TPI’s Executive Director Darian Stibbe moderated an international, multi-stakeholder panel discussion as part of the UN’s High-Level Political Forum (HLPF), focussed on partnerships against COVID-19 – building back better together to advance the 2030 Agenda.
The panel was convened by the Partnership Accelerator for the 2030 Agenda, a collaborative initiative of UNDESA and TPI along with UN Global Compact, UN Office of Partnerships and UN DCO.
The discussion was introduced by Lotta Tahtinen, Chief of Outreach and Partnerships, UNDESA, and featured the following speakers:
- Fatmir Bitiqi, Special Advisor at the Cabinet of the President of the Government of North Macedonia
- Christine N. Umutoni, Resident Coordinator, Mauritius and Seychelles
- Gabriela Ocampo, United Nations Global Compact
- Kingsley Opoku Amaning, Resident Coordinator, Liberia
- Scott Ratzan, Business Partners for Sustainable Development, US Council for International Business
- Parfait Eloundou-Enyegue, Professor and Department Chair of Development Sociology, Cornell University, member of the Independent Group of Scientists for the Global Sustainable Development Report
The discussion covered the following questions:
- What are some examples of multi-stakeholder partnerships that have formed to tackle COVID-19?
- How has the urgency of the crisis changed the ways of forging multi-stakeholder partnerships? What can we learn from the experiences in order to be able to partner more rapidly for better recovery?
- In the current crisis, how can governments, including local and regional authorities, foster an enabling environment, including necessary policy frameworks, that can lead to more effective – and rapid – partnerships?
“In Mauritius and in the Seychelles, we have been talking for a long time about SDGs, we have been talking about the UN Decade of Action – but we did not feel sense of urgency until now. COVID has uncovered problems, showed vulnerabilities, showed why the path of the SDGs makes sense. COVID really hit us. It has made us look at our health systems, showing that hospitals didn’t have what they needed. Business was talking for a long time about diversifying, but it has taken a collapse in tourism has collapsed to shift to the green economy. The list goes on. COVID has forced action on gender equality. The lessons are clear: 1) COVID has created urgency for action, and 2) multi-stakeholder approaches are essential in delivering that action.” – Ms. Christine N. Umutoni, Resident Coordinator, Mauritius and Seychelles
Find out about other events TPI is involved with at the 2020 HLPF.
