WEBINAR | IPPN Knowledge Café: Policy Integration to Accelerate the 2030 Agenda – A Roundtable Discussion on Progress and Perspectives

➡️ Back to the IPPN group!

Join us for the next IPPN Knowledge Café, a webinar series focused on building the IPPN members’ capacity to better understand a systems perspective on policy integration and acceleration; and integrated policy solutions, including curation of tools and resources that support the design and implementation of cross-cutting policy solutions.

About this webinar

At the half-way point to the 2030 deadline for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), progress globally has stalled or even reversed on many indicators. Countries face complex challenges with economic uncertainty, climate crisis and conflict among others happening against the lingering impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Diagnosing these complex challenges and developing effective policy solutions require efforts that cut across sectors and disciplines. This is where integrated policy approaches can really make a difference.

The United Nations member states at the 2023 SDG Summit renewed calls to harness policy integration to accelerate progress on the SDGs, while a panel of independent scientists called for strengthening capacities for policy integration in the 2023 Global Sustainable Development Report. The UN Development System is stepping up its efforts in response to those calls. Using integrated policy approaches is a central strategy of UN Country Teams in harnessing policy synergies for the implementation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Frameworks (UNSDCF). The Joint SDG Fund is rolling out a new strategy to ramp up funding for integrated joint programmes on transformative investment pathways to deliver on the SDGs. A number of High-Impact Initiatives were announced at the 2023 SDG Summit, which aim to scale up transformative progress on the 2030 Agenda by fostering systemic change and mobilizing partnerships and investments. A new e-Course on applying integrated policy approaches was launched, targeting policy practitioners at country level. 

These are indications that the UN System is increasingly coalescing around policy integration as one of the core tenets of its toolset for rescuing the SDGs. 

Agenda

Join this roundtable discussion, occurring on the second anniversary of the Integrated Policy Practitioners’ Network, to take stock of the progress over the past two years by some of the major UN initiatives on policy integration and discuss prospective pathways forward following to meet the commitments and ambition from the 2023 SDG Summit.

This session will be moderated by Babatunde Abidoye, Global Policy Advisor, SDG Integration, UN Development Programme (UNDP). The keynote speakers for this session include: 

• Jean-François Klein, Senior Administrator, Employment Policy Department, International Labour Organization (ILO) 
• Dawn Minott, Advisor, Gender-Based Violence and Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus, UN Population Fund (UNFPA) 
• Nenad Rava, Head of Programmes, UN Joint SDG Fund 
• Astra Bonini, Chief, Integrated Policy Analysis Branch, Division for Sustainable Development Goals, UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) 
• José Valls Bedeau, Policy Officer, Food Systems and Food Safety Division, UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO)
• Sanroy Seechurn, Director, Maurice Stratégie, under the aegis of the Ministry of Finance, Mauritius

Comments from the floor will be provided by Marta Calì, Senior Policy Adviser at the Development Coordination Office and Fabio Losa, Economist at the Resident Coordinator Office in Madagascar. The roundtable discussion will be followed by a Q&A with the audience.

Connection details

Date: Wednesday, 22 November 2023

Time: 8:00 AM New York/ Panama | 4:00 PM Addis Ababa/ Amman/ Istanbul | 8:00 PM Bangkok

Register in two clicks to receive the Zoom connection details: https://bit.ly/IPPN_KC19. The registration for this event is now closed.

Session materials

Watch the session recording, and find the PPT presentation and all relevant links shared during the session in the comments section below.

About the speakers

Jean-François Klein is Senior Administrator at the Employment Policy Department of the ILO where he looks after the Global Accelerator on Jobs and Social Protection for Just Transitions. He started his career in the NGOs sector in the Balkans, worked as employment advisor in the Swiss public administration and spent several years at UNFPA in field assignments. He joined the ILO in 2007 as Chief of Programme at the Regional Office for the Arab States in Beirut, where he developed his expertise for employment in fragile situations and crisis affected countries. His substantial experience includes employment policies, programme development and management, resource mobilization, evaluation, development financing and training. He holds a Master of Arts from the University of Geneva. 

Dawn Minott is Advisor on Gender-Based Violence and Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus in UNFPA. With 20 years of progressive experience, Dawn’s journey at the United NationsUN spans advocacy for sexual reproductive health, gender equality and human rights working with UN Women, UNDP and UNFPA. Her current role involves setting normative standards from a gender perspective to guide how UNFPA’s work, with a particular focus on gender-based violence, can be strengthened by working across the humanitarian-development-peace continuum. Dawn’s career has spanned diverse roles from Head of Office to Special Advisor to the Executive Director. She’s served at the country, regional, sub-regional and headquarters levels across duty stations in Barbados, Jamaica, South Africa, Nigeria and at hthe Headquarters (New York). Outside of work, Dawn wears many creative hats as a published author, poet, blogger, and motivational speaker and serves as a ministry leader within her church community. 

Nenad (Ned) Rava is Head of Programmes at the UN Joint SDG Fund. He has 20+ years of professional experience in Strategic Development focusing on Systemic Design, Strategic Foresight, Social Innovation, Policy and Institutional Change, Learning, Leadership and Stakeholder Dialogue. He has facilitated complex systems change on 60+ initiatives led by, amongst other, the UN, the World Bank, and the EU. Ned works on coherence and integration across “silos” and has contributed to, amongst other: Business Innovation (Platforms, Incubators, Labs, SMEs, Social Enterprises), Social Policy (Education, Healthcare, Social Protection), Public Administration Reform and Decentralization, and Democratic Governance. Ned has BSC in Management, MA and PhD in Comparative politics, and Master of Design in Strategic Foresight and Innovation. In 2020, Ned published a chapter on Systemic Policy Design in the “Handbook of Systems Sciences”. 

Astra Bonini is Chief of the Integrated Policy Analysis Branch in the Division for Sustainable Development Goals at the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA). Her work focuses on strengthening the science-policy interface to support SDG implementation including through support to the Global Sustainable Development Report, the High-level Political Forum for Sustainable Development and the Technology Facilitation Mechanism. Prior to this role, Astra was a senior researcher with the Human Development Report Office of the United Nations Development Programme and a Research Scholar with the Committee on Global Thought at Columbia University. Astra earned her PhD in sociology from the Johns Hopkins University and has a Master of International Affairs Degree from Columbia University as well as a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering. 

José Valls Bedeau is a Policy Officer in the Food Systems and Food Safety division in FAO headquarters in Rome, where he provides leadership and guidance for results-based policy assistance and facilitates policy dialogue and capacity development on sustainable food systems. Previously he worked in food security and strategic planning units in FAO, and as a Policy Officer in Guatemala, where he provided policy assistance to the Government on the implementation of family farming and stunting reduction strategies. He is Agronomical Engineer and MSc. in Rural Development and has 18 years of experience in the areas of food security and food systems. He has served in different development organizations and countries, including in Central America and North Africa.

Sanroy Seechurn is the Director of Maurice Stratégie, under the aegis of the Ministry of Finance, Mauritius. He has previously headed the Strategic Planning Directorate of the Economic Development Board and worked in the Economic Analysis and Industry department of the Mauritius Chamber of Commerce and Industry. He holds an MSc in Economics; Development Economics from the University of Nottingham and a BSc (Hons) in Economics and Finance from the University of Mauritius. 

The Integrated Policy Practitioners' Network (IPPN) is a one-stop-shop for integrated policy practitioners, operating as a knowledge hub for the global community. IPPN aims to link existing efforts on SDG integration across UN agencies and beyond, and enabling cross-pollination and learning to enhance the UN System-wide capability to practice and deliver high-quality integrated policy support. IPPN is a joint effort under the auspices of the UNSDG Task Team on Integrated Policy Support.

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