The United Nations’ High Level Political Forum, a platform for facilitation of the Sustainable Development Goals including targets, partnerships, publications, and documents. Described as the “most inclusive and participatory forum at the United Nations,” the HLPF is the process that governs the 15 year period SDG implementation and progress.
One inclusive aspect of the HLPF are the incorporation of “major groups” and stakeholders other than countries. The framework for the “major groups” came from the 1992 Earth Summit in the first United Nations Conference on Environment and Development. The groups include “nine sectors of society as the main channels through which broad participation would be facilitated in UN activities related to sustainable development” (United Nations). These groups specifically include: women, children and youth, indigenous peoples, Non-governmental Organizations, local authorities, workers and trade unions, business and industry, scientific and technological community, and farmers. These categories are a little surprising to me, given that they range quite significantly in levels of vulnerability and representation in societal decision-making. Representing workers and trade unions juxtaposed with representatives from business and industry could create a constructive dynamic of criticism and progress for both levels of capitalist society. Creating a separate category for farmers is a way to bring a group that makes up a large proportion of the world’s population, and in some ways constitutes the backbone of human society, to the forefront, and lifts their voices. That is the reason for creating these groups in the first place: making sure that those who may have not had “a seat at the table” before, do now.
That being said, within the multi-stakeholder environment, there are limitations with this framework. The major groups can attend all official meetings of the HLPF and intervene in official meetings; however, whereas governments can speak whenever they want, as many times as they want, major groups are limited, which ends up placing significant pressure on the chosen spokesperson. Even with a few caveats, the HLPF and “major groups” provide several mechanisms for people to not only physically participate in the processes that govern the 15 year period of the Sustainable Development Goals, but also shape discourse and advocate for their point of view.
Inclusive Sustainable Development 