From Doha to Action: Accelerating the 2030 Agenda through Collaborative Approaches to Spillovers, Multidimensional Poverty and Integrated SDG Implementation (HLPF 2026 Side Event)

Hello.
Good afternoon, colleagues.
I think in the interest of time we should get going.
Excellencies, distinguished speakers, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen.
Good afternoon and welcome to this high level political Forum 2026 side events from Doha to action, accelerating the 23rd agenda through collaborative approaches to spillovers, multidimensional poverty, and integrated SDG implementation.
That is jointly organized by the United Nations Department of Economic Affairs Division for Inclusive Development, the Beyond Lab, and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative.
As we enter the final stretch towards 2030, accelerating SDG implementation requires more integrated and collaborative approaches to address interconnected challenges such as climate change, economic shocks, conflict, and inequality.
Today's discussion focuses on two complimentary approaches.
The first is spillover conscious policymaking, which examines the cross border and intergenerational impacts of policies.
The second is the Multidimensional Poverty Index, which helps identify overlapping deprivations and supports more effective responses for those furthest behind.
While different in focus, both approaches seek to improve policy coherence, strengthen coordination, and support better decision making.
The event will begin with opening remarks, followed by two panel discussions.
The first we'll explore spillovers, policy coherence, and collaborative approaches to SDG implementation, including lessons from the spillover Innovation learning journey, The second we'll highlight MPI informed social protection and integrated policymaking drawing on country experiences and practical applications.
We hope today's events will contribute to three outcomes.
First, a stronger understanding of how spillover conscious and NPI informed approaches can accelerate SDG implementation.
Second, the exchange of experiences and lessons learned.
And third, stronger partnerships among governments, the United Nations system, academia, civil society, and other stakeholders.
Ultimately, we hope this discussion will help translate the commitment of the Doha Political Declaration into practical action and reinforce our collective commitment to leaving no one behind.
With those remarks, I would like to invite our opening speaker, Ambassador Thomas Zansin.
I hope I said it right.
Who is the deputy permanent representative of Germany to the United Nations to give his remarks.
Excellency.
Thank you very much, doctor banda.
Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends and colleagues, I was actually not supposed to be here.
This statement was supposed to be read by the head of our delegation, the Parliamentary State Secretary, Barbara Kofla, but she had to go back to Germany a bit earlier and she asked me to present her statement.
I will try my best.
Colleagues, It was always said the SEG the issue on the SEGs are interlinked.
I mean, so far so good.
If we as a member state decide to advance on one of the SEGs, it has automatic effects not only on one specific sector of our society, but on several, often on many.
And even more importantly, our decisions nationally also affect other countries.
And these effects can go both ways.
They can be positive, they can be negative.
To illustrate this point, one example from Germany, organic farming.
We made organic farming a priority in German agriculture.
Organic farming helps to protect the environment in Germany and it improves the health of our population.
But this decision comes with consequences.
Organic agriculture requires more land, the yields are lower, and there is an increased risk of crop failure that might lead to a situation where we end up importing more food, thereby potentially harming the environment of other countries.
On the other hand, continuously growing demand for organic products in Germany can also create incentives in other countries.
We know profit spent for organic food are higher compared to those of conventional production.
This can become a driver of change for countries.
It can lead to the adoption of more sustainable food production standards for the very purpose of agricultural export to places like Germany.
Ultimately, this can lead to positive environmental effects, increased rural income and prosperity.
This little example shows, we believe why it is so critical to get a deeper understanding of the spillover effects and to take them into account in our decision making.
It can serve as a powerful tool for making trade offs and make synergies visible.
It can bring stakeholders together.
It will help us to shape better sectoral agendas, better national strategy, and frankly, strengthen global cooperation.
The second important tool has already been mentioned by doctor ibanda is the Multidimensional Poverty Index.
This index provides another perspective on the interdependence of SETs.
It measures poverty not solely in terms of income, but in areas of education, health, and standard of living.
By revealing overlapping vulnerabilities and identifying those furthest behind, the index allows us to make better informed decisions, for instance, on how to shape comprehensive approaches like adaptive social protection systems.
Accepting the complexity of development challenges and developing a deeper understanding of these complexities offers enormous potential for advancing the sustainable development goals globally.
Allow me to come back to the spillover effects and a second example from Germany.
Domestically, Germany has been pretty good on the implementation of the 23rd agenda.
We currently rank fifth out of 167.
On the other hand, Germany ranks amongst the lowest rated countries in the International Spillover index of the Sustainable Development solution networks.
Here, we are 149 out of 167.
So why is Germany so low? This is, for example, due to the fact that our exports of pesticides and plastic waste continue and they harm biodiversity and people's health in other countries and our level of C two emissions is not good.
We are still outsourcing a part of our emissions to third countries.
The German government takes these external effects very seriously, and we're taking steps to address them.
Two examples.
First, we have integrated spillover effects systematically into the German sustainable development strategy.
By systematically capturing spillover effects, we lay the foundation for future structural countermeasures, and we try to take them into account in future legislative processes.
And second, we reshaped our dialogue.
We have set up dedicated dialogue structures such as the textile dialogue.
The textile dialogue is Germany's largest multi stakeholder alliance.
The dialogue brings together representatives of business, politics, and civil society in the textile sector.
Together, we are working to ensure that along the entire textile supply chain, human rights and environment are protected in Germany and abroad.
We believe this dialogue is useful and is an effective way to reach our ultimate objective that our consumption back home causes no harm to other countries.
And on a more general note, I'm convinced that multi stakeholder approaches are key to move forward.
We need multiple perspectives to identify spillovers and to successfully integrate them into policymaking.
Based on this conviction, Germany prepared its 2025 voluntary National Review through participatory processes involving contributions from civil society, business sector, scientific communities and academia, and critically young people.
And we see more countries with the same approach this year.
To keep the momentum going internationally, Global South and Global North must work together in multi stakeholder formats on an equal footing.
Without fair international cooperation, there can be no sustainable development for all of us.
And this is why Germany has recently launched the newest South North Commission on Development in Hamburg.
The commission will bring together stakeholders from all regions of the world in order to develop jointly solutions for global challenges.
And this is why we are proud to be part of the Beyond Laps Spillover Innovation learning journey, which we will discuss later on.
The great merit of this peer learning format is that it combines national stakeholder exchanges, and we've just organized one in Germany with an exchange at international level.
We there gained a deeper understanding of the specific challenges of the partnering countries, and we were for Turkey, India, Pakistan, and Germany.
And on that basis, we developed joint solutions.
We also took as Germans, inspiration from our partners' experience, how they approach and frame spillovers more broadly, and also the way they incorporate, for example, intergenerational spillovers.
This is something we can definitely take back home to Germany for our own policy making.
This pilot, we believe, is a powerful example of how collaborative approaches can be successful, how they can be put into practice, and we believe it is definitely worth scaling up.
Colleagues, in concluding, we all know about the importance of spillovers, but we should be honest with ourselves.
We still have a long way to go to efficiently integrate spillover effects in our policies.
And frankly, the same holds true for the application of the multidimensional poverty Index.
We must move forward in this direction fast and with determination if we want to be serious about leaving no one behind.
There's simply no alternative than an integrated implementation of the SDGs.
So we hope that we enter now the final stretch of the agenda with this conviction that we must learn from another.
It will help us to translate the interconnectedness of the SEGs into a coherent policy and ultimately also deliver for those who need it most, those people in developing countries.
Thank you.
Thank you, Excellency, for those insightful opening remarks, which have set the tone and direction for our discussion today.
Your remarks reminded us of both the agency of the challenges before us and the importance of pursuing more integrated, collaborative, and innovative approaches to accelerate the implementation of the 2030 agenda.
They have also underscored the significance of translating the commitments of the 23rd agenda and the Doha Political Declaration, as well as the lessons we are learning through peer learning into concrete actions that strengthen policy coherence, build resilience, and ensure that no one is left behind.
With that context in mind, let us now turn to the first part of our discussion, which focuses on spillovers, policy coherence, and collaborative approaches to SDG implementation.
This panel will be moderated by my colleague, Gabriela Azank who is from Beyond Lab.
Thank you so much, Emson, for the great introduction to our joint session.
Before anything else, the Beyond Lab would like to thank our co organizers, and Dessa and Ofi for jointly bringing us together today as well as Germany for their leadership and continued support of this initiative and our other co organizers, Switzerland and a special thanks to SDSN Germany and the OECD.
For this subsection of the panel, I will narrow the focus specifically to the systemic lever of spillover effects and the corresponding concrete tool of the spillover Innovation learning journey.
To speak on these topics, I have the pleasure and the honor of welcoming to the panel, Ernesto Soria Morales, the head of Program for Policy Coherence for Sustainable Development at the OECD's Directorate for Policy Governance.
Just yesterday, Enesto the OECD and collaborators launched a report on bridging the gaps on sustainable development, coherent policies for water, energy, industry, and cities.
Maria Stoll, Deputy Delegate of the Federal Council for the 2030 Agenda for Switzerland and joining from the Federal Office for Spatial Development of Switzerland.
Maria coordinates the implementation of Switzerland's Sustainable Development Strategy 2030 with its action plans.
And Christine Fassen program management and Strategic Partnerships specialist in the Beyond Lab at U and Geneva.
From an initiative standpoint at the Beyond Lab, Christine leads on the Spillover Innovation Learning journey, in addition to supporting the Youth Moving Beyond GDP Initiative.
Welcome speakers and thank you for your presence at the session.
Before we talk a little bit about the conceptual framework, I will start us off by grounding in why spillovers and why now.
Adré the cross cutting global issue of spillovers has transformative potential.
Spillovers are not abstract, but they're actually already part of day to day policy realities and shape the outcomes of sustainable development across borders.
National action has global consequences, both positive and negative.
This makes spillover awareness essential for both credible and coherent SDG implementation.
If unmanaged spillovers can undermine progress, but if addressed intentionally, they can actually become a systemic lever for innovation, for policy coherence, and for shared gains.
Our first question is from the OECD perspective, Ernesto, what do we mean by spillovers and why are they becoming an increasingly important lever for achieving the SDGs and for implementing sustainable development in a coherent way? Thank you.
Let me begin with a simple point, and as we heard during the opening remarks, what happens in one country can affect people in many others.
So sustainable development means looking beyond our immediate needs and beyond our national borders.
International spillovers are those effects beyond borders.
They can be positive, as was highlighted during the opening remarks or negative.
And they can result from our policies, from our production, or from our consumption patterns.
And we can see these effects across the SDGs being reviewed at this year's HLPF.
And this is exactly the focus of the report we launched yesterday.
Take water and energy, for example, energy production already accounts for around 15% of global freshwater withdrawals.
Some clean energy pathways can also increase demand for water depending on the technology and location.
If investments are not planned with local conditions in mind, progress on clean energy may create new pressures on water security.
Or take industry and innovation.
For example, the energy transition is increasing demand for critical minerals.
This can create important investment, employment, and development opportunities in producing countries.
But mineral extraction can also put pressures on water, ecosystems and local communities if environmental and social risk are not managed responsibly.
So the benefits of clean technologies might be realized in one country.
While some of the pressures are experienced somewhere else.
And we can also see that in sustainable cities, cities, as you know, often measure the emissions produced within their boundaries, but the goods and services consumed in cities may generate emissions and use natural resources from elsewhere.
And territorial indicators may show local progress without capturing the full environmental footprint of urban consumption.
Looking at both territorial and consumption based emission gives policymakers a more complete picture.
But spillovers can also be positive.
International cooperation can accelerate the spread of renewable energy technologies.
Knowledge sharing can improve water management, responsible investment can support cleaner industry and better employment.
Science, technology and innovation cooperation can help countries develop and scale solutions together.
And this brings us to SDG 17.
Finance, trade, technology, data, partnerships, and policy coherence shape whether countries can achieve the other goals, and they can amplify positive spillovers.
They can also help countries manage negative ones.
And this is why spillovers matter for accelerating progress on SDGs.
When we develop policies or when governments develop policies, they need to ask not only whether a policy works at home, They also need to ask what effects it creates abroad and over time.
Otherwise, we might solve one problem here while creating another somewhere else, and this is where policy coherence comes in.
This is the focus of the work that at the OECD, we are collaborating with many member countries to help them understand or take into consideration these spillovers into their policy making processes.
Let's stop there.
Thank you.
Thank you, Ernesto.
Just to follow up on your comments just now, what responsibilities do governments have for understanding and addressing the impacts that their policies might have beyond borders? Um, I think governments have both a shared responsibility and clear national interest.
The shared responsibility comes from the fact that, of course, countries are deeply interconnected through different flows, trade, investments, et cetera.
So domestic decisions in key sectors such as energy, trade, investment, taxation, or consumption can affect other countries' ability to achieve the SDGs.
But there is also a very practical national interests.
Negative spillovers often come back as what we call spillbacks.
And what does this mean? Environmental pressures abroad can return through climate impacts and resource scarcity.
Problems in global supply chain can lead to disruption, higher prices, and shortages at home, and water stress or instability in critical mineral supply chains can make domestic energy and industrial strategies harder and more expensive to implement.
So addressing spillover is not only about responsibility towards other Countries or globally.
It is also about making domestic policies more effective, more resilient, and more durable.
Policy coherence for sustainable development, which is the work I lead at the OECD helps governments ask these questions early in the policy making process.
It provides the enabling conditions, the institutional arrangement, the tools needed to identify those interactions, bring different ministries together and align immediate decisions with long term and national global agendas.
Thank you again and maybe as just the last question here, what role can data and indicators play in helping governments move from awareness of spillovers to more informed policy action? What are the main challenges that nations face today? Data and indicators help make spillovers visible.
If we measure only what happens inside national borders, many impacts remain hidden.
T greenhouse gas emissions, for example, and as I mentioned in the previous example on territorial emissions tell us what is emitted within a country.
And a consumption based indicator, for example, goes one step further It also estimates the emissions generated abroad to produce the goods and services consumed in that country, and this gives policymakers a more complete picture.
Other indicators track, for example, material footprints, value created through international supply chain, development finance, remittances, or the natural resources associated with patterns of production and consumption.
And these indicators, of course, are not perfect, and they do not automatically um, prove that one particular policy caused a particular outcome.
There is always difficulties in the coal chains when it comes to identifying the impacts.
But they can identify important patterns, pressures, and risk that deserve closer attention, and that can help to start a conversation on improving policy.
And we see countries have started to use these tools or these type of frameworks in official monitoring.
I mean, we will hear from Switzerland, but also we heard from Germany, and there are other countries doing the same.
Regarding the challenges, yes, countries still face important challenges.
For example, data that exists are more developed for environmental impacts than for social impacts, for example.
Different databases or methodologies still can produce different results.
Some statistics are several years out of date, and there are still significant gaps in areas such as working condition, local environmental effects, and the distribution of costs and benefits.
But the biggest challenge, however, is not only technical or the data availability.
Many spillovers indicators appear in monitoring reports, but do not yet influence actual policy choices.
So the next step is to connect this evidence that is available to the places where decisions are made.
And that means policy design, it means regulatory impact assessment, it means strategic planning, budgeting, procurement, evaluation.
So the objective is not measurement for its own sake.
The objective is to use better evidence to make better and more coherent decisions and to inform decision making.
Thank you so much, Ernesto.
Now, over to you, Maria.
The first question is spillovers were Spillovers were front and center in Switzerland's VNR this year, but for those who might not have been there, can you briefly share with us how Switzerland is thinking about spillovers both today and in relation to its long term sustainable development? Yes.
Thank you.
I'm pleased to share Switzerland's experience in addressing spillover effects.
As a small and highly interconnected economy, Switzerland depends on an open rules based international system and our prosperity is linked to global value chains.
This also means that a significant share of our environmental and social impacts occur beyond our borders.
As an example, around 60% of Switzerland's material footprint is associated with imported resources and roughly 75% of our greenhouse gas footprint is generated abroad.
So for this reason, understanding both the positive and negative effects of our policies, consumption patterns, and economic activities on other countries is essential.
We have heard about the International spillover indexed by STSN the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, and the spillover index has helped draw attention to these issues also for Switzerland.
We have been working on the measurement of these spillover effects for many years.
Already in 2008, we developed the first set of indicators to better capture Switzerland's global responsibilities and impacts.
And today, spillovers are an integral part of our voluntary national review.
The report highlights key areas where Switzerland has impacts beyond its borders, including commodity trading, imported emissions, pressures on forests through global supply chains, illicit financial flows, sustainable finance, scientific cooperation, and remittances.
I think there's this quote saying, honesty is the best policy and working on unintended policy effects requires a great deal of honesty from us as countries.
But we are convicted that in order to accelerate the implementation of the 2030 agenda, transparency and the broad databases Accounting for both positive and negative impact is important and our communication on spillovers in the VNR is one first contribution in that regard.
Thank you so much.
Could you provide us maybe as one follow up with some concrete examples of where Switzerland is already working on implementing spillover innovation in national strategies? Then if you'd like to also feel free to touch upon how multi stakeholder approaches and peer learning inform and impact Switzerland's mechanisms for addressing spillover effects.
In order to prepare the spillover indicators communication in our VNR, we started in 2024, including a dedicated measure on spillovers in the action plan for the sustainable development strategy.
This measure launched an inter ministerial process and two complementary analysis.
The first was a quantitative analysis led by the Federal Statistical Office.
There the objective was to update the set of spillover indicators.
In this regard, we first identified Switzerland's main positive and negative spillover effects and then examined how they could be measured.
In order to systematize the spillover effects, they have been organized in a thematic inventory of the six main fields for Swiss spillover effects.
We then analyzed how to measure spillover effects in these six topics and where reliable data were not available, we explicitly identified data gaps and communicate on them.
The result is a new framework comprising 17 indicators publicly available in our national monitoring system for sustainable development called Monet 2030.
And this was actually the easier part because the second part of the measure was a qualitative analysis led by the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs and their result to understand the main chains of impact through which Swiss spillovers occur and to identify possible policy levers.
We examined six major impact chains, natural resource use, trade and consumption, food systems, the financial system, international cooperation and science and technology.
And from this work, three key levers emerged, straight finance and cooperation.
And based on these findings, we then developed recommendation in three areas.
First, recommendations to strengthen governance and the integration of spillovers into the implementation of the 2030 agenda.
Then recommendations such as further engaging in global dialogue or upgrading the profile of spillovers in existing methodologies, for instance, with regulatory impact assessments, and third, sector specific recommendations covering the six focal topics.
We are still at the beginning of implementing these recommendations.
However, the analysis has provided us with a stronger evidence based and a clear understanding of where Switzerland's most significant spillover lies.
And finally, I believe there is great value in exchange and peer learning on this topic.
We look forward to continuing these discussions bilaterally and through the OECD Network of focal points on policy coherence for sustainable development.
And would also like to highlight initiatives such as the Spillover learning journey, hosted by Beyond Lab, which we will hear about in a minute.
Thank you.
Thank you.
That's the perfect transition over to Christine then.
So first question and we'll keep it somewhat brief given time, but could you share a bit about what the Spillover Innovation learning journey is and what is innovative about its learning architecture? Thank you, Gabria.
Yes, we thought it was a particularly fitting time as well to talk a bit about implementation.
I think we've heard a lot about implementation over the past couple of days and we want to continue doing so.
At the Beyond Lab, overall, we look at different systemic levels for sustainable long term development and then also see how we can operationalize these a bit further to turn more concrete projects or develop concrete project ideas from these very abstract and conceptual ideas.
This is also how the Bill of Innovation Learning journey originated because this is an attempt to basically turn this into more concrete avenue to look at practical implementation of this concept of spillovers where we know that coherent progress cannot be achieved if we still look at these things in a silent manner.
Looking at these spillover effects requires us to understand this also as a matter implementation issue, where it challenges governments to really think beyond sectors, beyond boundaries, like national boundaries and also beyond short term horizons.
At the Beyond Lab together with the UN Innovation Network, the Development Coordination Office, and its resident coordinator system, as well as some peer learning experts at Holer Craft and with the very generous support of Germany through the BMS, we have tried to explore quite a simple question, and that is, how do we move spillovers from this conceptual discussion to something that governments and practitioners can use more practically? How do we get to application in our daily work and how do we do this in a peer to peer manner? So to operationalize this, and if I could ask us to go to the next slide, we developed an innovative and iterative, two tiered peer to peer learning structure where we really are inspired by UN 2.0 principles and more collaborative approaches also to learning and to peer to peer and capacity building.
So the first layer that you can see on top here is about these international hives, where we're bringing together the entire cohort that a trusted peer to peer space where we can collectively explore these systems challenges.
And the topics we discussed really range from sharing an understanding of spillovers, multi stakeholder approaches, and then also very concrete pathways for implementation.
This first step, these international sessions are really about collective sense making, about experimentation and knowledge exchange.
Then the second layer that you can see on the bottom is really then about national application, where these stakeholders can really focus on translating the insights into national contexts and ideas.
The idea here was really to make this policy relevant and very applied.
We wanted to really connect to ongoing national processes to not create any redundant structures.
This is meant to be really the bridge between global learning and then also local application.
We just recently had our first iteration with participants from Germany, India, Pakistan, and Turkey, which brought together governments, resident coordinator systems, academia, civil society, and other stakeholders.
We really believe this innovation is not just about the content of the spillovers, but also about creating and testing an architecture for learning and for collaborative learning and this implementation that is then also scalable.
Thank you so much, Christine.
Maybe just one follow up question here.
Just a few weeks ago, the very first spillover Innovation learning journey pilot wrapped.
What were some key learnings that emerged from the pilot iteration of the spillover Innovation learning journey? There's a few I would really like to highlight and I can separate these into content insights and then process insights.
Because on the Content side, I have three main points to make and some of them we've already heard, so I can be quite brief about them.
The first one is that we found that the spillovers are really not just intergeographical, about these transboundary impacts, but also intersectoral.
Then very importantly, and Ambassador Saneisn highlighted this, they're intergenerational and intertemporal.
The discussions often started with these international impacts, but really quickly developed to this interconnectedness and how do we have an impact on future generations as well? The second one I want to highlight, and again, Anessa talked about this a bit as well, is the spill backas because I think one of the most practical insights we took from this learning journey is that the negative spillovers often return to the originating or the generating country.
This really creates a strong incentives also for governments to work with this topic further and not only out of solidarity and accountability, but also really out of own self interest.
Then the last one on this content side is narrative and language.
We really highlighted the importance of having shared and common language and also going beyond this framing of spillover as something negative and just unintended consequences, but looking at it as a positive catalyst vehicle as well, where we can use it to improve innovation, to improve policy diffusion, to improve shared learning, and really making sure that these are more regenerative approaches to development.
Then on the process side, I can be quite quick because we gather that a lot of the issues are not based on a lack of knowledge, but they're just on a lack of connection.
I think the most valuable thing that we're taking away from this first iteration of the pilot is really the creation of new relationships across sectors, across institutions and countries, and then sometimes even within a context within a country where the right experts are just not connected enough yet.
Really looking at this shared language aspect and attaching it also to ongoing national processes, so that's really relevant for participants.
I will end on this, but the main takeaway we also found is because participant asked for two things, and that is more time and more collaboration.
Um, so we really saw that there was a real appetite for these implementation focused peer learning sessions and having the connection of global conversation in a more informal environment where people can really exchange with trust and relationships.
Thank you.
Thank you, Ernesto.
Thank you, Maria, and thank you, Christine, for your respective contributions to the conversation.
There were so many points that we heard, but just to touch on a few briefly, we heard that spillover effects are these positive and negative effects of domestic policies that extend beyond geographic borders, beyond sectors, and beyond perhaps sometimes short term or time bound borders that we may think within.
We heard that spillovers are not abstract, but rather they present real issues that nations like Switzerland are already working on, addressing in order to accelerate the 2030 agenda.
We heard both about spill backs and the domestic relevance of spillover effects as well as opportunities for regenerative development.
We heard about opportunities for true co creation in this space and it seems that there's a lot of energy around moving from insights to implementation.
I will now hand it back over to you, Emson for perspectives on a different systemic lever.
Thank you, Gabrila and thanks to all of our previous speakers for highlighting the importance of policy coherence and addressing spillovers in advancing sustainable development.
At the heart of the 23rd agenda is the commitment to leave no one behind.
Yet, millions of people continue to experience multiple and overlapping deprivations, including limited access to education and health services, food insecurity, inadequate living conditions, and growing vulnerability to economic and climate related shocks, many of which are linked to the spillovers that you have touched on.
Traditional poverty measures often do not fully capture these interconnected challenges.
This is where multidimensional poverty analysis and adaptive social protection can provide valuable insights, helping governments better identify those most at risk and design more effective and targeted policy responses.
To explore these issues, we are delighted to be joined by two distinguished speakers.
We have Professor Sabina Cure, is the Director of the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative at Oxford University.
We also have my colleague, Mr.
Claudio Santa Bernice Sevat who is an intergional advisor on Social Development in the Division for Inclusive Social Development in UN DSM.
I'm pleased to invite our first speaker, Claudio.
But before we move into today's main discussion, I want to flag an important piece of work that the Department of Economic and Social Affairs has been developing together with Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, as well as with the Economic Commission for Africa and the Economic and Social Commission for Asia in the Pacific region.
The focus has been on translating the multidimensional poverty index from a measurement framework into a practical tool for social protection policy and delivery.
While these operational guidelines have not yet been formally launched, we wanted to use this opportunity to give you a preview of what's coming.
So Claudio, you have been closely involved in shaping this work with all our other colleagues.
So let me start with the big picture, the why before we get into the mechanics.
What gap in current social protection systems are these guidelines trying to address? And why is multidimensional poverty, especially well suited to fill in that gap? Thank you so much, Amazon and colleagues, and you will see in this next part of the panel as well, the challenge of all of us panelists, and we thank all the words before on.
Make for you to see that the first part of spillovers is really structure that moved from information to knowledge into implementation and where this particular social protection initiatives very much provides an answer for that.
Multilateraliism, in general, is some kind of spillover type of engagement.
So Amson you asked about the gap as well.
The gap has a lot to say in terms of information and knowledge and how you implement and structure that knowledge, which is today's panel about.
But specifically on your question, Amson and what DSA have been working, of course, the Division of social inclusion has to do with this.
Even where governments already measure multidimensional poverty, that measurement has stayed largely diagnostic.
It fits SDG reporting and voluntary national reviews, but it rarely touches the operational side of social protection.
Targeting eligibility benefit design and monitoring still run mostly on income thresholds.
So there's a gap as well and you see, and this is also some challenge to all of us, how you see social protection from an income perspective, just cash transfers, and that's very much legitimate, but also to move in terms of the root causes of the gaps on social protection.
So that's a problem because income alone doesn't tell you why a household is poor.
Whether it's health access, education, housing, or employment that's driving the situation.
It becomes a bigger problem as countries face more frequent overlapping shocks from climate, economic and health crisis, which demand social protection system that can adapt quickly and target precisely.
That is what we're doing with this particular project that just two, three years ago, we called the triple crisis of fuel and social protection fuel, food and finance.
Where we are still with fuel, but we're another crisis of type of fuel today just after two years, and still, as you see, the shocks are somehow more frequent and better to identify in a sense.
So through these new techniques.
So multidimensional poverty is particularly well suited to closen that gap because of how it's constructed.
The Al kayri foster method, we have one of the authors here on my left, doesn't just count how many people are poor.
It identifies which specific deprivations each household or individual faces, and how many they face simultaneously.
That composition is exactly the information a practitioner or a ministry needs to decide who to prioritize, what kind of support to offer, and how to coordinate across sectors.
It's also flexible.
Honduras, for example, be environmental risk directly into its vulnerability index because that's what the objective demanded in that particular country.
Countries like Guatemala and Honduras have already shown this works in practice, but as isolated efforts, not as a systematic approach, other countries can follow.
That's precisely the space these guidelines are designed to fill Amson and it's very much, as I mentioned, the way have you keep structuring good examples and good practice that later Sabine will explain more in depth.
Thank you, Claudio.
That gives us an understanding of the rationale.
Let me now turn to implementation because I suspect most of the colleagues in this room would be wondering what this means in practice.
Where do these guidelines fit within a country's social protection system? Are they primarily about targeting beneficiaries, designing interventions, coordinating services, monitoring outcomes, or all of the above? It's generally all of the above, and that's a deliver design choice.
The guidelines follow the social protection delivery change end to end, assessment, enrollment, provision, and management, and of course, delivery with it and show how a multidimensional approach adds value to each stage rather than treating it as a targeting add on.
At assessment, for instance, it sharpens who gets prioritized and why.
Honduras built its vulnerability index specifically to flag households at the intersection of poverty and flood or COVID risk by that time.
Angola has used census based MPI multinational poverty index to target its poorest districts geographically.
At enrollment, the same deprivation data reshapes the benefit package itself.
Guatemala mapped NPI deprivations profs by district against its existing programs and found exactly which deprivation had no program addressing them at all.
At the provision state, it supports coordination across ministry.
Columbia's red Juntas or later called red ONils use shared NPI based monitoring to keep ministries aligned around the same poverty reduction goals.
In management, it changed how progress and exits are defined.
Bhutan track households by the reduction in specific deprivation, not just income.
So underneath all of this sits the data infrastructure, which is very important for us.
Colombia has embedded every national NPI indicator directly into CSP its social registry, and Thailand has done the same, which is what makes real time use possible across the chain.
And importantly, it is all or nothing.
This is all or nothing.
Countries can enter at whichever state matches their systems and institution are ready today and that we have been working in this particular project here in Desa with Oi and the Regional Economic Commission of Africa and Asia Pacific on exactly trying to structure this future to launch guidelines where we move from diagnostics into this particular needs and at what stage we enter more effectively and more efficiently into the implementation of social protection with these countries from Africa and Asia Pacific.
Thank you.
Thank you, Claudiia.
One more last one.
As we begin to wrap up, I would like to look ahead.
These guidelines are still forthcoming, but many countries and development partners will be interested in what comes next.
So what are the main products that countries and practitioners can expect from this initiative, and how can governments, UN entities, and other partners engage once the guidelines are officially launched.
Thanks, Amson.
There are concretely two specific products, black and white in terms of their own guidelines and a policy brief.
But the guidelines is a living document in the sense that is for the use through implementation of the social protection practitioners.
A DSA does in its core, it's working and building capacity at the local level.
So these guidelines is really as a response, as I was mentioning to your previous question A, on the demand, the request of countries saying, Okay, it's very good.
This is structure of noticing how we can really identify different dimensions of poverty and how to do it, which is technically as well in some cases, more less sophisticated.
But also, once having that, what do we do with it? So the idea then is the guides is to really makes a roadmap at the end of the day as well.
So alongside these guidelines, there's a shorter policy brief aimed squarely at decision makers to make the case for adoption without requiring them to read the full guidelines.
So both the guidelines and the policy brief as the physical products are being shared with the steering committee that includes OI, the UN Regional Commission, ECA, and SCAP, and participating countries themselves.
As I mentioned, we are working right now with six countries, but this has a global level aspiration.
The four countries from Africa are Senegal, Namibia, Zambia, and Tanzania and two countries from Asia Pacific, Cambodia, Maldives, Yeah, and we're doing it with validation workshops, this guidance with them to pressure and with this steering committee to pressure test usability before anything is finalized.
Once these guidance as a process driven knowledge product launches next year, The second of these inter regional workshop that we'll have, the first one we have end of last year in Africa region, in Zambia, and the second one will be in the Asia Pacific region in a country to define because of political situation in one of the host countries that we have it from the beginning of the project.
So once this launches, the door for governments, UN agencies, and other partners is the same one that built it.
Joining as a pilot or validation country, engaging DESA and offer directly on technical implementation, contributing case studies from their own experience or using the self assessment tool to see where they stand today.
So that is the sustainability that will prove the concept after this project.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, Claudio.
Let me now turn to our second speaker, Professor Sabinal Cure, one of the world's leading thinkers and advocates on poverty measurement and human development, and I hope on spillovers, too.
Professor K is widely recognized as the intellectual force behind the global multidimenional Poverty Index.
So congratulations.
This has transformed how the world understands poverty by moving beyond income alone to capture the multiple and overlapping deprivations people experience in their daily lives, including health, education, housing, sanitation, and living standards.
Together with Professor James Foster, you have developed what is a very popular tool now, the Alceda Foster methodology, which underpins the multidimensional poverty Index and has become an internationally recognized tool for poverty measurement and policy decision.
So my first question for you goes to the heart of inclusive social protection.
Many social protection systems still rely on income based measures.
How can countries ensure that those who are multidimensionally poor, but not necessarily income poor are not overlooked and fall through the cracks? Thank you so much and it's very good to be here and I'm still a student, so I've been taking notes on spillover effects for the past while.
If monetary poor people are targeted, then that is very good because you know who they are.
But you might presume that the same people are monetary multidimensionally poor.
For example, in Rwanda, 27.4% of people in 2023 2024 were monetary poor and 30.5% were NPI poor, 27 30, you might think they're the same people.
But when Rhonda Statistics Office looked, actually, less than half overlapped, 14.3%.
And that happens in so many countries.
We could give examples from Uganda, examples from Namibia, examples from other parts of the world.
What this means is that there are a group of people who are monetary poor and multidimensionally poor, and a group who are MPI poor but overlooked by the registers.
Now, these registers provide cash transfers, but for social protection, they need to provide other kinds of interventions.
So if the social registry data that Claudio mentioned in Honduras, Guatemala, Thailand, I might add Vietnam, which has a poverty census they updated every year for a while, China, which, of course, targeted at their household level 2012-2020, 90 million people, Bhutan, the landlocked developing country in South Asia, they also target households who are MPI poor.
And then they provide cash plus interventions, which might be scholarships, it might be subsidies for food security or for energy costs.
It might be housing materials, water sanitation materials to improve those infrastructural assets at the household level, or they might know where infrastructure is lacking.
So in a sense, the NPI enables these aspects not to be overlooked.
Now, how does this happen? Often, for example, in Colombia, there were a group of social workers, 10,000 of them, whom the president called My Social Army, who went door to door.
Does that mean all of Colombia's activities were targeted? Many were universal, but the poor people may have fallen between the cracks.
They might not have known their child was eligible for a scholarship.
They might have not signed up to the particular benefit.
The MPI works with social protection systems to find left behind people of universal programs, as well as to equip people to the targeted benefits they might be eligible for.
Another important thing is graduation.
To graduate people who have achieved housing improvement, who have achieved a job security, et cetera I think those are how the MPI complements monetary poverty, makes us see who also needs support, whether or not they're monetary poor, address it and graduate.
Thank you.
Thank you.
So over the past decade, of course, thanks to all the work that OF has been doing, a growing number of countries have adopted these national multidimenional poverty indices, and they've integrated them into their policy making.
So what do you see as the most important lessons emerging from these experiences and what factors have been critical to success? Thank you.
I'll just name a couple.
I think I am a student of the leaders who have used this work from a South South network of 66 countries and 20 institutions.
We are learning from them because they're really the leaders.
But one is that the MPI is actionable, that they know tangibly how many people are poor and deprived in a particular need school attendance, lifelong learning, health insurance, et cetera, and that helps with budgeting.
Then what are the interlinked interdependent, as the ambassador said, synergistic integrated responses because people experience packages of deprivations at the same time.
You wake up, your roof leaks, your kid is crying and needs some health or education food supplement.
There's a job insecurity situation.
Integrated programs that are really targeted to the bundles that households experience are quite useful and the NPI gives that information.
But I think there are two signal features I wanted to stress.
One is the actionability and the visible results.
India took, by national accounts, 135 million poor people out of multidimensional poverty in 4.5 years.
Maldives reduced MPI from affecting 70% to 28% in seven years.
You think of countries that cut MPI by half in relative terms, Armenia, Paraguay, Dominican Republic, Nepal, Morocco, Iwoini, different continents, different situations.
So that changes the narrative about poverty from something where I say I work on poverty and you back away from me and feel guilty.
You know this narrative of despair, we can't change it to one of dynamism.
I can do something, and if I do it, the measure will move.
Last thing is, in a sense, a different spin overver to come back to my colleagues and it's a spin overver of commitment.
We see in our South South network, we see people from very young people to heads of state talking with passion about poverty, taking it up as their item, wanting to move the needle while they have a position where they can do so.
I think that's infectious and we need some positive infections these days.
I think that is a spillover of having places where people can articulate their commitment constructively.
Thank you.
So finally, looking ahead, the Doha Political Declaration calls for more inclusive, resilience, and people centered approaches to social development.
How can multidimensional poverty measures help countries translate that vision into practical policies and strengthen the effectiveness of social protection systems? And if I had a bonus question, I know you're here.
So what would you say to policymakers who still view the NPI simply as a statistical tool rather than as an instrument for action? Thank you.
I really value the Doha Declaration.
It reaffirmed the priority of poverty as the greatest global challenge, the need to eradicate extreme and multidimensional poverty.
So that commitment also to leaving no one behind and looking at the poorest and to recognizing the interlinked interdependent deprivation.
So I'd say one benefit of the MPI has been that whether it's the global measure we do with UNDP or the national MPIs that are present in 56 countries at the moment, they're all deagggregated by subnational region.
By gender of the household head or with an individual gender analysis.
Some have associated child and women's MPIs by disability, by ethnicity, in Somalia by nomadic populations, in Sri Lanka, by the estate in teaers plantations, and in places like Indonesia or Bangladesh, the mining communities that are not monetary poor but are MPI poor.
That ability to see who is the poorest and are they making progress the fastest and where they are to celebrate.
I think that's something that the MPI does very tangibly and tractably.
Another thing is that it can play and dance with others.
Last year on the global NPI, we overlaid climate hazards of extreme heat drought and flood and air pollution and found that 80% of the 1.1 billion poor people in the same year in which they were poor were affected by at least one.
651 million by two, 309 million by three climate hazards.
So you can actually broaden your map to look at vulnerabilities.
The year before we looked at conflict and people who live in places of battle deaths of fragility or very low or low peacefulness were among the 1.1 billion poor people, 40%, 455 million people we're living in situations of conflict.
So I think as we have more data from different sources and we can overlay it, we can really look at the human faces behind the data and figure out how their particular circumstances can shape our interventions, and we need that now.
We have less money.
We need to be very data informed and very targeted in our actions so that they have an effect, and they really change the lives that we're committed to.
Thank you.
Thank you, Sabina.
Thanks to our two speakers for highlighting the importance of the MPI and, of course, some of those spillovers, in particular, the last report that you worked on that looked at the climate spillovers, as well as, of course, conflicts.
The challenge is no longer whether multidimensional poverty should be measured.
The challenge is how to translate evidence into action and making the necessary institutional changes to systematically use NPI findings in policy making and that includes planning systems, budgeting processes, social registries, local government implementation, cross sector coordination, and of course, addressing the spillovers.
We have about 9 minutes to go.
So I'll probably entertain about two, three questions, and please try to be as succinct as possible.
Introduce your name or the organization.
I'll start on my right right here.
Thank you.
I have two questions.
I'm James Finch from Bonair Caribbean Island under the Dutch administration since 2010.
The discussion highlights the importance of coherent policymaking, addressing structural barriers to sustainable development in line with leave no one behind or reaching those farthest behind.
How can the international community expect Bonnair to achieve SDGs while fundamental decisions are made by European Dutch governance thousands of kilometers away rather than the people of Panir themselves.
And last question, shouldn't the colonization and realization of the right of self determination be recognized as a prerequisite for SDGs in territory espuir that has no representation, no UN oversight, and no accountability towards the international community and are governed externally below the UN threshold of democratic governance? Thank you.
The gentleman there? Yes.
Thank you.
My name is Sino Jama.
I'm originally from Zimbabwe.
I grew up in the United Kingdom.
I'm a medical doctor by background and my organization is Association of Healthcare Professionals.
My question is, as countries move from the Doha Political declaration to implementation, how can spill over conscious policymaking and multidimensional poverty measurements be translated into more practical, more effective, coordinated cross sectoral action that unlocks Africa's immense potential including its people because Africa has got a lot of a vast natural resources, innovation and entrepreneurship because the reason I mentioned Africa is because there are some countries that are lagging behind in terms of the sustainable development achievement.
So how can we utilize all the potential that it has to accelerate the progress towards the sustainable development achievement, ensuring sustainable, inclusive, and locally driven development.
Thank you.
I'll take two more gender balance, this slide here and one here, and then if we have time, I'll come.
Yeah.
No.
Okay.
Great.
Thank you.
My name is Siri and I am a youth representative of the World Scouts movement, World Scouting.
We have 60 million members worldwide and we have been working with the SEGs in over 170 countries.
My question is how youth led organizations like ours can work with these concepts like MPI and spillover, how we can educate our youth and how our youth can educate about these things in their communities.
If you have any advice, that would be very much appreciated.
Thank you.
Thank you so much to all the panelists for an inspiring discussion.
My name is Ellen Krita Dale and I am the data focal point for the United Nations Major Group for Children and Youth.
I have two questions to ask the panelists today related to working on accelerating the 2030 agenda and how it's becoming increasingly important to confront the digital realities and how AI is accelerating.
A lot of the work in our modern day world.
For example, if our tools for tracking and intervention do not adapt to the AI era, we further risk marginalizing underrepresented groups such as young women, migrants, low income youth, or youth with disabilities.
To that end, I have two questions.
One is for doctor Sabina and doctor Claudio about adaptive social protection.
A lot of times traditional MPIs often grapple with server data lags leaving highly fluid vulnerable populations digitally invisible.
How can we structurally integrate localized youth led datasets and decentralized technologies into the NPI framework to make social protection systems truly adaptive in real time while strictly protecting community data, dignity, and privacy? Very lastly, I wanted to ask Ernesto and the Beyond Lab team about spillover conscious policy making.
When we discuss spillovers, looking at cross border digital and algorithmic impacts is quite important.
Because AI models trained in high income regions are deployed globally, often carrying historical biases that automate the exclusion of vulnerable youth in the global South.
How can the spillover Innovation learning journey incorporate these digital and algorithmic spillovers into national policy frameworks, ensuring that technological progress in one part of the world does not deepen multidimensional poverty in another, and that visibility of community services is accessible to all, especially the youth, the disabled, and the low income? Thank you so much.
Thank you.
I know we are pressed for time.
So I'll start off from my right side.
We are asked to respond.
Try to do it in 1 minute and then we end up with Professina Yeah.
I will address the question about how the youth can work with concepts such as spillovers.
I think one important aspect of addressing spillover is not just the responsibility of governments.
As mentioned in my introductory presentation or intervention, much of this has to do also with our consumption patterns, and it has to do with educating youth in sensitizing on what is the cost of the well being we have now.
For that, we need to understand that we need to change consumption patterns.
It's not only it is not only the responsibility of governments, it's the responsibility of societies because the way we consume has cost elsewhere and it's going to have cost for future generations.
If we don't preserve those resources that can keep the well being that we are now preserving.
I mean, in the future, if we don't have the natural resources to continue with that type of well being, it would be affecting the future generations.
I would stop there part.
Yeah.
Maybe you can very briefly touch upon the algorithmic question and then also the African question from a spillover innovation learning journey perspective, and I'll be super brief.
That is that we've developed a model that is agnostic to a topic.
When you're asking, for example, about African regions, these models can be applied to different regional perspectives, for example, bringing together the right geographical stakeholders as well to discuss the issues that are most relevant for spillovers in the African region.
Similarly, this can also be applied to, for example, algorithmic and digital divide questions.
And very, very quickly, I just want to come back to the youth speaker as well and just appreciate the engagement of youth speakers overall and just an encouragement to get involved.
There's also at the lab, we also run a youth network, which is for beyond GDP that we also I know that Oi, we've talked about how we can bring in multidimensional poverty into this as well.
So maybe just an advice to look for these networks and where do you find the network of networks? Thank you, Sabina.
A we're running out of time.
So 1 minute and then we'll go to our closing.
Okay, very briefly two stories for youth.
One is Lady Oke College in Tamilnad.
The school taught what an MPI is.
The students looked up their national MPI.
They made their survey, and they went into their village, and with their teachers support, they implemented it.
And then they thought how with respect and with consultations and participations, they could respond.
So this is youth action.
Another true story, you two youth actually had just finished their undergraduate degree.
They were hired by a sub national government.
And again, they found what the MPI was.
They did a survey for their state head.
They ended up presenting it to the head of the country as well as the state.
It ended up being adopted, and they ended up then progressing and working at the UN thereafter.
So youth can take action.
Most countries' multidimensional poverty indices are online.
They can look at them, dial up their local region, write in the newspapers, talk about it, learn about it.
And I think that engagement would be catalytic in the continent of Africa and beyond.
Thank you.
Thank you, Sabina.
Yeah.
I hope I can in 10 seconds.
Now, just because to raise the issue on the potential of Africa, just a brief example on this project, it has a wonderful and very informative study tool in Rwanda on their own experiences and homegrown experiences and how they adopted and tailored dynamic social registries, all the data gathering and coordination and implementation with the different ministries.
And having a unique database that can speak and transfer data from one ministry to another following the beneficiaries.
That spark as well some further conversations with the participants from the different countries, not only from Africa, but as I mentioned, from the Asia Pacific.
This is a very specific example that as you said, the potential is there and the action and also the results are already there, and that's how we are moving in terms of how you can promote and prioritize homegrown tailored initiatives as well and South South cooperation.
Thank you.
Thank you, Claudio, and thanks to all our presenters.
Your contributions have highlighted a central message.
Achieving meaningful progress requires strong policy coherence, ensuring that actions across sectors, institutions, and levels of government work together.
To help us bring these insights together and reflect on the key messages emerging from our dialogue, I'm now pleased to give the floor to Mr.
Charles Kanga, who is the Director of the Division for Inclusive Social Development at UNSA.
You can do it from there or you can come up.
Yes.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, Amson.
Excellency, distinguished speakers, colleagues and friends, as we close this side event, allow me to express my sincere appreciation to our co hosts, panelists, participants for a rich and forward looking discussion.
As we enter the final stretch to 2030, of the 139 SDG targets with trend data, only 36% are on track or making moderate progress.
Nearly half or 49% are advancing through slowly, and 15% have progressed below 2015 baselines.
Conflict, climate change, economic instability, and social exclusion continue to reinforce one another across borders and across generations.
The impacts of the shocks are often borne most heavily by those already experiencing overlapping forms of deprivation.
Evidence from implementation of state suggests that one of the principal challenges has not been the lack of commitment to the goals, but rather limitations due to fragmented institutions, sectoral approaches, and disconnected policy processes.
The message is clear, Challengs we face are interconnected.
Vulnerabilities are multidimensional, and our responses must be integrated and collaborative.
I would like to highlight two important points discussed today.
The first lesson is that sustainable development cannot be achieved through silos.
Understanding and managing interactions between institutions, financing systems, and policy frameworks to generate positive synergies or unintended trade offs is no longer optional.
It is essential.
The second lesson is that better data and measurement can be powerful drivers of transformation.
Multidimensional poverty measures help us move beyond averages and income based indicators to understand how people actually experience deprivation.
They identify who is being left behind, where vulnerabilities are connected and how interventions can be better targeted.
These approaches demonstrate more deliberate forms of integrated systems thinking.
Multidimensional poverty approaches encourage us to see people as they experience life, not through isolated indicators, but through interconnected realities.
In the same vein, spillover conscious policymaking encourages us to think beyond national and sectoral boundaries.
The international community has shown its commitment to these approaches.
The Doha Political Declaration adopted last November, at the Second World Summit for Social Development, member states call for integrated approaches, stronger policy coherence, reinforced national coordination, and the avoidance of policy silos.
They also recognized the importance of multidimensional poverty measurement and stronger social protection systems as critical enablers of poverty eradication, social inclusion, and resilience.
The Division of the Division for Inclusive Social Development and the Department of Economic and Social Affairs stands ready to support member states in this effort through its analytical work, support for intergovernmental processes, and capacity development initiatives.
Excellency, distinguished delegates and colleagues.
The task now is to take the insights from today's discussions and translate these ambitions into action.
The message was clear to us all to achieve a more inclusive, resilient, equitable, and sustainable future, we must use the remaining years to 2030 to strengthen policy coherence, deepen collaboration, leverage synergies, and above all, place people at the center of integrated sustainable development strategies to deliver on the commitment to leave no one behind.
I thank you.
With that, we can give one more round of applause to all our panelists.
And to everyone who sacrificed the lunch to be here today.
Otherwise, we are done for today.
Thank you.