Together with the French research organization IDDRI and in association with the European Think Tanks Group, the German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) is organising a series of online dialogue events on the subject “Recovery and the 2030 Agenda – Building back better through SDGs”. On 9 March the second dialogue in the series took place, which brought together a small group of researchers and policy makers from several continents to reflect on and learn from countries’ efforts to align their recovery efforts with the pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Participants recognised that although the 2030 Agenda remains our collective compass, our current focus on immediate recovery and reconstruction does not make it easy to follow it. Moreover, although recovery is a universal need, most funds for recovery are provided in the form of economic stimuli packages and are heavily concentrated in OECD states. Positive aspects of selected countries’ efforts include an inclusive approach that involves sub-national levels of governance, dedicated investment in statistics and monitoring, and support from international organisations that provide targeted support to developing country efforts. The European Union and its Member States were not uniformly regarded as playing a leading role in the promotion of the 2030 Agenda, and were encouraged in promoting both top-down and bottom-up support to the agenda. Further dialogue events will take place during the next few months, after which emerging lessons learned will be shared with a larger audience.
