"Another day with New York in the grip of strong security and
almost grid locked. With Prime Ministers, Foreign Ministers, International
Development Ministers and of course the Pope turning up at the UN for the
opening session of the General Assembly’s Special High Level Summit on the
Sustainable Development Goals, it was highly unlikely that everyday life in New
York would escape.

Security was intensive with every member of the New York
police and fire forces on duty as well as the FBI (and probably several other
US protection agencies I have no knowledge of). 
The carriageway on First and Second Avenues have lanes cleared which
only the diplomatic cars and their protection cars can go along – as a
pedestrian you soon learn to jump out of the way when you hear the sirens
going.  It has certainly added to the
intense atmosphere in the city.

Pope Francis’ speech to the General Assembly on Friday
morning has been well covered by the media and is available on UN webcast, as
are all the sessions. Click HERE TO WATCH.

His words chimed
with many here even though they may not share his religious belief.  He seems to transcend his role as leader of
the Roman Catholic Church and speaks to the hearts and minds of all
humanitarian supporters.  His words about
the environment struck a particularly strong note with many, although he was
clear that for the future of the world, all the sustainable development goals
were necessary.

The small Soroptimist delegation met up to plan for the next
few days.  There is such a lot happening
but access is extremely restricted so we have to make sure we use our time in
the most effective way possible. 
Checking that we had all the required passes, and that our three SI UN
representatives were included as part of the team were all necessary to the
discussion.

However, we needed to check in for the afternoon High Level
Panel  ‘From Global Conversation to
Global Action’. To do this we had to meet up on a street corner with a staff
member from the UN who gave us a special event pass.  We were then sent on to the next member of
staff through the first barrier and waited till sufficient others had joined us
so that we could be escorted down 44^th Street past more security guards
to the gates of the UN itself.  There we
checked in through main baggage security and then were escorted into the UN
building, past more security guards and on to the Conference Room in which the
event would take place.

Photo: International President Yvonne Simpson, GED Deborah Thomas and Advocacy manager Francesca Williams.

Secretary General Ban Ki Moon opened the session,
congratulating everyone, remarking that it was the first time that all
member states had committed to a global plan for development; the Sustainable
Development Goals. He explained that a huge consultation with the people of the
world had helped to get to this point – 8.5 million people had contributed to
the consultation ‘a million voices’ which allowed us all to be agents of
change. The SDGs incorporated three principles: participation, integration and
universality.

Now had come the time to consider the implementation.

Helen Clark former prime Minister of New Zealand and now
Head of UN DP indicated there were high expectations with such a huge sense of
ownership. Citizen-driven processes were needed for the follow up so it was now
critical for Governments to indicate what would happen.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel led the way, followed by the
prime Minister of Norway, the deputy Prime Minister of Vietnam, and the
Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade for Kenya each describing how their
countries hoped to learn from the Millennium Development Goals in taking the
next targets forward.  Many other
countries followed suit.

On behalf of civil society, Danny Sriskandarajah, Secretary
General of CIVICUS, challenged everyone by quoting three Elvis Presley songs
‘Always on my mind, All shook up and Suspicious minds’ which he felt summed up
the position for the next few years. 
Civil society would be collecting data to hold global leaders to account
and that there would be a lot of capacity building to ensure this happened. But
he pointed out that in 96 member states there were currently serious threats to
civil society in some form.  Governments
had to change their attitudes.

A question session
followed, during which we learned that out of 169 targets set for the SDGs, 109
are dependent on individual country action. 
A further 25 are classified as hard to measure and 35 targets will need
new institutions to achieve them especially within the structure of the UN.

Looking back on that session it is clear that although many
Governments have good intentions there will be many challenges on the way to
2030 and it is not going to be an easy path to achieve even the basic targets".