 Caroline Petty, the Deputy Director of the UN Regional Information Centre UNRIC, is going to address us. Now, this is part of the important series run in partnership between the Institute and Irish Aid, and to kick off proceedings I want to ask Frank Wall from Irish Aid. I'm very grateful to have the opportunity to introduce Caroline Petty. As many of you may know, Caroline is the Deputy Director of the UN Regional Information Centre in Brussels, and is Deputy Chair of the UN Communication Group. Before joining UNRIC in 2013, Caroline worked as the head of the Media Partnerships Unit at UN headquarters in New York for 12 years, and also worked for the EU media programme for seven years. Given her significant experience in communications and public information campaigns, I look forward to today's talk, as I'm sure you all do, and to learning from her experience and expertise. Now, on today's topic, engaging everyone on the SDGs, ensuring a better future for all, it is a particularly timely one. It is almost two years to the day, the 25th of September 2015, since the UN Member States unanimously adapted the 2030 agenda for sustainable development. Further more, it is over a year and a half since the new goals and targets came into effect on 1 January 2016, and countries and multilateral organisations are now working towards mainstreaming the SDGs into their national and international development planning and action. On that point, I think it's just worth stressing or emphasising that the 2030 agenda is not simply a development framework aimed at the developing or at the poor, rather it is a universal agenda that applies equally to all countries. On that point, what of Ireland? Well, as many of you are aware, Ireland as co-facilitator played a pivotal role in brokering the 2030 agenda. However, while the agreement itself has an Irish flag, we now need to move that flag towards implementation, and on that particular point I would just say three things. Firstly and domestically, the interdepartmental senior officials group on the implementation of the SDGs has been convened by the Department of the Taoiseach and it will hold its first meeting on the 12th of October. Secondly, Ireland is one of the countries that has volunteered to present a voluntary national review of its progress at the 2018 High Level Political Forum, and our target is to have a strong, clear and detailed overview of our implementation of the SDGs by July 2018. And lastly, through our country programmes and through our close engagement with the UN and other multilateral institutions, Ireland will use the SDGs as an overarching framework for guiding our development cooperation programme. Now, while implementation of the 2030 agenda is above all a national responsibility, there is also a huge role for the multilateral system and particularly for the UN in supporting national implementation. And while implementation has now begun globally, this year's High Level Political Forum presented sobering news that the rate of progress in many areas is far slower than what is needed to meet the goals and targets by 2030. To realise the ambition of the 2030 agenda, it is necessary to intensify the political will and commitment needed and to ensure that all stakeholders, including civil society organisations, the media and business play a central role. And to that end, the UN Regional Information Centre, which is the communications hub of the UN in Europe, has a crucial role to play in raising the visibility and the awareness of the importance of the SDGs for everyone. And on that note, I will now invite Caroline to speak to us on today's topic. And I look forward to hearing from her of the opportunities and the challenges that lie ahead. Thank you for the opportunity to address the Institute. Thank you, Tom. And it's very important, as Frank said, for us to be part of this series, Why Development Matters. It's also an honour to actually address this group of activists and distinguished guests who are representing a country that is a long-standing committed partner to the United Nations. Also, what an appropriate day, apart from this lovely weather, to actually come and meet, discuss the agenda 2030, a roadmap for a better world with more peace and prosperity for all. As some of you in the room know, 21st of September is the day of international peace, the international day of peace. The United Nations is grateful for Ireland's engagement on the broad agenda of the UN from human rights, peacekeeping and conflict prevention, to sustainable development and climate change. And this afternoon, as Frank said, I would like to focus on the importance of communication in the implementation of the Sustainable Development agenda and the role that communications can play in sustaining the momentum on agenda 2030. I represent the Department of Global Communications of the United Nations and our office based in Brussels. It's a regional public information centre. We are covering 22 countries in Europe, including Ireland. Our mandate at UNRIC is to inform and engage European citizens on global issues. And of course, one of our top priorities for the 13 years to go are the Sustainable Development Goals. We are now indeed in year two of the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals and I'm not going to explain what the goals are to such a well-informed audience as Ireland has had a significant role in shaping the 2030 agenda. Ireland decisions to participate in the voluntary national review at the High Level Panel Forum on Sustainable Development's next July is very timely. This will be an opportunity for Ireland and for the European Union to actively engage in the preparatory process and to maximise peer-learning benefits. Time is of essence and each member state is working on aligning the Sustainable Development Goals to their national policies, or they should, and in delivering results. So communication has an impact on policy-making and becomes an instrument to illustrate those results and progress. Success stories are essential to show impact and progress and development issues, as we know, are not so sexy. So we need success stories, human-driven stories to make the points and convey the messages. Effective communication can help sustain momentum. Peer-learning and sharing best practices will take time, but it's valuable and it will take part into this change of mentality which is necessary. Investing in strategic communication on the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals is key and as Frank said, our office in Brussels helps gives visibility to those success stories on the SDGs. How the Sustainable Development Goals are relevant to everyone and how European citizens are creative and committed to them. So I'm sure that's something maybe we can talk about at the Q&A, how we can work together on that. We want to show how people benefit from the SDGs and how they are also contributing to the achievements of the SDGs. After all, this is the people's agenda as it transforms the way we live, work and do business. So for my colleagues and I at the United Nations Department of Global Communications, the goals represent a golden opportunity but a very strong responsibility to spread the word to the people because what we want to do is to connect every continent, every country and every citizens to the goal and make them meaningful to their daily lives. So at first, as you are a part of it, it seems like a daunting task how to reach so many people in so many languages, so many countries on all topics and also they have been some progress. It is also clear that the public is not being informed enough about the Sustainable Development Goals. The Eurobarometers suggest that awareness of the SDGs has risen from 36 to 41% from 2016 to 2017 but the knowledge remains at a very low level. Action is now needed to go beyond the awareness and ensure that the Sustainable Development Goals are actually owned by the people. Yet there is hope and I truly feel that as much as my colleagues, whether people do hear about the Sustainable Development Goals, there is an eagerness to take part. This is crucial as without popular engagements the SDGs will fail. Strong communication and public engagement at all levels of societies remains essential and needs to be ongoing. So the civil society, and I know it's a very vibrant one in Ireland, has a great role to play to mobilize the people to take action. Tomorrow in New York, there will be the first edition of the People's Summit. It's the Social Good Summit and the People's Summit combines as a way to gather influencers and speakers about what they think about the SDGs and that will be online if you like to follow that up. Indeed social media and media can play their part in leveraging those success stories that we need because bringing a positive narrative on the goals and why they matter is something we need more. Let me share with you a couple of stories and examples that my colleagues have been working across Europe. I think the best practice is always good and like that we can engage the dialogue after. First personally I think that technology represents a huge opportunity that we still need to tap into in delivering messages about the SDGs. As we know the innovative and appropriate use of social media tools by young people can be and is in a lot of cases already very effective. I'm taking part every year for the past four years into an event organized by Microsoft and lately it was even taken by the mayor of the city of Milan. It's an initiative called STEM in the City which relates to Gold 8 and 5 and it aims at inspiring girls and young women to pursue tech related studies and careers in order to encourage gender parity in the industry and to break down silos and stereotypes. We know we need to utilize this energy and the activism of young people, young, old and in between. It concerns all of us. Another great initiative, quite different because it touched on sports, was implemented by my colleague last year in Greece when the emblematic Athen Marathon was split into 17 parts each representing one goal. So the localization of SDGs and I know some of you in the room are already doing that is very effective and this kind of initiative could be duplicated in many countries since we know how popular marathons are. Science again because I think in Europe and you had a European commissioner who was Irish not a long time ago before Mr Moedash. Mr Gwyn? No, Morgan Gwyn. Thank you. So science also inspired generations and young people. Recently maybe some of you like me have dreamt following the fantastic journey of the solar impulse adventure. The first around the world tour from a solar flight. That was quite an amazing technical, scientific, innovative and business adventure and the business sector was very supportive and we know how it is important to keep them on board. The UN Secretary General spoke to the pilots as they were crossing the Atlantic Ocean and Mr Ban Ki-moon at the time was at headquarter and connected with them and the European Commissioner, the current one for research and innovation is supporting this type of entrepreneurship spirit. Europe is indeed very strong in research and innovation and this type of role models and I say that because in Ireland you have a lot of entrepreneur and I think the spirit in the small countries is very important and can lead to big things and those role models can be a source of pride to be European, to be Irish, to be a member of the world in progressing on some of those goals. So this is a good illustration of goal 17 and the effectiveness of partnerships. Maybe one example in the Netherlands where museum is a social hub which aims at bridging the gap between the international community decisions and the ordinary citizen. Museum is attempting to tell the stories of the goals to families and children and it has created a one-planet exhibit which is a permanent interactive exhibition on the goals. They have 65,000 square meters, it's an amazing space and they encourage people to confront the challenges in an entertaining way and to come up with solutions themselves that will help achieve the agenda 2030. Since the opening of the museum last year they had 300,000 families, kids and people walk through the door. That's actually 100,000 more, that's what they had expected. So it's positive and promising. It shows the interest when you come with some creative ways to mobilize the people. So that's of course for goal 4 and goal 12 but it's the type of engagements that could be duplicated. I think we spoke all a lot in Ireland, it's a good country also to be aware of those issues. We spoke a lot in the summer about ocean, goal 14, life below water and you may have heard of the ocean Volvo race, a historical sailing race which will be taking place again next month in Alicante and touring Europe and the world. This race has decided to use its popularity to amplify the clean seas campaign, turn the tide on plastics. We know the growing problem of marine litter and this would be an interesting experience because the organizers are committed to minimize the race carbon footprint, to maximize the race impact by spreading awareness and capturing data about the initiatives and also they will build a legacy by creating an ocean summit. So they are bringing science, government and business in an effort to commit to new positive action in this area. This afternoon I was mentioning during lunch to Tom and his colleagues, that's Karen and my UN colleagues and I will be visiting two high schools in Dublin and will be interacting with them. I understand they know about the SDGs and it's actually important for them to be able to express how they feel about it for us to take stock and hear where we could maybe contribute and help them to get to know more. This is an initiative that many of my colleagues will organize around UN day, UN 19 nation day on October the 24th and the Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs will be going to his own school on October the 24th and he will be joined by the Queen of Belgium in her capacity of SDGs advocates. So that work towards kids schools as we know is essential and it's something that we could be very happy to do with you next year to be discussed. I know that some of you may be taking part on September the 25th to the Act for SDGs March which will take place to celebrate the second anniversary of the adoption of the goals. I understand the coalition 2030 will run islands light the way so it's interesting to see that this special event will take place also here. All those examples are there to illustrate once again the importance of communication in raising awareness, building support for the goals in order to reach them by 2030. So in conclusion let's be realistic achieving this roadmap will not be easy and therefore communicating and sustaining the interest, the engagement and the knowledge on both the progress made but also the gaps remaining require an ongoing effort. And if humankind is to achieve the future we want, a sustainable relationship with the planet we inhabit, the 2030 agenda must be implemented. It will not be implemented if those for whom it is designed are unaware of its existence and the rights and the responsibility that they and the communities are required to act upon and that includes the youth. So for those reasons strong and broad based partnerships, success stories, sharing information are becoming even more important to achieve the SDGs. And since we have 13 years left to 2030 and a long voyage to reach those goals we are here to take stock and with those success stories and initiatives such as the one I mentioned but also such as the one many of you are working on we have a better chance to get there together and leave no one behind.