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About the discussion

The purpose of hosting this online consultation is to enhance the content and discussion of each event in the Nexus Dialogue series. This consultation will enable the EMG to invite participants to contribute to the dialogue who will not physically attend the events, enriching the discussion through a wider base of input. Inputs will be used to bring new ideas, questions and experiences to the events, and to grow the analysis.

During 2017, the UN Environment Management Group (EMG) will host a series of high-level and technical level Dialogues to discuss the environmental dimensions of the Sustainable Development Goals from a nexus perspective. The “Nexus Dialogues” are expected to bring UN agencies and other stakeholders closer together in identifying further synergies and partnerships at the intersection of the different Goals, and through such an integrated approach, support the implementation of the environmental dimension of the 2030 Agenda in a more coherent and collaborative manner.

The 17 SDGs present many new opportunities for synthesis among agencies. Taken individually, the SDGs can attract and energize specific agencies, ministries, and expert communities. Taken together, they can incite consideration as to how, between goals, environmental dimensions interact with each other, and with social and economic dimensions. This holistic approach offers opportunities for synergist work and cumulative effects, but also raise the thorny challenge of competing goals. Techniques for addressing interactions between sectors are required; one such technique considers the spaces between or overlaps amid goals, the nexus.

Through the consultations for the Dialogues, participants will view the SDGs from a nexus perspective, seek to identify practical strategies for integrating the nexus approach into their mission and work and share experiences from the past two years in navigating nexus issues in the 2030 Agenda. This may also serve as an opportunity for Member States to consider how a nexus approach could support collaboration among different governmental departments.

The first Dialogue, The Nexus Approach and the environmental dimension of the 2030 Agenda: Policy, Practice and Partnership, took place on the 26th and 27th of April, at the WMO building Geneva. Discussions during this dialogue explored the nexus approach, nexus themes in ongoing work and methodologies for addressing these thorny issues, as well as deciding relevant nexus topics for three future Dialogues.