169 sub-goals, or targets as they are called, cover a vast range of policy areas, from health and education to sustainable cities and oceans and from food security to human rights and gender equality. Every country has agreed to use the SDGs as the framework for its own policies in these areas. The document was agreed unanimously and without reservations from any country. The commitments made are not legally binding but might be described as politically, and even in some instances morally, binding on all governments.

What was the role of the European Union in the negotiations and how is it contributing today to the implementation of the goals and targets? The EU played a key role from the beginning. Its representatives at the UN worked hard to co-ordinate the views of all EU member states and to present a united position on the many challenges of the negotiations. This was at times difficult, given the scale and complexity of the issues as well as the diversity of perspectives and priorities within the Union. EU member states were also free to intervene nationally and, while they generally did so to complement the formal EU position, there were occasional challenges in ensuring consistency across the various interventions. Overall, there was a strong EU involvement, with regular attendance by Commissioners and MEPs and frequent Council decisions and Commission communications.

In the first few years after adoption of the SDGs, however, the zeal which the EU had demonstrated during the negotiations slackened a little. There was a concern not to undermine the implementation responsibilities of the individual EU member states. While the 2015 agreement had envisaged implementation at global, regional and national levels, the main emphasis initially was on the role to be played by national governments. Detailed arrangements were made by national governments for national SDGs co-ordination but there was relatively little activity at EU level. There was, for example, no overall EU strategy to achieve the SDGs in support of the national plans. The EU's institutions were not joined up behind the new agenda and political impetus was clearly lacking.

This changed, however, with the arrival of the von der Leyen Commission. President von der Leyen asked that her fellow Commissioners align their work explicitly with the SDGs. The SDGs were placed at the heart of the Commission’s work programme, internally and externally. They were integrated into the European semester and the better regulation framework. President von der Leyen also, of course, oversaw the closely linked European Green Deal, which, among other moves, committed the EU to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. The vast majority of programmes funded under the EU budget today are contributing, in one way or another, to the SDGs. Any proposed legislation must also pass this test. A global gateway strategy, which aims to mobilise €300 billion by 2027, is geared to the implementation of SDGs. The pledge to leave no one behind, a core commitment under the SDGs and the 2030 agenda, underpins the EU's international partnerships.

There are still some weaknesses, however, in the EU’s institutional response. There is, for example, still no dedicated mechanism within the Commission to promote and oversee the implementation of SDGs. There is merely loose co-ordination between individual Commissioners. Improved Council co-ordination on the SDGs is also needed.

The European Parliament is moving towards a more systematic engagement after a hesitant start. An informal SDGs alliance, in which some Irish MEPs, including Barry Andrews MEP, are prominent, is doing valuable work. Depending on the outcome of this year's European Parliament elections, the alliance could acquire formal status and associated resources in the next Parliament.

Recent global developments, in particular Covid-19, accelerating climate change and spiralling conflict, have had the effect of reinforcing the significance of the SDGs. In the wake of the pandemic, the UN Secretary General called on the world to "build back better" on the basis of the SDGs. In an increasingly uncertain world, many countries see the SDGs as indispensable. They are one of the very few uncontested global agendas, even if the rate of actual achievement is very modest. The EU shares this view and sees a leadership role for itself in encouraging and supporting others to make faster progress over the remaining six years.

The UN hosts a high-level political forum each year at which countries deliver national reports, or voluntary national reviews, on their progress with the SDGs. All but five countries have by now delivered such reports. In a striking innovation, the European Union last year presented a voluntary review which reported systematically on how each of the SDGs is being implemented across the Union. Intended as a complement to the national reviews, this was the first progress report made by an international organisation. The EU initiative attracted much interest and favourable comment.

Another vehicle for scrutiny of the EU’s performance is the annual Europe Sustainable Development Report, which analyses developments under each goal across over 30 countries, including the EU and its neighbours and not exclusively the EU. An SDG index published as part of the 2022 report showed that this set of countries had, in fact, made very little progress since 2020 because of the pandemic.

The EU was prominent at a UN summit last September to review the progress of SDGs at the halfway point of the 15-year period. Ireland again had the honour of being one of the two co-facilitators for that process. Responding to a call from the Secretary General for an SDG stimulus package, the EU pledged strengthened investment in areas such as digitalisation, climate action and development finance. It will also be a key player at the Summit of the Future, which will take place at the UN in September of this year and is likely to announce other important supports for achievement of the SDGs.