With Five Years Left, 2030 Agenda Demands Joint Speed, Scale, Focus on Results, Speakers Stress, as Partnership Forum Opens to Calls for Maximizing Impact

With Five Years Left, 2030 Agenda Demands Joint Speed, Scale, Focus on Results, Speakers Stress, as Partnership Forum Opens to Calls for Maximizing Impact

(Note: A complete summary of today's Economic and Social Council meetings will be available later.)

Amid mounting global tumult, meeting sustainable development targets will only be possible if Governments, civil society and the private sector share both tools and resources in defence of the world's most vulnerable, officials told the Economic and Social Council's annual Partnership Forum today.

"Our conversations on partnerships must focus on how they support countries operating under pressure," said Council President Lok Bahadur Thapa (Nepal). Natural disasters, conflicts, inequality and heavy debt burdens continue to grow - affecting developing countries most acutely - and more than 800 million people around the world still live in extreme poverty.

The Council's annual Partnership Forum - one of the UN's most powerful cross-sectoral convening platforms - is taking place in New York, focusing on "transformative, equitable, innovative and coordinated" actions for sustainable development. In line with General Assembly resolution 75/290A, the Forum highlights action by Governments and other stakeholders to advance the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Mr. Thapa joined other senior officials in spotlighting the needs of landlocked developing countries, small island developing States and least developed countries - some of the world's poorest and most vulnerable nations. "In a context of mounting needs, limited resources and heightened vulnerability, partnerships are not about expanding ambition alone - they are about maximizing impact." That means pooling capacities, reducing fragmentation and extending reach.

Partnerships under Pressure: No Time for Backsliding

He said impactful partnerships - the focus of today's Forum - are already enshrined in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the 2024 Pact for the Future. "Effective partnerships begin with listening," he said, urging participants to share views with an eye towards delivering better and leaving no one behind. "Let us act with the urgency this moment demands - together, in speed and scale, with unity in action and with clear focus on results."

Amina Mohammed, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, recalled the Council's storied 80-year history. It helped to draft and advance the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, drive the Millennium Development Goals and the 2030 Agenda, and continues to foster inclusive dialogue among Governments, academia, civil society and others. "This legacy matters now because of the test we will be facing over the next five years as we try to achieve the 2030 Agenda," she said.

Noting that the Agenda remains "alarmingly off-track", she said global hunger levels today are higher than in 2015, about 3 billion people cannot afford adequate housing, and gender equality targets are likely to be missed. The SDGs face a more than $4 trillion financing gap, which will not be closed merely by making speeches. Instead, concrete partnerships are the practical engines driving progress. "What you share here should not stay in this room," she stressed, urging participants to take the ideas generated at the Forum out into the world.

Clean Energy Access a 'Hinge Point' for Progress

Keynote speaker Sheila Oparaocha, Director of the ENERGIA International Network on Gender and Sustainable Energy, drew attention to one of the five Sustainable Development Goals on which the Forum is focusing in 2026 - Goal 7 on clean energy access - which she described as a hinge point for progress on some of the world's most urgent challenges, including economic inequality, climate vulnerability and social injustice.

She illustrated the stakes through the story of Randa, a mother in rural Senegal who lacks electricity and cooks on firewood that takes nearly 10 hours each week to collect. Randa gave birth in a clinic where midwives delivered her children using a kerosene lamp. Noting that her experience reflects that, of more than 600 million people around the globe who lack electricity and some 2 billion who lack access to clean cooking fuels, she stressed: "These are not abstract statistics - they reflect lived realities."

With only four years left to deliver on the 2030 Agenda, she said real progress demands collective commitment, strong partnerships, clear plans, the right tools and adequate financing. As of 2025, energy compacts have brought together over 200 partnerships, mobilized millions of dollars and have helped create 2.7 million "green jobs". Women-led delivery models have empowered more than 42,000 women entrepreneurs, delivering clean energy solutions to over 21 million consumers.

Move Science beyond Silos, Unlock 'Library' of Nature Solutions

Yensi Flores-Bueso, a member of the Secretary-General's 2025-2027 Independent Group of Scientists for the 2027 Global Sustainable Development Report, also delivered a keynote address. Describing her work in chemistry and her roots in Honduras, she said nature holds a vast "library" of development solutions, of which humanity has explored only a fraction. "For science to serve humanity at the speed required, we must stop operating in silos," she said.

Noting that scientific capability exists everywhere, she warned that access does not. Science is therefore not only about discovery, but is itself a public service. Governments, funders and universities must foster research cultures that make knowledge usable and connect science with society. She urged the Forum's participants to prioritize open science as a kind of infrastructure and build genuinely equitable international and interdisciplinary partnerships.

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Complete Live Blog coverage of today's meeting can be found here.