 So good afternoon everybody and you're welcome to the Institute of International and European Affairs We're very very pleased and honored to have minister Nocten here for this very important event and sustainable development goals such a an important Issue for all of us and Ireland has played such an important role Indeed in the development of the goals over the years. It's great to see some very familiar faces here who themselves have played a great role so I'd also like to welcome Irish aid who sponsor our development series of talks And they've been great supporters of the Institute over the years So I will first of all pass over to Sinead Walsh who will introduce the minister and then the minister will make his remarks before I get you to say a few words Sinead just to remind everybody to switch off your Well, sorry to switch your phones to silent if you wish to tweet, please do so the hashtag is IEA We will take questions under the Chatham House rule in due course And we will ask you to identify yourself in the usual usual way so Sinead Walsh, please. Thank you Good afternoon everybody great to see such a full room As Barry said The adoption of the SDGs Set, you know the benchmark really for the first time ever and for a global agreement on ending poverty Environmental degradation fighting hunger and so many other things and we can be really proud that Ireland Through our ambassador David Dunne who played such a pivotal role in co-facilitating the goals Just before minister Noctin launches a plan I want to just say a few words from the the Irish aid Department of Foreign Affairs side of the house in terms of what we are doing and what we propose to do Over the coming years with respect to our international SDG engagement. I mean the short Summary is we would like to show the same kind of leadership on the implementation as we did on the negotiation And as part of this We want to look at our international development commitments, and you know, I think most of you in this room will know that We give 707 million euros for ODA in 2018 the third year running that we've managed to increase at that amount and The Irish aid program is is already Very sort of relevant. I would say to to SDGs so in terms of what we do at the moment I don't know How many of you like me carry around the little 17 especially because so many people working on SDGs We'll just sort of say blah blah blah 14 and so it's always handy to be able to so. Yes oceans But you know just to sort of give you a bit of an example of where we are at the moment. I Myself was was five years working for for the Department for Irish aid in Sierra Leone And one of the main programs we had there was about Getting teenage girls who are pregnant back into the education system because they had been historically banned So on my little chart Obviously, that's number four quality education. It's also number five gender equality It's also because we had a reproductive health component good health and well-being and then one would hope It's also some of the longer term issues around reducing inequalities and reducing poverty So just to say and and I see John Gilroy down there who was on David Donahue's team in New York And who knows all this better than me? It also just shows you not just that our work that we're doing at the moment is relevant But also that the SDGs are indivisible And interconnected and so working on you know one you should also You know support others and we also need to make sure that we work on all 17 But in so in terms of what we're doing in you know, what we're planning to do in the future We want to take a more Systematic approach, you know, it's not good enough to just say oh, you know Irish aid It's a hunger and gender and so on so obviously it's it's relevant to the goals But actually look much more specifically at what we might do in the future Sort of vis-a-vis the agenda because our current strategy was agreed in in 2013 before the goals were agreed so we're in the process of Writing a new white paper for international development policy And that is going to also I think will be of great interest to people in this room Strengthen our alignment to SDGs, but also try to get us closer to 17.2 which some of you might know Calls for developed countries to achieve a target of 0.7 percent of GNI for overseas development official development assistance So we're we're planning that the white paper Will inform an ambitious pathway and it is an ambitious pathway Towards making a progress on this UN target We also want the review to as I say align us more closely with the SDGs So there will be a consultation process starting any day now a public consultation process in the white paper and We'd really love it if all of you in this room would would input into that process There'll be public meetings as well as online Dimensions to that and just the last thing I'd like to mention on the international side is that SDGs as I think people in this room will know it's you know Not just about the international dimension is not just about aid and what we do on aid But also how we construct and implement domestic policies which have international implications and so in some of the discussions we're having are how you know the SDGs help us to see What we might have previously thought of as either domestic or international issues and how they're both so you can think about human trafficking You could think about many issues in agriculture. You could think obviously about climate change So the the national coordination around SDGs which is led by a minister Nocturne's department of Communications climate change in the environment if I got that in the right order is is leading that that Coordination process along with the department of the Taoiseach and and it's a great opportunity to Enhance the coherence of the totality of Ireland's policies So so with that I'm delighted to hand over the floor to minister Dennis Nocturne as as Ireland's leader on the SDGs to launch the national petition plan minister Thanks very much Sinead and I'm delighted to be here this afternoon and thank Barry as well for hosting this event. I Was looking around the room at the at the pen the sustainable development gold pen and people's lapels And I'm often stopped in the street and people ask me, you know, what's the pen about? And I say to them these are the groups that are going to make up the next government in Ireland And it's amazing when you see the blood drain out of people's faces in relation to it But it gives me the opportunity to talk about the sustainable development goals and hopefully on thought of the launcher of this particular initiative today and the Implementation plan that more and more people will know what this colorful faunia is actually about So I'm delighted to be here today to launch the first national implementation plan on the sustainable development goals And the plan underlines Ireland's commitment to achieve the 17 Sustainable goals between now and 2030 and that is a daunting task for us all My department has produced the plan But it is very much a whole of government approach in relation to delivering on the sustainable development goals And every single government department has been involved in drafting this but also in relation to its implementation And I particularly want to Thanks your needs team the tarnish then the Department of Foreign Affairs and also the T-shirt and his department for the support that I Have received in my department has received in relation to producing this document. I personally am delighted to have been given overall responsibility for promoting the sustainable development goals across government and overseeing their implementation and that's not because as Minister for Communications Climate action and environment quite a number of these goals Are directly related to my own department? But I see the sustainable development goals really about forcing new thinking in government in your government And making the public services think very differently about how they actually deliver those services Because the sustainable development goals address the basic reality that Many of the social economic and environmental challenges that we're facing in common today And that we can only address through integrated solutions None of the 17 goals fit neatly Into any single government department. I was coming over here this afternoon I was thinking to myself one of the things that we're very focused on and Brian Carroll here So any of the difficult questions my assistant secretary here in front of me Brian Carroll would be answering them Which would be all of them but One of the things that we're working on at the moment is the issue of air quality and air quality is Specifically referenced into the sustainable development goals sustainable goal 3 in relation to good health and well-being and Sustainable goal 11 in relation to sustainable cities and communities But it also directly relates to sustainable goal 6 clean water and sanitation 7 in relation to affordable and clean energy 9 in relation to industry innovation and infrastructure 12 in responsibility responsible consumption and production 13 climate action 14 life below water and 15 life on land So the point I'm trying to make is that these are Cross-cutting goals and while individual government departments and individual ministers have direct responsibility For each one of those 17 goals they are cross-cutting I think that's what is really exciting and interesting about this because it's not a case of a Particular department saying this isn't my job Someone else is responsible for that right across the SDGs. They cut right right across government I think the challenge for us all now is to bring the public with us The players such as the NGOs and the different stakeholders to actually deliver On those sustainable development goals, and I think it does force that type of joined-up thinking That needs to be there to get the basic things right in our society all 17 of the all of the Goals there will transform Ireland from being a thriving economy that it is today to a society in which we all Want to raise our children The word spoken by Bobby Kennedy in 1963, I think are very apt today When he said every generation inherits a world it never made and it is And as it does so it automatically becomes the trustee of that world for those who come after In due course each generation makes its own accounting to its children I think that's something that we need to keep very much to the fore as we actually implement These goals and it's not going to be easy to implement them because effectively we have a 19th century structure of government in a 21st century economy and things in government As we know happened very slowly but I think if we move away from the Attitude the government knows best to an era where government can actually facilitate Innovative solutions coming from communities themselves Then I think it will be much easier to move down this particular road and deliver on the goals And that's why I think this is a very exciting point in the development of our country as a big community Rather than a big a big economy. I Think it's fair to say that the sustainable development goals Would not be what they are today were it not for the work of David Donohue who convinced the global community To agree to the most ambitious set of commitments in the UN's history David's achievements as co-chair of the SDG negotiations is a shining example of Ireland's long commitment to the ideal of peaceful prosperous Sustainable and safe world. I think the commitment comes from the Irish people's own shared history of famine and migration Our sense of solidarity with those in need right across the world But I think what we need to be and should be rightly proud in establishing the sustainable development goals We now need to turn that pride into action to achieve those goals by 2030 And that is not going to be an easy task But today is the beginning of that journey and it is very much just the beginning of that journey This short of change is sort of change won't happen all at once and we have to start somewhere and the Sustainable development goals are not just a set of global ambitions They are a call to action and a call to action for every single state Across the globe for every single government and for every single community I think what we need to do is that the same mix of ambition backed up by concrete action And you can see that now reflected through in the relation to the national development plan where we're driving Ireland's long-term Economic environmental and social progress over the next ten years I think what's really exciting about the national development plan is that we're ring things fencing 4,000 million 4,000 million euro into four investment funds on climate action on disruptive technology innovation on urban and rural generation and These funds have been established to drive Innovative solutions to problems and to break away the old departmental silo thinking that has Strangled innovation within government and also moving away that from an approach that Solutions should be built around government grants and supports how many times in the past have we seen Communities come across upward ideas that are being specifically tailored to fit into a particular Government funding program rather than actually what will deliver for that community in the long term The national implementation plan is a framework now for government and how we actually bring all of the 17 SDGs into cross-governmental action It spells out in some detail which ministers are responsible for which element of the sustainable development goals and how Existing policies relate to those goals It also explains how in future new policies will take account of Ireland's commitments under the Sustainable Development Goals and how Ireland's SDG activities will be communicated and reported across the whole of government The plan also focuses on raising public public awareness and for me I think public awareness is critical in relation to this because we need to bring the Sustainable Development Goals into the daily lives of people That's the only way that we're going to get community buy-in If there's one way to put the squeeze on politicians and ministers that is when the public start openly talking about issues I think it will also provide new energy new innovation and new enthusiasm So that is not just a government responsibility and a government approach to this. That's why the SDG Communication strategy and the Sustainable Development Goals champions are so critically important and what we want is these particular champions in Communities right across this country in civil society groups and in the private sector to look and see how these 17 high-level goals impact within their own business within their own Organization and within their own community and I think it's by doing that we bring practical action into the Theoretical goals that are there at the moment. I also think that the stakeholder forum that we're establishing Will help to not just engage the wider public But also key stakeholders across the sectors and I think this is something that I would like to see as being a Very genuine dialogue between government and stakeholders between stakeholders in the different sectors themselves in sharing ideas Implementing the Sustainable Goals and actually problem-solving some of the challenges that are there because look government doesn't have all of the solutions and Sometimes the solutions that are being brought forward aren't that easy to actually implement by government I think it's an opportunity and we've done it within our own department in the past in relation to particularly Challenging problems that we have we've gone out and we said look this is the problem as we see it We can't address this problem Can you come forward with real and practical solutions that can overcome that and I think the forum can be a Mechanism to make that happen, but we all need to break out of the business as usual approach It's not just government that has to come up to the mark Society as a whole needs to come up to the mark and we all all of us have to step out of our comfort zones and work together To see this implemented But we can have the goals we can have the action on the ground But as the father Sean Healy said to me recently it isn't much good unless it's being measured because without Evidence-based reporting Regular and transparent reporting then with nothing to measure ourselves against and these are reports that we're going to develop in actually Looking at the sustainable development goals will highlight our successes draw attention to innovative national policies But also be equally upfront and honest about where Ireland needs to do more These reports will include a comprehensive statistical data from the central statistics office Which is now as an organization fast becoming a world leader in the field of SDG data Through its partnership with the United Nations Government intends to report internationally to the United Nations four times between now and 2030 beginning this July my department is currently Finalizing our first voluntary national review that will be presented to the UN in July and that would set the baseline in relation to Ireland's SDG Performance so I'm looking forward to working with each and every one of you here wider communities across this country to see how we can take these fine Objectives these targets that have been set for every country across the globe and yes We have been very much part of authoring these goals and targets But now let's show the leadership that is needed right from every single community across this country Right up to government in actually delivering on these goals Next week next month next year and over the next decade