 plus innovative action and partnerships to deliver on the 2030 agenda, which is being held as a side event to the EcoSoc Partnership Forum. Before I start, I just wanted to let you know that live captions with translation are available for this event. Attendees can look in the chat for instructions to enable this feature. As you all know, the 2024 Partnership Forum of EcoSoc, which will be held throughout the day today at the UN headquarters in York, has a theme of reinforcing the 2030 agenda and eradicating poverty in times of multiple crises, with a focus on the effective delivery of sustainable, resilient and innovative solutions. The forum will place emphasis on the SGGs that will be reviewed at the 2024 HLPF in July, which is Goal 1 on poverty, Goal 2 on zero hunger, Goal 13 on climate action, Goal 16 on peace and justice, and Goal 17 on partnership for the goals. The Partnership Forum is focused on the exchange of new ideas, expectations and priorities for the work ahead for EcoSoc and for the HLPF, and it will showcase and discuss forward-looking actions by countries and all relevant stakeholders through innovative partnerships that can mobilize commitments and actions to advance the 2030 agenda for sustainable development and address new challenges. And this event is going to zoom in on SDG 16+. As we're now in the second half of the 2030 Agenda's implementation, we believe that it's critical for the international community to come together and act on realizing more peaceful, just and inclusive societies. As a catalyst for progress across the entire 2030 Agenda and as a means of addressing continuous global crisis driving breakdowns in trust at all levels. Unfortunately, most of SDG 16's targets are off-track or backsliding, and therefore in this context it's absolutely critical to harness the power of innovative partnerships and collaborative action to amplify results, scale interlinkages between SDG 16 and the other SDGs, and build resilience against future crises. So in recognition of all this, this event which is hosted by the Pathfinders for Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies, the TAP Network and International Idea, we will highlight these innovative partnerships and policy solutions that practically advance SDG 16+, and its interlinkages across the entire agenda, including on climate and poverty with a focus on national and subnational levels in member states, and with support from other global SDG 16+, coalition members from the UN and from civil society, the event will also emphasize the need for a multi-stakeholder approach, innovative financing and improved data to better understand both the trade-offs and to measure the results. So the event will feature speakers from across the SDG 16 space and from within the global SDG 16+, coalition. It will also include an interactive dialogue with participants, including through the use of presentation tools such as a Mentimeter that will come throughout the middle of the session to ensure that we have an interactive dialogue on central issues to SDG 16+, and the 2030 agenda. Today we have the great honour to have with us as a keynote speaker, her Excellency Minister Kenye Barly, Minister of Economic Development and Planning in Sierra Leone. We also have a great panel with us, composed of Paola Fernandez-Wolf, who's the Director General of the 2030 Agenda of the Government of Spain. We also have with us Anne Romsas, who's the Chief Advisor in SDGs for the Norwegian Association of Local Governments. We also have with us Elizabeth Jume, the Executive Director for the Alliance for Peacebuilding and TAP Network Co-Chair. We also have with us Swazimeta, who's the Program Director of Justice for All the Pathfinders, and John Romano, who's the Director of the TAP Network. So without further ado, and here I first need to check that Minister Barly, who was busy this morning, getting the Seven Year Development Plan of Sierra Leone approved in Freetown, that she has been able to make it to the event, otherwise we'll go directly onto the panel with Switch Minister Barly to have her speak after the panel. Could you just let me know if Minister Barly is online? Wonderful. So I'll give the floor to her Excellency Minister Barly, Minister of Economic Development and Planning in Sierra Leone. Over to you, Minister. Annika, I don't think, Mila and I saw you nodding, but I don't think the Minister is on quite yet. So perhaps we should move to Paula? Yeah, perfect. So we will have Minister Barly speak after the panel. We'll go directly onto the panel then, and we will start with the first panelist. The Minister is here. Yes. Yes, wonderful. Minister, we look forward to hearing you. Over to you, Minister. Yes, in fact, I am in the hall where we just launched, it wasn't approved, we just launched the Medium Term National Development Plan. It was launched by the presidents, we had parliamentarians, other ministers and things like that. So I'm still a bit sweaty and breathless, but of course you won't notice it's that sweat over there. But I thought that this meeting was just as important. So I would make the statement and then we will listen in for a while and have to get back to the office if you don't mind. So Madam Moderator, can you hear me clearly? Okay. Madam Moderator, distinguished speakers, excellencies, participants all, and all other protocols are observed. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, depending on where you're joining us from. Let me start by thanking the organizers of this event for inviting me to provide the keynote remarks. I am indeed delighted to be here to speak, and I did make it a priority, just as I said, coming from another event, but I always think given my role as the chair of the G7 Plus and other peace platforms that we're part of, I always like to take the opportunity to talk about peace and the SDG-16, which is a product of the G7 Plus and international dialogue, and because it's a baby that you birthed, the G7 Plus birthed. Distinguished participants, SDG-16 calls for supporting peaceful and inclusive societies and providing access to justice for all, whilst building effective, countable, and inclusive institutions at all levels. To this, Sierra Leone made SDG-16 an accelerator SDG, together with SDG-4, which implies that its attainment is necessary to achieve other developing goals. As the chairing country of the G7 Plus and co-chair of the International Dialogue on Peace Building and State Building, IDPS, Sierra Leone recognizes peace as a precondition to building resilience, nation building, and socioeconomic development. As a group and a platform for dialogue to promote peace and stability, we are united by the conviction that there is no development without peace and no peace without development. The example of the 11-year war in Sierra Leone, which thankfully is behind us, but is still a reminder to all of us that we need to continue pursuing peace and to never again resort to conflict and violence as a means of settling our differences. We have learned that lesson in Sierra Leone, so even after there had been some brief instability, the path that we chose was moderation and dialogue. Many regards the failed attempts at democratization, unaccountability, and bad governments and alienated youths as causes of these wars. And this is why I say that there is no peace without development. If we cannot develop and have accountable structures, our countries will descend into chaos. In this regard, Sierra Leone has made significant strides since the end of the war to address these root causes, consolidate peace and improve access to justice through a series of policy changes and institutional reforms. Here amongst the actions taken to improve access to justice is the establishment of the Legal Aid Board of 2015 to provide three legal representation to Sierra Leoneans who cannot afford it. Through this initiative, more than 1,200,000 less privileged persons have received three legal services from the board. Efforts have also been made to digitize the legal system, including design and implementation of electronic case management systems. With the support of its development partners, the government has also empowered state institutions such as the Human Rights Commission of Sierra Leone, the National Commission for Democracy and the National Youth Commission to enhance inclusion, peaceful coexistence, and democratic governance. An independent commission for peace and national cohesion has also been recently established. All these reforms have contributed to the country enjoying over two decades of peace and democracy and conducting five successful general elections that are regarded as largely peaceful and credible. In fact, by 2023, the Global Peace Index showed that Sierra Leone became the third most peaceful country in Africa and overtaking Ghana as the most peaceful from West Africa. These successes have bolstered Sierra Leone's image in the international community as a successful case of post-war reconciliation and peace-building. Consequently, Sierra Leone is back in the UN Security Council as a non-permanent member for the first time in over five decades, contributing to the global peace and security which we are an achievement that we are very proud of. Like these gains, however, we feel that there's no room for complacency and this should never be the case in any country that has been in conflict and come out of conflict. And more effort should be made by all stakeholders to further improve democratic, good governance and maintain peace and stability. As Sierra Leone is a fragile state in transition, there is always the risk of instability and conflict, especially during electioneering periods when the political climate is often tense. The political tensions during the elections and the co-attempt of late November of 2023 are a stark reminder that we are not completely out of the woods. In terms of national planning, the SDGs have been reflected in the medium-term national development plan that we launched today and also they were reflected in the medium-term national development plan 2019 to 2023. To this plan, they were represented through four objectives, eight clusters and 48 subclusters. SDG is reflected in cluster four which deals more broadly with issues of governance and accountability. Related SDGs such as gender equality are reflected in cluster five, women, children and PWGs and six youth employment. This plan elapsed in December 2023 and as I mentioned just about an hour ago, we launched SDGs. I think we are having some connection problems, is that correct from Sierra Leone? Yeah. Can you connect with Minister Barley? Minister, you seem to be muted. There was a connection issue and now you've ... Yes. Yes. All right. Thank you. So I was talking about the alignment of both plans to the SDGs and specifically SDG 16. Since I've given a lot of the background, I think you've got enough that could be captured as a keynote. So I think I should move to concluding. And as a final point, I would like to emphasise the crucial role of partnerships in fostering peace and stability. Partnerships for us who are very evident in our planning process and in implementation. Particularly noteworthy initiative was the peace in the area of peace was the peace pledge that His Excellency, the President, Dr. Julius Madabele and the presidential candidate of the main opposition party, APC, Dr. Samura Kamara and other political leaders signed up to during the 2023 elections. Continuum with a practice that started in 2018. This was initiated by the then Interreligious Council of Sierra Leone in partnership with the Council of Paramount Chiefs and supported by regional and global bodies including ECOWAS and the Commonwealth Secretariat. Through this pledge, and this is this is a good example, you know, for all, through this pledge, political leaders committed to accept accepting the election results or pursue any grievances through the course. Again, when differences arose from the main opposition party during our last election and mediated dialogue as I mentioned was convened by the Independent Commission for Peace and National Cohesion with mediators from ECOWAS, AU and the Commonwealth to bridge these differences. I am particularly proud of these initiatives as they are clear examples of how homegrown ideas based on local on the local context can make a big impact if adequately supported by other development stakeholders, stakeholders which were considered as independent parties. In closing, let me take this opportunity to register on every unwavering commitment to the SDGs and encourage continued partnerships and collective efforts at the national, regional and with all of you here at the global levels to build a future where peace and inclusivity and prosperity define our world. Together, let us shape a legacy that resonates with the ideals of justice for all. Thank you. Thank you so much, Minister, for these very inspiring words. It's fascinating to hear about the impressive development path that Sierra Leone has taken to build a peaceful and inclusive society. Congratulations on the launch of the development plan. Also great to hear that you ended your speech talking about elections. It's not often that we talk about elections in the context of SDG 16, but we have to assume that free and fair elections have to be at the corner store, which will enable inclusive, just and peaceful institutions to develop and thrive. And these lessons learned and the story about the pledge that was developed in Sierra Leone. I think it's really a model for other countries to follow, especially during this massive election year that the world has had in 2024. So thank you so much, Minister, for these very inspiring words. We will now turn over to the panel and we will start with the first panelist, Paula Fernandez-Wolf, who is the Director General of the 2030 Agenda for the Government of Spain. And so we're turning over to Spain and I would like to ask Paula how the SDG 16 and its interlinkages to other SDGs in the 2030 Agenda is reflected and prioritized in Spain's national or local plans and strategy. And also, how do you anticipate that this will be reflected in Spain's voluntary national review, which I believe Spain will submit this year. And maybe also a little bit about the partnership dimension that we've been talking about so much. Over to you, Paula. And thank you very much to the organizers for inviting me and the Spanish government to be present in this very special side event. And I say it's very special because, of course, for Spain, they show partnerships and encouraging participation across all stakeholders is of paramount importance. Let me just note in my brief, my very brief intervention that my Director General is located within the Ministry for Social Rights and 2030 Agenda and I think this is important to note because of the importance that we place to the 2030 Agenda in the context of the Spanish government, but also in the context of the nexus between human rights and the SDGs, which is a nexus that is oftentimes not so well understood, but I think institutionally in Spain we take it very seriously and this is something I wanted to highlight. Of course, as we all know here, SDG 16 is really one of the all SDGs are obviously important, but solid institutions, justice and peace are, of course, a both a cause and a consequence of achieving other SDGs. So from that perspective, I wanted to highlight two main areas of work that we think are very important and that we will highlight in our VNR, which, as you mentioned, Anika correctly, we will be presenting this July in July of 2024. The first idea is that for us it is really critical to design and implement all public policy priorities in partnership with civil society actors and also other stakeholders. From that perspective, we have a very strong institutional architecture that is that that tries to articulate all of all participation of different actors within different bodies so to speak. The first one is a sustainable development council where civil society has a very strong voice, but also stakeholders from academia, from the private sector, from and from other organizations, such as human rights organizations, environmental organizations, etc. And this is really a really a key forum where they can articulate their positions where we listen as a government, but also as an administration. And also one that is key to localize the SDGs, which is a big priority for Spain. From that perspective, we also have a second main body that is called, in English, we could call it sectoral conference, which articulates different levels of government. It has the Spain, as you might know, has a regional and administrative or jurisdictional distribution of power where. And so in this body, we have not only the the national government, but also regions are represented in this body and also municipal local governments have a voice in this body. So really this this this what we call a conference, but it could be could be called a council, so to speak. We also hold discussions at different levels on the implementation of the SDGs. And of course, this localization of the SDGs, as I was as I was mentioned. And so really within the entire institutional architecture for the 2030 agenda, we have this idea of partnerships in mind, both as a government, as a national administration, but also in terms of regional and local actors. The second main area that is really a priority for us is to think about policy interactions and policy coherence, because oftentimes we speak of the SDGs, but we they are not fully mainstreamed in the whole of government approach that we would like to prioritize. And so a key goal for Spain, even though this is of course at early stages, but we would like to develop and implement a policy coherence system that will apply to all administrations, for instance, including normative impact analysis that will take into account the SDGs at every step of the policymaking process from design to implementation to even evaluation. In addition, I wanted to highlight just a few a few measures that we have undertaken in the past few years to implement specifically SDG 16, such as a whistleblower protection law that we passed, of course, implementing SDG 16.5 and six. We also have an open government plan to improve the accountability of the government and to really strengthen participation in policy and lawmaking. And also we have passed several laws to protect sexual freedoms and to protect to prevent violence against children and youth. In addition, I also wanted to highlight that in the context of our VNR, for instance, we have invited our National Human Rights Institution, which is an ombudsman specifically that has as a task to really scrutinize the work of the administrations. And as you know, this is a very good practice that is encouraged by the United Nations as a way to truly mainstream this human rights based approach into the 2030 agenda by bringing in our National Human Rights Institution into this exercise. And we're hoping they will participate actively, providing advice into around how to articulate, for instance, participation of various administrations into the VNR and to reflect on the practical obstacles to accessing public services, for example, because they have that unique perspective very much in contact with public service users that we will then use in our VNR. Still, I think there are many challenges ahead. One that I mentioned touched on briefly in terms of policy coherence. This is very early work, of course, spearheaded by the OECD and other international actors that had done a lot of work in this area. And we would like to learn more about this because it's it's it's really important to ensure, for example, this gender, the gender mainstreaming is really implemented in practice across all SDGs as well as, for instance, the the perspective on on on planetary limits and how that interacts with various SDGs. A second challenge, I would say, is the issue of localization. For us, as I mentioned, developing public policies in partnership with different stakeholders is is incredibly important. And yet sometimes it's, of course, understandable that localizing the SDGs will will always we will always run into specific practical examples into how to do this. And a third one would be strengthening participation and accountability, which for us is also very important. And with this, I close, I look forward to learning more from my fellow panelists. Thank you. Thank you so much, Paula. We have heard about a very different context from the Sierra Leone, but nonetheless, many parallels. Thanks for emphasizing the role of human rights institutions. The minister also did that and the linkage between the human rights agenda and the 2030 agenda. I think that's very important. Also, thanks for being honest about the challenges ahead and its working progress, the implementation of this agenda. But it's really interesting and fascinating to hear the progress that Spain has made and is making towards ensuring policy coherence and localizing and coordinating, not only with governments at different levels, but also with civil society and other stakeholders. So thank you very much for those perspectives. We will now turn over to our next panelist also a different context, the Norwegian context. We have Anne Ronsas with us, who's the chief advisor on SDGs for the Norwegian Association of Local Governments. So we would like to ask you. Similarly, how SDG-16 and its interlinkages to other SDGs is reflected and prioritized in Norway's and in your case, since you're focusing on local governments in local plans and strategies. Also, hear a little bit about the BNR for Norway. I believe Norway submitted its last BNR in 2021. How was SDG-16 and its interlinkages featured there? So over to you and we look forward to hearing your insights from Norway. Thank you, Annika, and thank you to the organizers for giving me the opportunity to share some experiences from the local and regional level. I represent KS, the Norwegian Association of Local and Regional Authorities in Norway, and we represent all the municipalities in all the regions. 357 municipalities and 15 regions all across Norway and in Norway, we have benefited from good relations and existing system of consultation and dialogue between the national government and the municipal sector for years. And we are working to strengthen the horizontal and vertical coordination to implement the SDGs and more can be done to raise awareness about the SDGs and foster this whole of society approach. This is crucial when it comes to securing the SDG-16 and its interlinkages to other SDGs. And this established structure of dialogue made it possible to achieve an inclusive SDG reporting process covering the whole of government when Norway delivered its voluntary national review back in 2021. We knew that the national reports they tend to fall short when it comes to understanding and explaining local and regional progress towards the SDGs. This is the reason why we agreed to combine national reports with both local reports and subnational reports. So this year, we take this one step further. Together with our Nordic colleagues and the research institution, Mood Regio, we are producing a joint Nordic voluntary subnational review. There we are presenting the SDG work, local and regional level in all the five Nordic countries. And this report will emphasise the importance of local and regional action, giving in particular a voice to our youth and the indigenous peoples in the Nordic region. We are looking forward to presenting this at the HLPF this summer. KS has also benefited from a political agreement with the country's national government to take joint action on the SDG implementation. This agreement ensured that we transfer knowledge from the voluntary reports into joint action across different levels of government. And many municipalities and many local authorities in Norway base their strategies and planning efforts on the SDGs, both to ensure sustainable service provision and future oriented local development. In KS, we make efforts to motivate and support and encourage all municipalities' work to meet the SDGs. We translate the global goals into a local context. We develop measurement systems for progress. We create arenas for networking and sharing of experiences, as well as encouraging political commitments, willingness to change and citizens' acceptance. To succeed with the SDGs, new and strong partnerships are needed. The municipalities in Norway already cooperate with business community, with universities and colleges, with NGOs and with citizens to create sustainable, peaceful, just and inclusive societies. And the SDGs offer a common language and ambition to construct such partnerships on. In Norway, we also benefit from a strong tradition of social dialogue. Building on this, we are working together with the Confederation of Norway and Norwegian Enterprises, representing the business side and the Norwegian Confederation of the trade unions, representing the labor side to join forces with the municipal sector in amplifying the development of sustainable solutions regionally and nationally. We believe in the power of such innovative collaborations and partnerships as the way forward for sustainable development to secure the voices from all the relevant actors and parties and to build the needed solutions together. It's crucially important to also be able to see the policy coherence when it comes to the SDG 16 and its interlinkages with other SDGs and the municipal sector and the regional sector in Norway is working heavily on being able to do this. And we are trying to support them with the tools and the frameworks making it possible for them to assess this. So thank you. I look very much forward to learning from my peers in this panelist. And I'm looking forward to the following discussion afterwards. Thank you. Thank you so much, Anne. Very interesting to hear about the Norwegian experience and the innovation that you are putting forward this year. Not only are you innovating, you are submitting a multi country VNR, but also reflecting advances at the local level. So we really look forward to looking at that product when it's done. Now we will turn to our final panelist. Sorry, some technological issues. So Liz, can you share with us some concrete examples of innovative partnerships, grassroots mobilisation and the institution building around SDG 16 plus and particularly around peace building that are truly inspiring for the audience to hear. Over to you, Liz. Thank you so much. I first want to just start off and say peace building in general. If you go back to the 1990s, it wasn't even a word. It wasn't a word. You know, if you told people what you were working on, people would say what I don't even understand what that means. So I think it's really important for us to say we've come a long way. And SDG 16 is the perfect example of that. The Secretary General talks about peace building and conflict prevention all the time. So these are really important things to celebrate. But there's a lot more work that has to be done. But they came about not because one person had a great idea. It came about through collective action and working together. However, the peace building field for numerous reasons, whether it's lack of resources and competition, we tend to be a bit more siloed and dispersed. So there's a lot of work that remains. But we, you know, so what is the answer? We have to work more closely together, collaboratively, collectively, and a lot of donors don't want to fund that. And that's a really big issue. Research, and in fact, AFP feels so strongly about this that we built our 10-year strategy around this. So the Alliance for Peace Building, we're a membership-based organization. We have over 200 members. We take a really big tent approach. If you're working on peace building, come and join us. And not only do we say, come and join us, we join other networks to amplify other networks like the TAP network, like CSPPS. We feel very strongly that that is how we are going to build champions and really make this systemic change around conflict prevention and peace building. We don't have to, you know, we know, this is, I don't have to tell this crowd, 2018, we have hit global violent conflict record highs and we keep breaking them every year. And it's not just those conflicts over there. The Eurasia report that was released yesterday by Foreign Policy talked about one of the greatest threats to security is America, America's war with itself. We're having significant challenges in the global north as well. And that's why SDG-16 is something that needs to be championed, but we also have to be reflective about it, knowing where its weaknesses are. And more importantly, that it applies globally, not just to those countries in the global south, but also in the global north. So I think that that is such an incredible piece of SDG-16 and it didn't just happen. These things don't just happen. They happen because of collective voices and collective action. And, you know, the research, when we did our strategy, really, we really researched what networks were. You know, a lot of people would say, OK, what is AFP? What is this organization? Is it a is it a network? Is it a coalition? Is it a this? And we used to say, what does it matter? We're working on this together. Well, the good thing is that in the last 20 years, there has been so much research on how do you do systemic change? And it really does show that, you know, building champions, unlocking the systemic change for greater impact, no one organization can do it alone. Scaling individual organizations doesn't do it. You need this collective action, this network to do this work. So no, and it's right front and center in our strategy. No organization, you know, can do this alone. We take on issues that are too big for any organization to tackle on itself. So I can't stress the importance of, you know, not only this is what we know, but it's what the research shows. So I really want to emphasize this over and over again and the importance of the TAP network on SDG 16, for example, because we have a lot of work to do and especially this year as SDG 16 is getting reviewed. Let's be honest. They were developed in 2014 and who doesn't want to go back to 2014 in terms of where the world was. There was less conflict. You know, there was it was a different time. Conflict actually was declining. So there's a lot of focus on the SDGs, especially SDG 16 that we need to look at how do we focus in on a positive side of it, not just the negative side of it. We know how important social cohesion is, for example. But one of the most important pieces about SDG 16, and this is something that as a network, as a collective action, working together where we are going to have the most systemic change in the next 10 years is around integration, integrating conflict prevention and peace building into other sectors. And that is exactly what SDG 16 says. So the health sector, you know, we don't have to look any, any, you know, any farther than COVID. We now know countries that had better, you know, stronger social cohesion did better, even though they sat high on the pandemic list, like the United States. So we need to make sure that conflict prevention and peace building is integrated into these other sectors robustly, like health, like education, like technology. And that is only going to happen through building strong networks, working together, championing each other's work. This is the way forward. And we know how important it is because we know. What we're facing, you know, again, things are getting much tougher in the world, our conflict records breaking. So I, you know, I urge people, I beg people, join these networks, get involved and work together. That is the only way that we are going to solve the most pressing problems of our times. Thank you. Thank you so much, Liz, for your inspiring words and for sharing the Alliance for Peace Buildings experience and emphasizing and reminding us of the importance of coalitions, networks, partnerships, we can achieve much more working collectively together than if we work on our own. And also thanks for reminding us all of the global nature of the 2030 agenda and that this is not the responsibility just of the global south, but of the global north as well. We all have challenges and issues and we can learn a lot from each other. So this is truly a global agenda. That's the unique value of this agenda. I erroneously said that you were the last panelist, but of course we have our final panelist joining us now. So Swati Mehta from Pathfinders is going to be the final panelist before we hand over to an interactive dialogue with the audience. Swati Mehta, you are the director of the Justice for All Programme of Pathfinders. And we were wondering if you can share with us also some examples from your work of innovative partnerships and grassroots mobilisation and institution building around SDG 16 plus, particularly around access to justice. Over to you Swati. Thank you Anika and thank you everyone for joining us today. Let me begin by thanking our co-organisers, TAP Network and International Idea for partnering with us on this very important and timely event. We all know we are in the second half of the 2030 agenda and we all know that we are woefully off track. Goal 16 is one of the most poorly performing goals and yet ironically it is a critical enabler for achieving other goals. You cannot address poverty, reduce inequalities or address the fallout from climate change without peace and justice. As Anika mentioned, as a justice practitioner, I'll focus on SDG 16.3 which calls for promotion of rule of law and ensuring equal access to justice for all. Given the huge justice gap where 5.1 billion people, lack meaningful access to justice, accelerating action on SDG 16.3 requires a transformative approach. It requires putting people and their needs at the centre of justice systems and that this should be based on data, understanding what they want and what they need when they seek justice. It also needs ensuring fair outcomes for people by preventing and resolving justice problems. This, of course, requires innovative policies. It requires partnerships. Over 60 countries have now endorsed what is called the principles of people-centred justice. Today, like my fellow panellists, I would like to focus on solutions and not problems and talk about what is happening on innovative institutional policies and on partnerships, as Anika said. Let me begin by citing two examples of innovative and people-centred justice policies from Kenya as well as Sierra Leone. And we heard the minister talk about Sierra Leone. I'll just add a little bit to that. In Kenya, for example, embracing the reality that most Kenyans do not seek justice in the courts, the Kenyan judiciary created the Alternative Justice Systems Policy to engage proactively with customary and informal justice systems. So under this policy, what people can do is they can choose to get justice through customary and informal justice systems, which have been trained on constitutional imperatives to protect rights. It reflects the lived reality of Kenyans and brings justice closer to them. And it also helps reduce backlogs and delays in courts. The policy is new and its impact will be known in the coming years, but it certainly seems like the right step in the right direction, reaching people where they are to prevent and solve their problems. I will invite you to read our latest report on Kenya, which one of my colleagues can post in the chat, to learn more about some of the challenges, successes, and opportunities at the policy in Kenya, and to think about how this may be relevant to your own context. Coming very quickly to Sierra Leone, which in 2022 enacted two new laws to safeguard people's land rights. The Customary Land Rights Act and the National Land Commission Act seek to bolster the protection of rural landowners and women in particular. They grant all local communities the right to free, prior informed consent over all industrial projects on their lands. They ban industrial development, including mining, timber, and agribusiness in old forests, old growth forests, and other ecological sensitive areas. And they establish local land use committees to make decisions about how community lands are managed. And mandate that those committees comprise at least 30% women. Now these laws not only serve as practical examples of people-centered justice policy, but also illustrate the cross-cutting nature of SDG-16 with clear touch points with Goal 5 and gender equality, getting women into land committees, which was never happening, and Goal 15 to protect the terrestrial ecosystem. And there are many, many examples of countries trying to do this. But let me very quickly now come to the issue of partnerships in achieving SDGs. And there are again several examples, and we've heard of examples of partnerships and alliances already through our partners. But on justice, there are examples of global, regional, and domestic multi-stakeholder partnerships which are showing the way. At a global level, we have the Justice Action Coalition, which is a multi-stakeholder, high-ambition coalition comprising 20 countries, 18 organizations, championing access to justice for all. It has played a key role in drawing attention to the importance of people-centered justice at UN events and processes by making joint statements at the HLPF, at the UN Sixth Committee deliberations, but also going further by actually influencing the way UN engages with rule of law. The coalition's joint letter to the Secretary General led to SD's report on common agenda recognizing justice as an essential dimension of social contract and to the launch of a new vision for rule of law, which clearly states that rule of law is people-centered. The coalition has also done a lot to produce data and evidence. It has produced 10 joint deliverables as part of a shared research agenda on justice. And again, I'll invite you to visit our website. Maybe my colleague can paste something on these research documents that have been produced as part of a coalition working jointly to create better data and better evidence. But find it serves as a secretary to the coalition. Again, I'm mindful of the time very quickly. Another example I would like to cite is that of the Ibero-American Alliance, which is a regional alliance on access to justice, which is also a very concrete example of innovative partnership. Now, this alliance is an action-oriented regional alliance comprising non-government organizations, governmental and intergovernmental agencies, and civil society organizations. It has Comheb, which is a Minister of Justice, prosecutors, public defenders, CSOs, all coming together at a regional level to accelerate implementation of SDG 16.3 in the region with a special focus on data and innovation, on creating and promoting a regional normative framework on access to justice. And to ensure that regional actors' efforts to leave no one behind actually feed into the SDG agenda. I am very... Pathfinders does serve as the secretary to this alliance as well. And because I'm mindful of the time keeping my eye on the clock there, I will stop here, but I'm happy to answer any questions later. Thank you very much. Thank you so much, Swati, for your inspiring words, hearing the work of the Justice Action Coalition and other coalitions, the importance of multi-stakeholder coalitions, where civil society comes together, but also in collaboration with academia and with governments to really achieve progress on the 2030 agenda. And something that Liz said in her previous intervention, also the importance of coalitions and collective action, but also of coalitions joining other coalitions so that all these coalitions that exist out there actually work together to achieve even greater impact. We will now turn to the interactive feature of this session. I will hand this over to John Romano, the director of the TAP network, to lead this exercise. He will teach us all how to use a mentimeter. And so I'll hand this over to you, John. Great. Thanks a lot, Annika. And thanks to our speakers for a very rich discussion. Yeah, I'm now moving over to a little bit more about an interactive portion of this event. I'm sure for those of you that have attended other TAP network events, know that we like to use this tool, Mentimeter, to really get a sense of what colleagues in the room are thinking and how you're feeling and provide your insights. So I'm going to share my screen. Quickly here. And so just to explain what we're doing here, really, yeah, for logistical purposes, we'll put a link in the chat box. Anyone can access this link to utilize, to provide your insights through this poll. You can also log on on your mobile device or your computer, just go to menti.com. And then you can use the code here at the top of the screen. The code is 4491309. And that will allow you to provide your insights here. Basically, what we have here is a word cloud. You provide your insights. We'll see how frequently some of these terms are used. The bigger they are, the more it's being referenced. So we'll wait for some colleagues to provide some insights. This is just a warm-up question. What does SDG16 plus mean to you? What when you think about SDG16, what issues come to mind? We've heard a little bit about some of the interlinkages between SDG16 plus and all other SDGs. So on top of peace and justice, inclusion, strong institutions, what else do you see as connected with SDG16 plus? And also, while we talk about partnerships as well, I think just, again, thinking about where the entry points for this discussion will be shared, we also hope to deliver the results and some of the key messages from this event today to the official SDG16 action segment later today at the EcoSoc partnership forum. So this will contribute directly to the official outcomes from the EcoSoc partnerships forum. And on that note, also, in addition to thanking our partners from International IDEA and the Pathfinders, I also wanted to mention that this event is also supported from our colleagues from the Civil Society Platform for Peacebuilding and Statebuilding, IDLO, Wafuna and UNDP, and UNDP is helping to support that SDG16 action segment and will help us ensure that these messages are shared into the partnerships forum. So, okay, I think we're seeing justice, peace, inclusion. I think that's fairly self-explanatory. I see participation, transparency, peacebuilding, violence reduction, see a lot of our collaboration and partnership integration. Okay, this is a great way for us to warm up a little bit. Here, we'll move to the next question and get into the details. The difficult questions here on how can we utilize partnerships to strengthen SDG16 implementation. So we heard a little bit about where some of the partnerships are and some ideas from the panelists. So curious to see, again, where are some of the areas that you feel we need additional support around. And you may be prompted in front of you in the poll. Just click go to the next question and it'll bring you up to be able to provide your keywords for this question. And as we wait for results to come in, I also wanted to highlight on our side another partnership that the TAP network also coordinates and facilitates. It's called the SDG16 Now campaign. So I know that many of you have seen many partners and familiar faces in the attendee list. So thanks for joining us. But for those that aren't already part of the SDG16 Now campaign, this is really a campaign to help us, as Liz mentioned, how do we connect and unite some of the like-minded organizations that work on SDG16, bring them all together, really to push for more concrete action and partnership around SDG16 Plus. So a lot of different strands to that work. Really big thanks to all of our partners from last year to help us building that momentum towards this year. Again, a very important year with the summit of the future ahead of us. A lot of entry points for SDG16 issues around peace and the new agenda for peace and justice, participation, governance, good governance. So a lot of areas for us and entry points for the SDG16 Now campaign. So we'll share some more information in the chat box around how you can join that campaign and join this movement to call for more action on SDG16. Okay, we have a really diverse response here on where we can strengthen partnerships. I see the biggest one here, accountability. I think that's something on a lot of people's minds. I think we need better accountability across SDG16 and the SDGs overall, advocacy, local governments, research, transparency. Okay, great. So we'll stop here. I know, again, there's plenty of other opportunities for us to dive a bit deeper into all of these issues. So again, thanks to all of you for providing your insights. But I'll hand it back to Anika for opening up the floor and the discussion. Again, for those that do want more information, we'll share everything coming from this meeting here with you after. And again, hopefully in making sure that all of these insights and key messages make its way into the COSOP partnerships forum from here. So thanks again for your insights and for contributing. Thank you so much, John. And thanks for everyone for participating in this poll. One of the things that stood out in one of the mantimeters was that I reacted to, there were many issues, of course, the opportunity for collaboration that these partnerships gave advancing collective action on the 2030 agenda and on SDG16. One of the large words was collaborating around research and data, collecting better data. So I would like to make a plea, John, you were encouraging everyone to join the SDG16 campaign also for you to know that we are also collaborating in the SDG16 data initiative, which is also a coalition of partner organizations, multi-stakeholder that produce complementary data to help track progress on SDG16. Now, we have 10 minutes left of our session and we have a couple of people that have lined up to provide some comments. And the first one that I have here on my list is from UNDP Alessandro Ercolani. Are you there, Alessandro, and would you like to share some thoughts with us today? Thanks, Sanika, and thanks to John and all the speakers and panelists. My name is Alessandro Ercolani. I'm a governance analyst at UNDP's Bureau for Policy and Program Support in New York. And I just wanted to quickly reflect on a couple of extremely important points that were raised by a few different panelists. First of all, the issue of partnership and partnerships, I think is this is something that we're going to repeat later today at the official SDG16 action segment. And we're going to repeat tomorrow at the coordination segment. With member states. It is one of the reasons why we're part, UNDP is part of the SDG16 plus coalition together with International Idea, Pathfinders, and a few others. And another point that I wanted to quickly reflect on is the issues of partnership for better data. And that links to something that Elizabeth mentioned around the need to mobilize the donor community around investment for research on interlinkages, for networks. And we need to show that there is an actual benefit around identifying these interlinkages, implementing interlinkages, and that SDG16 has a catalytic role in achieving the rest of the agenda. We're doing that in a few areas. We just launched our insights reports. Where we analyze more than 95 countries and we're trying to understand what are the SDG pathways that can maximize national investment to achieve the 17 SDGs. And for example, it comes out that effective and responsive institutions are a driver of societal being overall. And they bear benefits for social protection, for example, and other SDGs. We also conducted research with the German Institute on linkages with poverty inequality, protection of marine environment that we found the same positive spillovers. So I just wanted to highlight that. One last thing on the links between human rights and SDGs, this is of extreme importance to us. We also released recently a guidance note on streaming human rights in BNRs. And we invite you to take a look at that. And I'm out of time. Thank you very much for giving me these two minutes. Over back to you, Annika. Thank you. Thank you so much, Alessandro, for these good insights, the importance of data, and more funding to really strengthen the evidence base on the interlinkages between SDG 16 and the rest of the 2030 agenda. Alessandro, may I ask that you send the link in the chat to these various publications that you referenced and that I think will be very valuable for all of us to read. We have some more discussions on the list. I wanted to know if Natia Ciccaratze is there from the government of Georgia. Yes. Yes, I'm here. Wonderful. Over to you, Natia. Thank you. Thank you so much for these opportunities. I will be very brief, and I will mention the importance of SDG 16. For Georgia, it incorporates SDG 16 into its national development strategies and plans. This involves aligning the country's overall development goals with the targets and indicators of SDG 16. Georgia has been working on building effective and inclusive institutions. This includes efforts to enhance transparency and accountability. The country has undertaken significant reforms aimed at enhancing its governance system. The adoption of one-stop shop approach for service delivery has become an example of many countries and the expansion of public service accessibility through transformative initiatives like public service halls, community centers, and cities as part of like my GovG, and building up this prior achievement, the government of Georgia in pursuit of bolstering democracy, good governance, transparency, and accountability, as well as elevating the quality of service provision to citizens at every level, introduce the public administration reform in 2015, and the establishment of an effective and efficient public administration was identified as a fundamental objective, serving as the cornerstone of a well-functioning state. And this commitment was enriched in the public administration reform strategy 2020 and corresponding action plans. And furthermore, the significance of public administration reform is clearly articulated in key national policy documents, such as the government program for 2021 and 2024, and development strategy of Georgia vision 2013. Georgia has also a new per strategy public administration reform strategy that was approved last year. And as part of the public administration reform, two key pillars stand out, the policy planning pillar and the public service delivery pillar. And these pillars have witnessed remarkable achievements within their respective domains. Notably, some of these accomplishments include development of unified public policy planning framework and the respective software and the unified standard for policy planning and implementation has introduced a common approach towards initiative implementing, monitoring the policy cycle in the country. With this new standard to be ensured that all policy documents are linked with the SDGs. And this SDG-16 is one of the important goals for aligning it in our policy documents. And the second pillar I would like, second achievement I would like to mention is the introduction of service design, delivery quality assurance and coasting policy adopted by the government of Georgia. The unified service policy covers all aspects of public service development and it's based internationally recognized participatory methodologies such as design thinking, user-centered design, digitalization, and et cetera. And introduction of policy coupled with capacity building activities has increased the awareness of public servants towards the importance of user engagement in service development and incorporation of cities and feedback into the re-engineering of public services. Thank you. Thank you so much, Nadja, for sharing the experience of Georgia. We are coming to the end of this event. Okay, so I think we will not be able to go to have all the discussions that had listed themselves talk but we will have from civil society that can share their views. Dr. Yotsna Mohansing from the Asia Development Alliance over to you and then we'll wrap up. Thank you so much, Annika. Thank you, John. And thank you for all the great speakers for the great speeches. Some of the points that I wanted to follow up here is about one word that we hear, localization. Why are we talking about localization, you know, because when it's said that SDGs were the bottom-up approach, that means they were supposed to be already localized. So why don't we use the term locally-laid development or something else? Because localization still looks like very much top-down approach. And the other thing that I wanted to very quickly talk about the whole issue of justice, when we're talking about the SDG16+, then we have to talk about the issues of redistributive justice. For example, I know in my region 0.001% of the people, they acquire about 30% of the wealth. At the same time, when we talk about the ODA, the developed country, they need to take the responsibility because earlier we used to say that 0.7% of the GNI should be devoted to the ODA, but now it's like 2%. So please, so there's another thing that we really need to have the transparent approach and let's talk about the redistributive and economic justice. We also need to talk about the environmental justice and then gender and social justice. And the other thing that I wanted to talk about is the whole issue of the shrinking civic space. We are talking about the whole issue of partnership, but then the civil society, their voices are being muted. I mean, especially in my region, if you look at the Southeast Asian countries or South Asian countries, the civil society have hardly any say. When the SDGs are already digressing, we will not be able to achieve SDGs until 2065 and some of the indicators, some of the goals like gender would be achieved only 200 years from now. And then we are already talking about the summit of the future. So I sometimes wonder, or we civil society in Asia Pacific region, we really feel that isn't it an attempt to divert the whole attention from the failing SDGs to the summit of the future? So I think we really need to have a lot of advocacy and communication on why are we talking about, I mean, the whole issue of summit of the future, because I'm afraid that with this, we might, the attention might be diverted. So I think these are some of the points that I wanted to highlight. And I wanted the steam speakers to understand our points from the global South point of view. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Josna, and also for reminding us of the issue of civic space, which is also a fundamental preconditions for achieving SDG 16. We have come to the end of our session, but I would like to give one minute to our dear colleague and partner, Henk Jan Brinkman from IDLO to say just a few words, but can I ask you to be brief, Henk Jan, and then we will wrap up the conversation. Over to you, Henk Jan. No, great. Thank you so much. I just, indeed, 60 seconds. I just wanted to mention the pact for the future. A desired draft is on the table. There are a couple of good elements in there, but there are also a few things missing. One is people-centered justice. And that is something that we all need to advocate for and fully agree with Liz that we need to have coalitions together to really make this happen. And the other thing that is there, but really need to be strengthened, is that we need to push against military approaches to peace and security. We need to focus on dialogue, inclusivity, and peace building, as Liz and others have also emphasized. So there's a little bit of work to be done. One good thing also in the pact is the target of halving the number of violent death. This is something that we have advocated for and there's a whole campaign around it, but the text is in there and we need to keep it. So thanks so much. Thanks so much, Henk Jan, for reminding us that the draft of the pact of the future is out, encouraging you all to provide comments. Thanks for already pointing us to where the gaps are. And thanks to everyone that participated today. We've had a really interesting discussion. I'm so glad that we focused on solutions, on good practices, rather than just pointing out where the failures are. It's very important to balance with constructive policy solutions and hear the experiences from different parts of the world. So big thanks to all our speakers and for all those who listen in on this event and we can look forward to continue the conversation going forward. Thank you. Thank you. Bye-bye. Thank you, everyone. Thank you.