(9th meeting) High-Level Political Forum 2026

Honorable Ministers, excellencies, distinguished delegates.
The ninth meeting of the High level Political Forum on Sustainable Development convened under the auspices of Economic and Social Council at its 2026 session is called to order.
Excellencies delegates.
I invite the forum to continue its considerations of sub item C of agenda item two, voluntary national reviews.
For the first set of panel presentations, I am pleased to welcome the presenters from Cabo Verde, Italy, and Senegal.
Before we begin with the presentations, I would like to appeal to the presenting countries to adhere to the agreed 10 minutes for presentations so as to allow sufficient time for all the presenters, as well as engagement with other states and participants.
I apologize in advance if I have to interrupt speakers and I hope that I will not come to that point with your cooperations.
Given the number of countries making Vienar presentations this year's SLTF, I believe that we all understand the need to be disciplined so as to allow adequate time for presentations as well as interaction from the floor.
The forum will first hear the Pliary nationals by Cabo Verde, and I now invite His Excellency, Carlos Alberto Ramos, Barilla, Minister of Environment, Climate Action and Energy of Cabo Verde to make up presentations.
Your Excellency, you have the floor.
Thank you, Mr.
President, Excellencies, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen.
Before I start, let me note that we are a new government from Cape Verde for just to complete one month.
But it's a great honor for Cape Verde as a minister now to present our 30 voluntary national review and we fully embrace it's results until now.
The review for capabilities reflect a country's coltive efforts advance to 2030 agenda since the last review made in 2021.
It presents the country achievements, knowledges, and challenges that we continue to face and reaffirm our determination and our commitments for sustainable development.
As a small country development state, we know that sustainable progress is building on resilience, continuity, and strong partnership.
Cade is an archipelago of ten islands in the Atlantic Ocean.
Our geographic geography is both a great opportunity, but also our great challenges.
We continue to face water scarcity, increased climate risk depending on imported fossil fuels, and the exposure, the external economic shocks.
These reality require careful planning, innovation, and efficient use of every available resource.
For sustainable development is not simple international commitment.
It is an issue of national importance and priorities.
The connection between water and the energy illustrates this situation.
Around 90% of drinking water is produced through desalination and depend heavily of energy.
This means that fluctuation in international fuel price affect directly the cost of both water and electricity with significant impacts on families, business, and public public finances.
For us, accelerating renewable energy is therefore not only an environmental priority.
It's also a strategy to strengthen water security, economic resilience, and social well being.
Excellences, these years since our previous review, we face a lot of challenges and the external factors, the COVID 19 pandemic, global inflation, anti climate related events place huge pressure on our economy.
Even so, K remains resilient.
We preserve political stability, strengthen our institution, and continue investing in people.
Today electricity is close to universal, access to safe drinking water continuing to expand.
Renewable energy already represent around one quarter of electricity generation with ambitious targets for further growth.
Digital public services have expanded significantly and we bring a government solution system to close for the citizens.
Those archvements demonstrate that even under difficulties, circumstances, determining policies and commitment and partnership can deliver tangible results.
Water remains one of our great development priorities.
Over the past years, we have continued investing in desanization, distribution networks, and integrated water resource management.
Today, access to improve drink water exceed 90% nationally, represent significant progress.
However, sanitation and wastewater management remain our major challenges.
Spending sanitation services and increasing the safe treatment and reuse of water are now among our eight priority.
C no longer views treat wastewater as wasps, but as a strategic resource.
It is vital for water scarcity, agriculture and essential for sustainable climate and environmental resistance resilience.
In C, every drop of water counts, essentially because assessing natural water resource has always been a challenge.
Our energy transition continues to accelerate.
Renewable energy is helping us to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, strengthening energy security and decrease dependence of price of fltuation of the fossil fuels.
Transition is about much more than energy.
It is about lowering the cost of production drink water.
It is about increase economic competitiveness.
It is about create green jobs.
And it is about building a great resilience for the future generations.
National ambition is clear.
We want to continue, expand, renewable energy while modernizing, modernizing our electricity system, and improving energy efficiency across all sectors.
Our internal initiative demonstrates that government commitment on this matter in budgets, improve the institutional framework, the special planning locally and nationally, and monitoring and evaluation of the impacts of the investments.
Innovation and resilient infrastructure are essential for Cabo Verde islands.
Ca continue to invest in digital transformation on resilience infrastructure, strong relationship with our partners, and focus on governance reforms.
We are protecting our biodiversity and natural ecosystem and reinforce effective institution and good governance.
We remain committed to advance the true dialogue, innovation, and strong partnership.
For C resilience is not a choice.
It is our daily reality and partnership is not an option.
It is the foundation of our future.
Over the past few days, many people around the world, follow the remarkable performance of Cavvere National Football team, we call Blue Sharks or Tubarjis.
For us, they represent much more than sport success.
They remind us that commitment, discipline, and determination, and as well teamwork always mo and more than a country size because we are a small country, but we can do a lot if we work as a team.
Papes does is also the best way to describe Cavi sustainable development journey.
We are a small island nation.
Our challenges are significant, but our ambition is even greater.
Again, Cave remains fully committed to work with all partners to achieve the sustainable development goals and to ensure that no islands, no community, no one is left behind.
Thank you very much.
I thank the Minister of Environment, Climate Action Energy of Cade and his team for the presentations.
Now, the forum will next hear the Voluntary National Review by Senegal and I invite His Excellency Sk Tiniani, the IA Minister of Water and Sanitation of Senegal to make a presentation.
Your Excellency, you have the floor now.
Thank you very much, Mercy.
Thank you.
Mr.
President, ladies and gentlemen, Ministers, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, ambsadors.
Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen.
It is a true honor for me to take the floor on behalf of the Republic of Senegal during this high level political forum on sustainable development.
After having presented our first voluntary National Review in 2018 and then our second VNR in 2022, we are currently presenting our third review.
This participatory approach reflects our desire to take regular stock of the implementation of Agenda 2030.
I wish to take this opportunity.
To applaud the commitment of all stakeholders who have contributed to the drafting of this review, specifically sectorial ministries, local governing bodies, particularly the City of Pekin this year, which initiated the crafting of a local voluntary review, civil society, the private sector, as well as the United Nations system.
My presentation will successfully focus on the framework for the implementation of the SDGs, the process of crafting the review, the main results achieved and lasting, the main levers in order to accelerate achievement of the sustainable development goals, vis-à-vis the implementation of the SDGs in Senegal.
The SDGs are fully incorporated in the reference documents for public policy, namely the National Agenda for Transformation Senegal 2015.
In this regard, all of the priority SDGs are reflected in the national development strategy, S&D 2025 to 2029, and nearly 93% of the SDG indicators have been incorporated into the follow up evaluation national mechanism, which is rooted in participatory governance through the joint annual review, which is a true tool for dialogue and accountability for public policies.
Turning to the process of crafting the 2026 Voluntary National Review, our third National Voluntary National Review followed a clear blueprint with a participatory and inclusive approach in accordance with the principles of ensuring that nobody be left behind.
Throughout this process, the contributions of various stakeholders have been mobilized in order to establish a review which reflects our national realities, and this momentum was enriched with alternative reports that have been crafted by civil society as well as the establishment of a national strategy, leaving nobody behind.
And targeted consultations with associations of persons with disabilities as well as volunteers, related stakeholders and with the concerted establishment of key messages.
The third VNR has presented progress on all 17 SDGs, and in accordance for this edition, we'll focus on the five goals six OD SDG 679 11, and 17.
Turning to SDG six, clean water and sanitation.
For this SDG, we have achieved meaningful progress over the past decade, both at the urban level and in rural areas.
In 2025, the rate of access for drinking water in urban areas reached 97.8%.
In the rural environment, this rate reached 8.8 increased 8.8 percentage points 2015-2025, resting at 96.04%.
Over the same period, access to sanitation also improved increasing from 62.5% to 73.65% in the urban area, and 37.5% to 64.5% in the rural landscape.
This is a particularly striking improvement in rural areas.
These gains will be shored up by surmounting challenges related to securing access to water, improving the quality of services, and strengthening infrastructure, turning to SDG seven, cleaning energy at an affordable cost.
Turning to SDG seven, we have also achieved significant progress 2015-2024.
The overall rates of access to electricity rose from 62% to 86% and in the rural environment, this rate more than doubled from 32% to 69.8%.
In parallel, San Gal has been continuing to foster our energy transition, the share of renewable energies in the installed capacity.
Increased from 3% in 2016 to 29.10% in 2024, with the goal of reaching 40% by 2030.
Turning to SDG nine, we are continuing to pursue our efforts for the promotion of sustainable industrialization, shoring up infrastructure and supporting more competitive economic growth.
The results reflect the fact that the manufacturing related added value in GDP dropped from 17.1% in 2015 to 13.2% in 2025.
And this situation is primarily the result of a significant growth in the national economy, which was generated by the launch of oil and gas exploration initiatives and not a reduction in manufacturing activity.
And these efforts are accompanied by significant infrastructure.
Transport investments.
Turning to ODG nine.
In 2025, transportation networks resulted in movements of 483.2 million travelers, 7.5 million through the rapid transit bus helping to avoid nearly 53,000 tons of C two emissions per year at the railway.
Network has also made progress reaching 23.1 million passengers serviced in 2025 as compared to 2.7% in 2015, thanks to the TER, the regional express train turning to SDG 11, this sheds light on progress in sustainable urbanization, while recalling the challenges inherent to accelerated urbanization.
The urbanization rate grew from 45.2% in 2013 to 54.7% in 2023, shedding light on the importance of housing needs in 2025.
This deficit we calculated at nearly 500,000 homes stressing the need to continue to pursue efforts for decent and affordable housing beyond these housing related challenges.
We are continuing to make progress in improving the living standard.
Turning to SDG 11, in 2025, our national rate for waste waste collection was 59% with good coverage in the Capitol Dakar, recycling and reuse of waste remain priorities in parallel.
542.1 hectars of green space was also developed and prioritized 2015-2025.
These efforts are accompanied by improvements in air quality in Dhakar where the average annual level of fine particles dropped from 35 micrograms/cubic meter of air in 2015 to 25.8 micrograms/cubic meter of air in 2025.
Turning to SDG 17, partnerships for the achievement of the SDGs.
This SDG highlights efforts that we have undertaken in order to improve and strengthen the means for implementation of the SCG.
Results reflect improved mobilization of domestic resources, the share of the national budget financed by taxes.
Tax collection revenue rose from a 54.8% in 2015 to 69% in 2025, whereas public revenues beyond donations aside, rose from 19.3 to 20.8% of the GDP demonstrating the efforts undertaken to better mobilize domestic resources.
In terms of public debt outstanding amount is calculated at 116.1% of GDP in 2025, and the debt service to exports ratio for goods and services stands at 49.8% in 2025.
Turn we have turning to digital technologies, we have a significant improvement in Internet coverage rate and this Internet coverage rate increased from 50.69% in 2015 to more than 100% in 2025.
This momentum is it will be Built upon with the implementation of our national program in this area, which is articulated around the new technology deal.
In light of the lessons drawn from the assessment of the above mentioned SDGs, we have identified, strategic priorities to accelerate implementation thereof, namely, systemic transformation of our economy through the development of eight strategic sectors through territorial centers and accelerated establishment of special economic zones.
Second, improving sustainable access to water and sanitation thanks to the implementation of the National Compact for Water Security, which will help to streamline water and sanitation service delivery.
Third, the implementation of our nationally determined contribution, 3.0 and accelerated development of renewable energies.
And lastly, fourth, greater flows of sustainable financing and stronger partnerships on the basis of the Document framework, Framework document on sustainable financing and the national strategy for the mobilization of intermediate term revenues.
We will continue to cooperate with the IMF in order to shore up our macroeconomic stability, and the sustainability of public financing, and in parallel, we will strengthen our partnerships through the cooperation strategy and the national transition strategy in order to facilitate our graduation from the category of the least developed countries.
Lastly, ladies and gentlemen, we remain fully committed to the implementation of Agenda 2030.
We reaffirm our desire to continue along these lines together with the entire international community.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your kind attention.
I thank the Minister of Water and Sanitation of Senegal for his presentation.
Now the forum will next hear the Bolinon National Review by Italy and I invite His Excellency, Claude Barbara, under Secretary of Estates is the Minister Security of Italy to make a presentation.
Your Excellence, you have the floor.
President Mr.
President, Ministers, distinguished delegates, I'm honored to be here today for a joint presentation alongside the Deputy Director General for Development Cooperation.
Of our Minister of Foreign Affairs, international cooperation, Sardinia's Regional Council for the Environment, representing Italy's regions, and the representative of the Forum for Sustainable Development, the National platform for Civil Society Engagement on the 2030 agenda.
Our VNR, which we have labeled the voluntary National Local and Youth Review, is aimed to foster integration, which is why today four speakers will illustrate not only the results achieved, but also the rationale underpinning our working method, that is shared responsibility.
The VNR assesses processes underway at national level and regional, local territory, but it is also future oriented as it rests on monitoring as instrumental to reorienting priorities and implementation trajectories.
The goal is to broaden the perspective and outline not only the progress made toward achieving the SDGs, but above all, the overall transformative effort undertaken by the various levels of government and stakeholders.
This concept translates into a unified framework integrated across levels, stakeholders and sectors based on the national strategy for sustainable development and the triennial Programming and guidance document for cooperation.
At its core, Italy places levers for action and change, that is, policy coherence, culture, and participation for sustainable development.
Similarly, the SDGs localization and the active role of local communities build the foundation of our model.
Following the work trajectories identified in 2022, this review exercise has identified several priority outcomes.
Stronger inter ministerial coordination and improved piloting of mechanisms that enhance consistency in evaluating public policies to achieve the sustainable development goals.
Engagement of younger generations, stronger multi level governance and multi stakeholder dialogue.
Improved collaborative capacity, building a cultural environment conducive to experimenting new integrated policies and engaging a wide range of stakeholders, including businesses.
Stronger integrated multi level monitoring system.
The analysis we conducted also identified some challenges ahead, enhancing the coherence of sustainable development policies by making public policy implementation and evaluation simpler and more effective, facilitating networking among stakeholders, improving their training, and offering more opportunities for engagement and interaction.
Establishing permanent platforms for dialogue open to all stakeholders and younger generations, fostering an intergenerational perspective, preserving initiatives that give voice to and prioritize local communities at the national and global level, such as the partnership platform for delocalization of the SDGs.
Initiative launched by Italy and you inhabited and joined by various countries and organizations supports peer to peer dialogue and promotes the testing and national frameworks for the localization of sustainable goals.
The activities carried out within the partnership led to the drafting of the joint message on the localization of the SEGs which Italy, together with other partners has incorporated into its VNR, contributing to the post 2030 agenda by focusing on cross cutting structural and transformative factors such as the coherent and integrated governance at various levels.
Italy's first voluntary review on young generations is inspired by the Pact for the Future and the Declaration on Future Generations.
It maps a whole journey and marks a turning point in attaining young people's inclusion and sustainability efforts.
This review sends a straightforward message, young people are agents of change and their priorities are clear, transformative education, meaningful participation, integration of intergenerational dimension into the sustainability assessment of public policies.
Italy is committed to making this dialogue permanent sustained and measurable because there can be no sustainable transformation without the active involvement of the younger generations and without a focus on future generations.
Thank you.
Mr.
President, distinguished ministers and colleagues, the external dimension of Italy policy coherence for sustainable development is grounded in national law and adopts an integrated approach involving public administration alongside private stakeholders.
As was mentioned, the law establishes a governance structures led by the Prime Minister's office, which ensures coordination among the relevant ministers and other relevant council.
Um, this framework also guarantees dialogue and consultation among civil society organizations, private sector, academia, and public institutions.
The main strategy, as was mentioned, for ensuring external coherence is a three year policy planning document, which sets out the priority and strategic directions of our development cooperation.
The It Development action focuses on 38 partner countries and key sectors for achieving the sustainable development goals, including food security, health, education, water, and sanization, decent work, environment, and climate.
Going from policy to action, what we implement is a team Italy approach, which is a multi stakeholder approach involving all relevant stakeholders to promote coherence across our external action and development policies.
One relevant instrument that we use is our system wide mission in partner countries where we bring together pieces of the public administration together with our civil society organization, with the private sector, with our development bank, and we work with our international partners, including the European Union.
The objective of these missions is to identify or develop together with our partner countries joint initiatives in constant partnership and dialogue with them and help to translate political commitment into tangible results on the ground.
Italy's commitment to sustainable development is also reflected in our official development assistance.
In 2025, Italy stood out as the only G seven member to increase its ODA despite global cuts in development assistance.
President distinguished delegates as representative of Sardinia.
I am honored to voice the perspective of regions and autonomous provinces and metropolitan cities of Italy.
Today, after years of close cooperation, localization of SDGs and multi level governance are reality within the Italian model, and they guide the coherence of sustainable development policies.
Local strategies outline a shared path towards a transformative change as called upon by the Agenda 2030, a process that requires long term alliances, vision, and continuity at administrative level against this backdrop, The VNR youth generations in 2026 plays a vital role, coordinating the reviews of 15 regions and urban cities, and it's a key tool to ensure that administrative stakeholders play their part and the policies and effectiveness are monitored.
At local level, all stakeholders are committed to ensuring integration at local level and internationally with the Agenda 2030.
Through the centered coordination, our territories, our local government authorities allowed to promote cooperation and to promote partnerships with international partners.
These concrete initiatives are translated onto multiple levels.
66% of initiatives are supported by local township governance and 69 through participatory initiatives.
Coherence of sustainable development policies is now a key resource that actively drives 65% of all the entities that are involved.
This achievement shows that SDG's localization is a strategic catalyst and it's necessary, is a prerequisite for sustainable development goals that can be measured, implemented, and that can be relevant within our local communities.
Thank you for your attention.
Mr.
President, honorable Ministers, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to draw your attention to the participation mechanism shown on this slide.
This is a real space for dialogue, one that we must protect and strengthen.
For the more than 360 civil society and non state organizations involved in the forum, challenges lie ahead, ensuring continuity beyond the voluntary national review process while amplifying the voices of those most at risk of exclusion.
We also recall the need for strengthened participation and democratic citizenship at local and regional level.
For institution, the challenge is equally important, embracing genuinely open and co created processes where scope for mediation is provided through strong and dynamic intermediary bodies.
Sustainable development is ultimately a matter of citizenship, voice, participation, and power.
If we want the profound transitions of our time to reduce rather than deepen inequalities, people must be part of shaping them.
Our perspective is clear, a society in which dignity, rights, and opportunities guaranteed for everyone without exception, that can be achieved with a new paradigm, new education, frameworks, and culture, a strategic infrastructure of transition.
All these implies forward looking and courageous policies.
Sustainability and human security are built through inclusion, opportunity and peace, not through conflict.
Ecological transition must be socially just opening space for those most exposed to environmental and economic change.
In a world map marked by division and tensions, there is no realistic alternative to peace in contributing to the construction of genuine global public goods.
Thank you.
I thank the Under Secretary of State and the Minister of Environment and Energy Security of Italy and his team for the presentation.
Excellency dist delegates will now hear comments and questions from its states and other participants.
Delegations who wish to intervene in the interactive discussions, including those who previously expressed the interest to ask questions to any of the VNR presentations just heard through the group of friends of the voluntary National reviews are invited to press the microphone button on the console now.
Before I give the floor to the post speaker, I would like to remind delegations to kindly limit your interventions to 2 minutes each.
With this, I would like to give the floor to the distinguished representative of the United Kingdom to be followed by Ireland, Gambia, and Portugal.
Thank you very much, President, and thank you to all of the speakers today for the great presentations on your development progress.
My question is to the Honorable Minister from Cave.
Thank you very much for presenting your development progress.
We welcome this and we are looking forward to your Chirship of the Association of Small Island Developing States from next year.
We noted that in your review it highlights the growing impacts of climate change on water and sanitation and also progress that you have made on gender equality alongside economic growth.
That was very interesting for us.
We'd like to ask, what do you see as the most important actions needed from the international community to strengthen climate resilience in small island developing states.
What lessons would you share on ensuring that development progress delivers opportunities for women and girls? Thank you.
I thank the District representative of the United Kingdom.
Now, I give the floor to the districted representative of Ireland.
Thank you, Mr.
President and thank you to Cappa verde, Italy, and Senegal on the presentation of their voluntary national reviews today.
I'd like to particularly congratulate the minister from Senegal on the wonderful performance of the team in the recent World Cup, particularly because Ireland co claims one of your great players Pico Lopez, and we were delighted to support him and the whole team in their endeavors.
Our question is, however, for Italy.
As Ireland did in 2023, Italy have focused on youth participation.
The first youth voluntary review presented by Italy and included in its VNR provides a practical example of implementation of the Pact for the future and of the Declaration on future generations.
We understand that through the YVR, Italy is equipping younger generations with a space and a structure for voicing their perspectives international sustainable development processes also beyond the VNR.
We also noted the reference to introducing an intergenerational policy impact assessment, which is particularly interesting to Ireland.
Could Italy elaborate on how it intends to follow up on its youth VR in terms of process and contents? What are the key enablers that could make younger generations engagement structural in your country? Thank you very much, Mr.
President.
I thank the District representative of Ireland.
Now I give the floor to the District representative of Gambia.
Thank you, Mr.
President.
Our question goes to the Republic of Senegal.
The Gamble congratulates all the countries presenting their VNR this afternoon and commends their continued efforts to advancing the implementation of the 2030 agenda.
We extend our warmest congratulations to our Ss Republic of Senegal on the presentation of its third voluntary National Review.
The Gambian Senegal share a unique and enduring relationship rooted in shared heritage, common history, and deep family ties that continue to bind our two countries and peoples together.
We also commend Senegal for the tangible progress reflected in its review and welcome the candor with which its achievements and remaining challenges alike have been presented.
As two neighboring countries pursuing shared development aspirations under the 2030 agenda, the Gamba attach is particular importance to Senegal's experience in advancing institutional reforms and governance approaches that have underpinned the implementation of its national development priorities.
We believe this experience offers valuable lessons for countries seeking to strengthen public institutions and accelerate progress towards the SDGs.
Given the importance of transparency and good governance in enhancing the effectiveness of public action and accelerating the SDGs, could the distinguished delegate of Senegal elaborate on the measures being taken to strengthen transparency, accountability, and the fight against corruption? I thank you.
I thank the distinguished representative of Gambia.
Now, I give the floor to His Excellency, the Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs of Portugal to be followed by people of African descent stakeholder groups, Switzerland, Spain, Jamaica, and Tunisia.
Thank you, S.
Portugal congratulates Cab Vert, Italy, and Senegal on the presentation of their voluntary national reviews and thanks them for sharing their national experiences, achievements, and remaining challenges in implementing the 2030 agenda.
Portugal highly values its close and long standing cooperation with C V, both bilaterally and in multilateral fora, including in support of the implementation of the 2030 agenda.
We also look forward to C Vers chairmanship of ***.
In this spirit, we would like to address the following question to His Excellency, Carlos Alberto Remus Brea, Minister for Environment, Climate Action and Energy, regarding SDGs seven, nine, and 11.
How is Cabo Verde leveraging the energy transition, technological innovation, and the development of resilient infrastructure to promote more sustainable, inclusive, and competitive cities and communities.
I thank you.
I thank Excellency Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs of Portugal for the question.
Now I give the floor to the district representative of people of African descent stakeholder group.
Distinguished co facilitators.
Civil Society welcomes Cat's real gains, sustained economic growth, near universal access to water, electricity, and sanitation, and recognition as one of Africa's best governed countries.
The Gender Parity Law, the Victim Support Fund, and the Gender Based Violence Act reflect genuine political will on gender equality.
Yet implementation gaps remain.
Gender based violence cases, including femicides remain high and survivors still struggle to access justice, protection, and shelters across all islands.
LGBTQI plus people still lack access to law against discrimination and recognition of same sex unions and domexic workers, most of them women, remain largely excluded from social protection.
Nearly a quarter of young people are neither employed in school nor in training and informality affects almost half of all workers.
As a small island state, Cabo Verde also faces mountain climate pressure on water security alongside high public debt that constraints investment in adaptation and social protection.
We therefore ask what concrete time bound steps will government take to guarantee survivors of gender based violence, access to justice, and protection in every municipality? Will Cert adopt anti discrimination legislation covering sexual orientation and gender identity and extend full full social protection to domestic and informal workers, and how will civil society be formally included in monitoring progress on those commitments beyond this review? Civil Society stands ready to be a genuine partner in closing the gap between Cabo Verde strong institutions and the lived reality of those still left behind.
Thank you.
I thank the distinguished representative of people of African descent stakear group.
Now I give the floor to the distinguished representative of Switzerland.
Thank you, Mr.
President.
We congratulate all the presenters on their VNRs.
Our question goes to Italy.
As a federal state, Switzerland attributes key importance to policy coherence across the levels and across sectors, which is why we have a national strategy on sustainable development applicable to all.
We are pleased to see that Italy included this aspect in its VNR and would like to ask the following question.
Could you elaborate on your tools and approach for policy coherence for sustainable development? How do you use it to bring impact to the different levels of government? Could it be applicable to other countries? Thank you.
I thank the District representative of Switzerland.
Now I give the floor to the district representative of Spain.
Thank you very much.
We congratulate all of the VNR that are being presented this afternoon and our questions for synagogue.
Synagogue considers migration to be crucial for sustainable development.
How can we try to improve the contribution of regular contribution and the diaspora to achieving the sustainable development goals while consolidating partnerships with receiving countries, especially Spain.
Thank you.
I thank the distinguished representative of Spain.
Now I give the floor to the distinguished representative of Jamaica.
Thank you, Mr.
President.
Jamaica, also thanks the distinguished presenters of CV V, Italy, and Senegal for their presentations today and for the insight shared through their respective or international reviews.
I'd like to direct my question to Cover VD.
As a fellow S Island developing state, Jamaica shares many of the same vulnerabilities Cover Vd faces, and so we follow your progress with particular interests.
My question is on water security.
What innovative measures is Cabo V implementing to strengthen water security and ensure sustainable access to clean water and sanitation in the face of climate change and increasing water security, particularly in the context of small island developing states.
I thank the delegation of Cab V in advance for your response.
I thank the Distinguished representative of Jamaica.
Now I give the floor to the distinguished representative of Tunisia.
Thank you very much President.
My question is directed to Italy.
Italy has worked very hard to support localization of the SDGs and also to ensure local VNRs favoring the local level.
Tunisian partnership with UN Habitat is working with the partnership platform for the localization of the SDGs in order to mutually learn from our experiences and to develop adapted national frameworks for localization of the SDGs.
This year, several partner countries will be presenting their voluntary national reviews, and they have included a joint message about the localization of the SDGs in this way underscoring the importance of this approach.
My question is as follows.
What are the main features Italian approach in terms of localization of the SDGs and how has Italy encouraged territories in this process of decentralization.
Thank you.
I thank the Dent representative of Tunisia.
Now I give the floor to the Dt representative of workers and Trade Union measure groups.
Thank you, President.
Allow me to begin by saying that there cannot be sustainable development without peace and Italy must make a stronger commitment to promote peace.
The government must also make sure that no one is left behind in a country where poverty inequality are still major challenges.
Too many people have secret jobs, wages are getting lower and lower and more and more people have a job but still live in poverty.
Another key issue is the failure to apply the minimum wage European Directive.
This is particularly clear in the platform economy.
Social protection and public services have very important limits, especially for weaker social groups, including migrants, Roma and Sinti.
We need the social and labor policies that protect and include everyone.
Italy is also falling behind in the green transition because public policies still support fossil fuels and too little tension is dedicated also to gender equality.
For all these reasons, we must strengthen dialogue with civil society and trade unions.
It is essential that the government fully implements the National Action Program for policy coherence for sustainable development, long term investments, and more progressive taxation to reduce regional and social inequalities.
Without these concrete policies, too many people will be left behind and the 2030 agenda will remain only a formal commitment.
Thank you very much.
I thank the Distant goods representative of Ws and Trade Union Mejor Group.
Now, I give the floor to the Distant goods representative of JODA.
Thank you, Mr.
President.
First, I would like to thank all the countries for their representation.
My question to Italy.
Jordan appreciate the important role given to the local authority and community in Italy VNR.
Jordan is also working with Italy together with UN Habitat within the partnership platform on SDGs localization, sharing the joint messages on SDG localization.
My question is, what achievements have been made by Italy since 2022 VNR on the local engagement and multi level governance? Thank you.
I thank the Distant goods representative of Jordan.
Now I give the floor to the distant goods representative of Group.
President President, we hail the renewed commitment of Sengal to Agenda 2030.
Nevertheless, there are still major challenges, especially in terms of access to drinking water, sanitation, and energy, especially in rural areas.
Additional efforts are necessary in order to reduce poverty, create decent jobs, and improve the living conditions of the most vulnerable populations, especially those living with disabilities.
While Senegal has enjoyed sustained macroeconomic growth, this must lead to the creation of decent jobs to allow communities to sustainably emerge from poverty.
Support for SMEs and also for entrepreneurs and young people is essential.
Industrialization must guarantee equitable outcomes, especially through decent wages and equal remuneration for work of equal value.
Gender equality and access to care also need to be reinforced.
It is indispensable that we reduce the burden of non unpaid care that is borne by women thanks to investment in public services, water, sanitation, energy, and public protections is essential to achieving the SDGs, especially in rural areas where limited access to water is problematic and this is underscored in the One Health approach.
All of these things are necessary to achieve inclusive sustainable development.
I have two questions.
What measures to reverse the trend and achieve the SDGs and ensure mobilization of the resources required for the financing of SDGs, would you recommend? What institutional mechanisms will allow governments to formally join with trade unions in order to achieve the SDGs following the presentation of the VN Rs in 2026? Thank you.
I thank the distinguished representative Pop and you made the group.
Now, I would like to invite the presenters to briefly respond to the questions raised and comments made by the delegations and stakeholders and time limit to respond, these questions will be 5 minutes for his delegations.
With this, I would like to invite His Excellency Carlos Alberto Ramos, Barella Minister of Environment and Climate Action Science Energy of Cabade Re.
Thank you.
Thank you all for the questions.
I wanted to start to emphasize that I The cavity experience, all the goals and the achievement that we already done is supported by our international cooperation, our bilateral and multilateral cooperation.
We express our sincere appreciation to all of those that continue to support cavity in all the challenge and goals that we are trying to put.
In place.
Particularly, our priorities now is to continuing to reinforce the renewable energy.
Because as I mentioned before, to produce water and energy, we depend totally in the fossils and we need to expand our renewable energy, technology transfer to try to produce clean energy, innovation, and capacity building because we're trying to create now a new national framework to try to bring together the energy, the environmental issues, and the climate issues link in the same area.
Before, the institution that we have was a separate institution, but now the framework we are trying to put in the country will facilitate the actions that we need to put in those areas.
I to guarantee the innovation infrastructure and sustainable cities, we are trying to approve by the government side, the new building codes that will be adopted to ensure that infrastructure is designed to withstand the climate actions.
Cities, coastal areas, and marine space are planned to become more inclusive, more resilient, and more sustainable.
All of those plans is already done and those was complete before, is already to try to update to integrate the climate and indicators related to these sustainable issues.
The investments that we improved in the public service stimulate the economy and bring opportunity to strength resilience across our islands.
I will pass my colleague to try to complete some questions related to the gender and the other issues that I was not able to respond.
Thank you, just to say that regarding gender equality, one keyless for C is that sustainable development is only possible when women and girls are fully included in the decision making and have equal access to education, health care, decent work, finance and digital opportunities.
CVD has made significant progress in promoting gender equality, legal reform, gender responsive public policy, and increased participation of women in political and public life.
However, challenges remain particularly in reducing economic inequalities and paid care burdens, and and gender basic violence.
Continued investment in human economics, employment, and leadership is essential to ensure that development leaves no one behind.
Just to say that the implementation of the Agin 23rd income is based on the principle of the universality of human rights and the equal opportunities seeking to ensure that no person is truly left behind.
Thank you.
I thank the Minister of Environment, Climate Action, Energy of Cava Bodi and his team.
Now I would like to invite His Excellency, the Minister of Water and Sanitation of Senegal to respond to the questions raised from the floor.
Mercy.
Thank you, Mr.
President.
I wish to begin with a word of thanks to the Republic of Gambia and Spain.
For the questions that have been posed put to Senegal, I would like to begin with assist the Republic of Gambia.
The distinguished representative of Gambia, Senegal is honored at the opportunity to provide responses to your questions.
We are very close countries.
Not only do we share a border, but we also share history, we share geography.
We have the same culture, the same peoples, the same languages, so the interest that you have shown us is a great honor.
Your question has to do with a question of transparency and good governance, and Senegal believes that transparency and good governance, as well as the fight against corruption, these are critical levers in order to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of public action in order to shore up the trust of citizens, but also to create a conducive environment for the attainment of the sustainable development goals.
In that vein, we have enhanced our legal and institutional frameworks through interia, the establishment of a national anti fraud and anti corruption Office, and with a national cell to process of financial information, this is a centif But also recently, we've established a financial judicial center to build financial transparency mechanisms as well as for traceability for operations and cooperation between the relevant ministries.
Progress has been achieved and this has been recognized at the international level in the Financial Action Task Force.
FATF withdrew Senegal from the list of jurisdictions under enhanced surveillance since the 25th of October 2024.
And the situation has remained unchanged in the up to date list published on the 29th of June 2026, so where Senegal is no longer inscribed and this represents a tangible progress of what we have done.
We will continue to enhance public governance and transparency and integrity of institutions in order to better protect public resources and to support sustainable development rooted and responsible and a very effective governance There you have it, Madam Distinguished Representative of Gambia.
This is part of the response that we wish to share with you to your questions.
Turning to the questions put by the distinguished representative of Spain.
On migration in particular, the position of Senecgal is as follows, a secure, orderly and regular migration is a lever for sustainable development when this is rooted in balanced cooperation between the countries of origin and transit and destination.
This vision fully aligns with the Global Compact for safe, orderly and regular migration.
Which recognizes the fact that immigration when it is well governed, contributes to sustainable development.
Senegal believes that migration generates shared benefits.
Host countries benefit from the skills and progress of migrants, whereas countries of origin have access to remittances, skills transfer as well as strengthened economic ties.
Our national development strategy, the SNAD 2025 to 2029, provides for greater mobilization of skills, but also investments in skills and expertise, and we are continuing to foster participation in development projects as well as in the development of mechanisms which help to channel their contributions to national development priorities, specifically in terms of human capital, entrepreneurship, innovation, territorial development, and productive investments.
Sango distinguished representative attributes particular importance to our cooperation with Spain as we seek to promote regular migration pathways to foster mobility of skills as well as enhancing positive benefits of migration for the benefit of both countries.
We continue to firmly believe that concerted governance of migration rooted in dialogue and balanced partnership, that this is an important means of accelerating the attainment of the SDGs, and this is the partnership which we will continue to propose as we continue to work together.
Mr.
President, lastly, the question from the distinguished representative of civil society organizations.
I simply wish to reassure non state actors that Senegal is fully committed to mobilization and inclusive participation of civil society stakeholders in the process of crafting, implementing, and ensuring follow up of public policies.
We have the synagogue blueprint for development and the transformation, a blueprint at the very minimum, two important focuses of our national agenda for transformation, which is the groundwork for public policy, give pride of place to development of human capital, where we mention education, improved health care systems, the generation of decent jobs, particularly for women and young people, greater social protections and reduction of inequality.
These are the features which are cross cutting throughout the SDGs, and they lie at the heart of the public policy which are being implemented by all ministerial developments in our country.
Another focus has to do with sustainable territorial management and administration.
This also relates to sustainable management, sustainable transportation systems, energy, access to water, access to sanitation, as well as sound natural resources and management and all of these processes, all stakeholders, including civil society stakeholders are fully brought in.
Lastly, Senegal, like civil society actors, embraces participation of women and young people.
They're fully engaged, including in the drafting of our voluntary National Review and all throughout the process, as civil society actors are present.
Thank you very much for your kind attention.
Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Water and Santiians of Senegal for his response.
Now, I would like to invite His Excellency, the Under Secretary Office State, the Minister of Environment and Energy Security of Italy to respond to the questions raised and comments made by the delegations.
Thank you for these very important question.
I'll focus on three main points.
The Youth voluntary Review marks the beginning of a process aimed at raising awareness and it's an opportunity to contribute to the 2030 agenda.
We intend to strengthen spaces for dialogue and youth participation in monitoring and implementation processes by promoting sustained cooperation among institutions, schools, civil society, academia, and the world of work.
Assessing the intergenerational impact of public policies will become a strategic tool that will further develop decision making and build an evidence base for the post 2030 agenda.
The second point I'd like to address is that in line with target 17.14, policy coherence for sustainable development underpins Italy's integrated governance model, which seeks to overcome policy silss.
Through instruments such as coherence matrices, we analyze the relationship among strategic objectives, indicators, and sectoral policies, as well as the alignment with the national sustainable development strategy.
This approach strengthens policy integration, we enhance synergies, and we can manage potential trade offs through a whole of government approach.
Third point, multi level governance supported by policy coherence is another crucial pillar of our approach through sustainable development strategy at local level and the voluntary local reviews.
We intend to strengthen the integrated monitoring and planning.
The same vision also guides the partnership platform for the SDG localization, which assists countries in developing national frameworks that connect different levels of government with the ultimate aim of translating global commitments into tangible results on the ground.
Italy will provide a more detailed written version of these responses and I now give the floor to Deputy Director Fonancelo, followed by Director Guerre with another comment to the questions that were posed.
By the trade unions representative, B we don't believe this is the forum where we should address these issues that have been raised.
Thank you for your attention.
Take 1 second to recall that decentralized cooperation is through the decentralized cooperation, the Italian government promotes S localization.
I'm responding to the question from Tunisia and Jordan.
We support territorial partnership by bringing together local authorities, which are regions and municipalities, universities, civil societies, private sector and the diaspora communities to respond to the specific needs of partner territories.
Operationally, the Italian government has established a new dedicated instrument for Italian regional and local authorities, enabling them to establish territorial partnerships in partner countries and play an active role in implementing SDG oriented development projects.
Thank you very much.
I thank you and I thank all the ministers and their team for their presentations as well as the responses.
I also thank all the delegations and other stakeholders for your valuable contributions.
Before concluding, I would like to recall that General Assembly resolutions, 75 slash 290 B.
Provides that countries conducting voluntary national reviews may provide written answers after the high level political forum if they so wish in case time was too short for them to provide detailed answers during the forum.
With this, I now briefly pause the meeting to allow the podium to be rearranged and I invite the VNR presenters of Saudi Arabia and Switzerland to approach the podium and take their seats.
I thank you all the minister for your presentations.
Thank you so much.
I Thank you.
Okay.
Okay.
Dear colleagues, ladies and gentlemen.
For the second set of panel presentation, I'm pleased to welcome the distinguished presenters from Saudi Arabia and Switzerland.
Given the number of countries making VNR presentation this year HLPF, I believe that we all understand the need to be disciplined so as to allow adequate time for presentation as well as interaction from the floor.
Our forum will first hear from His Excellency, Faisal Bin Faddam Ibrahim, Minister of Economy and Planning of Saudi Arabia to make a presentation of the voluntary National Review.
L Kala You have this.
Excellent distinguished colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, Alito Boric, a decade ago, Saudi Arabia stood at an important crossroads.
One path was familiar to continue with a model that had delivered for decades and still offered comfort in the short term.
But over time, that path would have left the country with fewer choices, more exposed to volatility, slower to unlock opportunities, and less prepared to meet the ambition of a young generation.
The other path required bolder decisions, and that path was Saudi Vision 2013.
The Kingdom's third voluntary National Review reflects how Vision 2030 has turned national transformation into practical progress across the 2030 agenda.
Today, we share what has changed since our last review in 2023, what we have learned, and what remains in progress.
This is the raw story, a journey that began with honest self assessment, advanced through reform and ambition, and is now entering a phase focused on prioritization, efficient delivery, and higher impact.
For decades, Saudi Arabia's traditional economic model delivered real gains.
It built infrastructure, expanded services, developed cities, created institutions, and gave the kingdom a central role in the global economy.
But the world around us was changing.
The global economy was becoming more competitive, more diversified, more digital, and more demanding of productivity.
Countries were competing more actively for investment, talent, technology, and new sources of growth.
At home, our economy remained heavily dependent on oil and public spending.
A young and growing population was seeking a broader range of opportunities to contribute to the kingdom's future.
At the same time, our institutions needed stronger capabilities to regulate, coordinate, and deliver in a more complex and diversified economy.
This was our self assessment.
We had built national strength, but we needed to be more resilient.
Vision 2030 turned that self assessment into a national reform blueprint.
The work began with a practical question, what was holding back our economy and society's full potential? In some areas, the answer was regulation.
In others, it was the need for stronger institutions, better services, more competition, clearer investment conditions, or new sectors that had not yet been opened at scale.
As a result, reforms at that time needed to move across several fronts.
Opening sectors, improving regulation, streamlining processes, strengthening delivery, and making the investment environment more predictable.
Some reforms moved quickly because the opportunities were clear, others required deeper institutional change and will continue to mature over time.
Taken together, these changes began to shift how the economy works.
More room for the private sector to lead, more responsive institutions, and more importantly, more pathways for people to contribute and grow.
We began to see tangible results on the ground.
We have witnessed a structural shift in the labor market with female labor force participation doubling since 2017, reaching 34%.
Women are also playing an increasingly prominent role in leadership positions and entrepreneurship.
Non oil activities now represent 55% of real GDP compared to 45% at the start of vision 20, 30, ten years ago.
Over the past five years, 74 non oil activities recorded annual growth exceeding 5%, including 38 of them that grew by more than 10%.
The government has also changed the way it plans and delivers.
More services have been redesigned around users, more decisions are informed by better data, and delivery is tracked against clearer targets and performance indicators.
Saudi Arabia, for example, now ranks number six in the UN E government Development Index up from 31 in 2022.
More broadly, the role of the government has evolved.
While continuing to invest in national priorities, critical infrastructure, and public services, it is increasingly focused on creating the institutional, regulatory, and market conditions that enable businesses, investors, and entrepreneurs to drive growth.
And this is why Vision 2030 is our pathway to advance sustainable development goals.
Our approach has always placed sustainable development at the heart of the transformation already underway, which has served the 2030 agenda through our national plans, strategies, and delivery systems.
This integration allowed a shared global framework to be translated into national choices.
For Saudi Arabia, that meant reflecting the 2030 agenda and priorities grounded in our own development realities, our resources, our institutions, our opportunities, and the challenges we must manage over the long term.
Making that connection practical requires structure, clear priorities, effective governance, sustainable financing, and measures of progress rooted in tangible improvements in people's lives.
To provide that structure, we organize more than 90 sustainable development topics into nine focused missions that prioritize where national action can create the greatest impact and the highest return for people, the economy, and the environment.
This gives the development goals a practical home inside our national transformation.
Can see this model at work in several areas.
In water, one of the kingdom's most important development priorities, national action has focused on resource security and sustainability.
Desalinated water production capacity increased from 4.6 million cubic meters per day in 2016 to more than 16 million today, while the private sectors share of desalination capacity rose from 26% in 2019 to 42% today.
He, the focus has been on expanding access and improving the way services reach people.
Basic health care coverage increased from 84% in 2019 to 97% in 2024.
We also created Saheti, the National Digital Health platform, which has reached more than 31 million users and delivered more than 51 million instant consultations.
In energy, Saudi Arabia is investing in future technologies while continuing its role as a responsible global energy steward.
Renewable energy capacity has expanded more than 500 fold since 2016 from 24 megawatts to 12.3 gigawatts in 2025.
Today, more than 1.1 million housing units are powered by renewable energy, up from 150,000 in 2022.
At the same time, the kingdom is advancing clean fuels and carbon management while deploying technologies that enhance efficiency and sustainability of hydrocarbon production and use.
The same approach extends internationally, combining public institutions, multilateral partnerships, and private sector capability to address shared development priorities.
The kingdom's $500 million contribution to the global polio eradication Initiative, channeled through the Kingsilman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center or KS relief, supports the vaccination of 370 million children each year.
The Saudi Fund for Development has also financed more than 800 projects and programs across over 100 developing countries spanning water, health, education, energy, infrastructure, and other national priorities.
Saudi companies are also helping scale sustainable solutions across international markets.
Aquapower for example, signed approximately $10 billion in new clean energy agreements in the last two years with around $7 billion already deployed across Africa.
We are also seeing a different transformation at the local level.
In places such as Aa, many small local businesses that once offered relatively simple products and services are becoming more sophisticated as tourism grows.
As these ecosystems continue to mature, many of these businesses have the potential to become nationally recognized companies, with some eventually competing beyond the kingdom.
We see the same integrated approach in the restoration and protection of natural and cultural landscapes.
In Rial, Guaddi Janifa has been transformed from a desert drainage corridor into 120 kilometers of ecological infrastructure that naturally treats around 650,000 cubic meters of wastewater each day.
Landscape restoration is reviving wastes, ecosystems, and archaeological sites while supporting biodiversity, sustainable tourism, and local economic activity.
Across kingdom, the Saudi Royal Reserve Program is protecting distinct ecosystems and safeguarding hundreds of endangered species, including plants, birds, and terrestrial mammals.
These are important signs of progress.
They also remind us that transformation is a continuous effort.
As transformation matures, the challenge becomes more precise to deepen impact, improve efficiency, and ensure that progress is felt more consistently across the economy, society, and environment.
Wider labor market participation must also be matched by stronger well being and financial inclusion.
Non communicable diseases remain a focused risk to quality of life and long term health spending.
Financial inclusion has improved, but further work is needed to strengthen financial literacy and access to appropriate financial services.
Non oil activities have grown and new sectors are gaining momentum.
The next phase will focus on raising productivity, strengthening private sector competitiveness, and expanding into higher value, more complex exports and external markets.
This is where prioritization matters.
Excellencies, when sustainable development goals were adopted, they reflected a broad and necessary ambition.
They helped us look at development as an integrated agenda across the economy, society, and environment.
Today, the world has more evidence than it did in 2015.
We know more about what works.
We know where progress is lagging, we know where implementation needs to improve.
We also know that global progress is behind the pace required for 2030.
This makes prioritization essential.
We need to build on the momentum already created, scale what works, and tackle the areas where progress is falling short with greater urgency, better evidence, and stronger execution.
This is the discipline Saudi Arabia is bringing into its next phase of transformation.
Thank you very much.
I thank His Excellency Faisal Ben Fada Ibrahim, Minister of Economy and Planning of Saudi Arabia, for the presentation.
The forum will next hear the voluntary National Review by Switzerland.
I now invite His Excellency Marcus Roi, State Secretary of Switzerland to make a presentation.
You have the floor, sir.
Thank you, Mr.
President.
Excellence.
Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, in 2015, all member states of the United Nations adopted the 2030 agenda.
They had a strong conviction that the challenges of our time are interconnected and require collective responses.
Today, 11 years later, one thing is clear.
No government, no institution, no stakeholder can succeed alone in implementation of the SDGs.
In Switzerland, the 2030 agenda has become the benchmark drawing together the actions of all stakeholders.
Our 2026 National Report and our key visuals reflect this dynamic.
They tell the story of a shared commitment, shared learning, and a common desire to move forward together to a more sustainable future.
The report highlights progress in a number of priority areas for our national sustainable development strategy.
These results, the fruit of efforts carried out at different levels by many different actors, they illustrate the importance of partnerships and cooperation.
They also show that when knowledge, resources, and responsibilities are shared, concrete progress becomes possible.
In a complex and difficult geopolitical context in the face of budgetary constraints, it is all the more important to talk about these positive developments.
This report also therefore tells the story of successes and our good practices.
At the same time, the report highlights the fact that a number of goals remain difficult to achieve.
It's clear that we are making progress, but at the current pace, it is insufficient to achieve all of our goals by 2030.
This reality invites us to properly analyze and properly understand conflicting objectives and to identify the most impactful and most important measures and to allow us to refocus our joint action.
This national report doesn't have a magic bond or a magic solution, but it does seek to stimulate policy debates and the search for pragmatic and workable solutions.
The outcome compared to the last four years is therefore mixed.
Let's take the example of material consumption.
The per capita material footprint has declined in recent decades and this trend, this positive development reflects better understanding of the issues linked to the use of resources.
At the same time, however, material consumption in Switzerland remains high by international standards.
Let's look now at progress made in the field of energy and this has really been quite significant.
Around 30% of the energy consumed in Switzerland today comes from renewable resources and this represents an increase of some 60% since the year 2000.
However, the renewable energy development targets set for 2035 will not be achieved even at this pace.
Finally, let us take equality between men and women.
The median wage gap in the private sector has narrowed by almost half since the year 2000.
This trend is encouraging.
But again, it is also insufficient to achieve full pay equality by 2030.
In addition, a significant part of the wage differences remains unexplained and therefore, continued efforts are essential in order to get a genuine grasp of equality of opportunity.
The statistical annex is the central for measuring progress and thus informing public action.
The expertise of our Federal Office of Statistics is also going to be decisive in analyzing the impact of the 2030 agenda on all dimensions of sustainable development by 2030.
Our national report places strong emphasis on Switzerland's impact beyond its borders.
Conversations with various stakeholders on the occasion the presentation of the third report in 2022 encouraged us to better analyze these positive spillover effects.
In an interconnected world, decisions taken at the national level produce global effects and these can be positive and negative.
We're thinking, for instance, about our consumption patterns, our investment, our research within our value chains.
All of these are linked to realities that reach far beyond our territory.
For a country as globalized as ours, understanding these interlinkages is indispensable for developing coherent policies.
And we have taken the first step on this path thanks to the analytical work and the analyses that have been carried out.
Another key strength of this report lies in the development process for it, which was participatory, the fact that the Swiss National Report is being presented by the Confederation, a representative of a city, the mayor of Geneva, and also a youth delegate is symbolic and bears witness to this participatory process.
This approach fully reflects the spirit of the 2030 agenda, that is, shared responsibility and collective action.
For the first time, the drivers of sustainable development have their own chapter in our national report because civil society, business, finance, and science all play a critical role in implementation of the 2030 agenda.
Their experiences, innovations, and initiatives complement and enrich public action.
The young people that I am representing here today want to work for a sustainable future.
To this end, we will soon be launching the first Youth Council for sustainability and Sustainable Development in Switzerland.
The Youth Council's intended impact is to strengthen the engagement of young people in sustainability policies.
Cities and territories play a decisive role in implementing Agenda 2030.
Geneva was the first Swiss city to publish its local voluntary report, followed by the city of Bern and the cantons of Basel and Augu.
We have an ambitious charter that promotes local produce and nutrition for a plant based share menus and school canteens, a prior to tree planting policy, a zero sexism goal, and implementing the rights of the child.
Niva is the capital of human rights and multilateralism and we wish to reaffirm that in the face of the global challenges we are facing, we need strong international cooperation that is able to set a common goal and protect fundamental rights.
Cities have their place in this collective effort as demonstrated by the UN form of mayors.
This is the ambition that Geneva wishes to hold high, connecting the local and the global, translating the principles of the 2030 agenda into concrete actions, and bringing to life a vision of development based on dignity, equality, and social justice at our own level.
Faced with increasingly complex global challenges, international cooperation continues to be crucial.
As regards the challenges, we have identified four key areas of action.
Adaptation to demographic change, firstly, secondly, fight against climate change and the fight for the preservation of biodiversity.
Third, commitment to an economy that preserves resources and fourth, the use of technological developments for the service of sustainability, including AI and others.
Switzerland continues to be a reliable partner committed to effective, inclusive, and results oriented multilaterlism.
Sustainability is a path and it is one that we will walk down together.
We invite you to find out more about the National report in its entirety online or through the digital 2030 platform.
As you know, Switzerland loves time and this is why we're trying to fit within our time limit, but we also love chocolate.
I keeping with our tradition, we will offer you chocolate as a source of both energy and inspiration for this last leg of the journey we take together through 2030.
Excellencies.
Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for your kind attention.
Thank than the representative of Switzerland and his team for that presentation and also for the chocolate.
We will now hear comments and questions from state and other participants.
Delegation who wish to intervene in their interactive discussion are invited to press the microphone button on the console.
Before I give the floor to the first speaker, I would like to remind delegations to kindly limit their intervention to 2 minutes each.
I have no control on the software who is cutting the microphone.
I now give the floor to the representative of Malaysia to be followed by Italy, Jordan, and Germany.
Malaysia, you have the floor.
Thank you, Chair and congratulations to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Switzerland for the Vienar presentations.
Malaysia would like to address this question to the respected delegation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
As Vision 2030 enters its final phase, how will the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's focus on economic efficiency, shape the next stage of diversification, and what should partners expect by 2030.
Thank you.
I thank the representative of Malaysia.
Now, Italy, you have the floor.
Thank you, Mr.
Chair.
Italy congratulates with Switzerland and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for their VNR successful presentations.
I'm directing my question to Switzerland.
Italy and Switzerland share a fair share of commonalities regarding the whole of government and whole of society approach, both placing the national strategy for sustainable development at the center of their VNR.
In this context, you are your VNR and also ADAS acknowledges an important role to youth engagement within the broader stakeholders participation and we would like to ask you, how do you envisage continuing on this path? In particular, how do you believe it will be possible to advance on providing youth with the space and the opportunity to contribute to decision making for sustainable development? What can be the drivers in your country and others? Thank you.
I thank the Representative of Italy now, Jordan, you have the floor.
Thank you, Mr.
Chair.
I would like to express my sincere appreciation to the delegation of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Switzerland for their comprehensive presentation.
I also wish them the continued peace, prosperity and success.
My question is to the Minister of Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia performed the world's first fully robotic heart transplant and operates the world's largest virtual hospital.
How has the health system been transformed in decade and what has it mean for ordinary patients? Thank you.
Now, Germany, you have the floor.
Thank you, Mr.
President.
Congratulations to Saudi Arabia and Switzerland on their ambitious forward looking VNRs.
I have a question regarding the Swiss VNR, but I would also like to thank you, Switzerland, for your active role in the VNR peer learning platform co led by Brazil and Germany.
Peer learning provides a trusted space for self reflective participatory reporting and Switzerland clearly has much to contribute.
We were especially impressed by the systematic involvement of civil society, youth, business, finance, and academia in drafting the VNR, highlighted by a dedicated unedited page for civil society contributions.
Their input clearly enriches the report.
Germany also welcome Switzerland's focus on spillover effects.
The transfer of environmental impacts along supply chains is a major obstacle to the global SDGs.
Switzerland's dedicated indicator system running continuously since 2008 offers a valuable benchmark.
Finally, we appreciate the pivotal role of local communities reflected in the Swiss VNR.
Coordination and collaborative action across all levels of government is a key lever for accelerated SDG implementation.
Now the question, you note the consistent integration of the SDGs into planning, budgeting, and governance.
How does this translate into day to day decision making? Thank you.
Thank you, Germany.
Now, civil society, a major group for children and youth to be followed by Bahrain, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Qatar.
Major group for children and youth, you have the floor.
Thank you, Chairman, Excellency's distinguished delegates.
More than 50 years ago, the late King Faisal Ein Abdlazz laid a visionary foundation for our nation stating.
We want this kingdom now and 50 years from now to be a source of enlightenment for humanity and peace, building its future on firm foundations of faith and beneficial modern knowledge and excellence in industry and technology.
Today, as a young Saudi and a representative of civil society, and in reviewing Saudi Arabia's voluntary National Review alongside my colleagues, one message was clear.
We are not only witnessing this transformation, we are contributing to it.
Across the kingdom, young people, volunteers, and non profit organizations are active partners in strengthening communities and advancing national development.
The nonprofit sectors contribution to JDP has grown significantly from 0.2% to 1.4%.
This progress provides strong momentum as we continue advancing towards the Saudi vision 2030 ambition of 5%.
My question to Your Excellency is, how can we work together to strengthen the measurement and visibility of youth and non profit sector contribution.
Support promising initiative to scale and ensure that their impact is fully reflected in Saudi Arabia's future.
And their future development and progress towards the 5% ambition.
Thank you.
Okay.
Thank you.
Now, the representative of Bahrain, you have the floor, sir.
Thank you, Mr.
President.
We congratulate the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Switzerland for presenting their voluntary national views and thank them for their fruitful presentations.
We'd like to present a question for the delegation of Saudi Arabia.
Your Excellency, Saudi Arabia doubled its UNESCO world heritage sites in six years while building creative industries from scratch.
How does the Kingdom see culture's role in sustainable development? Thank you.
Zona.
Thank you very much, Mr.
Chairman.
Allow me at the outset to congratulate delegations of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Switzerland for their excellent presentations of their VNRs.
I would like to also take the opportunity to express our appreciation for the excellent cooperation we have on the bilateral level with Switzerland on the SDG implementation process and mutual exchange of our best practices and lessons learned, which will continue during the period ahead.
Also, I would like to take the opportunity to ask the question of the Swiss friends regarding their VNR.
Given Switzerland's federal system and the significant competencies of cantons and municipalities, how did the VNR drafting process ensure that all governmental levels were equally involved and that their contributions and data were comprehensively reflected in the VNR? I thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Thank you.
Thank you, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Now the representative of Qatar to be followed by Cor divoir, Morocco, United Kingdom, and the Economic Commission for Europe Regional CSO Engagement Mechanism.
Qatar, you have the floor.
Cedars.
Mr.
Chair, I would like to thank the countries that have presented their VNR today and the State of Qatar would like to congratulate the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for presenting their voluntary National Review through this high level political forum.
We commend what has been achieved and the implementation of sustainable development 2030, despite what the region and the world are facing in terms of growing challenges.
The state of Qatarary affirms that the VNRs represent an important platform to exchange experiences and best practices to foster learning and to determine challenges and opportunities in order to accelerate the implementation of the SDGs at the national, regional and international levels.
The VNR presented today has highlighted the importance of adopting comprehensive development policies based on building strong institutions, fostering investment in human resources and leveraging technology and partnerships and to make sure that no one is left behind.
The state of Qatar affirms its commitment to continue working to achieve the SDGs on the national level through the vision Qatar 2030.
We believe that international cooperation and partnerships are a foundation for sustainable development and the State of Qatar through the Qatar Fund for development are supporting all efforts aiming at achieving the SDGs at the national, regional and international levels through its participation alongside the UN system and international financing institutions and regional organizations.
We reaffirm that achieving sustainable and comprehensive development requires international cooperation and living up to our commitments, especially providing financial assistance and the transfer of technologies.
In conclusion, we congratulate the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for their achievements and we look forward to continuing our common work.
Thank you.
Thank you, de President.
Thank you, Mr.
President.
I would like to align myself with the congratulations extended to Saudi Arabia and to Switzerland for their VNRs and for their progress in achieving SDGs.
To to Switzerland, I would like you to present to us the major aspects of the steering and coordination of the implementation of the monitoring and review of the SDGs covering the different stakeholders, the different youth organizations and the territories and so on.
For Saudi Arabia, what are the major points of your cooperation development strategy, especially with developing countries and specifically as regards Côte D'ivoire? Thank you.
Mercer Thank you, Mr.
President.
I also wish to take this opportunity to thank and congratulate the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as well, Switzerland for the high quality nature of the presentation.
I have two questions and a question to the Saudi Arabia regarding energy.
You mentioned that you already have 12.3 gigawatts installed already and I would like to know how how this was installed and the degree to which this contributes to electricity production in terms of other countries.
My second question is as follows.
Have you also enhanced industrial integration of this energy at the level of other countries? My next question is to be put to the representative of Switzerland.
You mentioned that you had that you already improved renewable energy production in your country, but you also mentioned Perhaps you did not achieve the goal set for 30, but I would like to know the limits? What are the constraints? Could you share with us, please, why you feel that the goals have not been achieved for the reasons that you have mentioned.
Thank you.
Now, United Kingdom, you have the floor.
Thank you very much, President, and we welcome all the presentations that have been made today.
This question is particularly for the minister from Saudi Arabia.
We would love to hear a bit more about how you are working with international partners to support the SRG implementation both domestically and globally.
I think some others have asked as well, and also how you're strengthening use of data and indicators, particularly around tracking SRG progress to inform future policy decisions.
Thank you.
Thank you, United Kingdom.
The last speaker, Economic Commission for Europe, regional CSO Engagement mechanism.
You have the floor.
Thank you, Chair.
Excellencies, distinguished delegates, we commend Switzeren for its comprehensive voluntary national review and for its inclusive engagement with civil society and other key stakeholders.
However, we expressed deep concern regarding the insufficient progress on SDGs and the lack of political ambition for this transformative agenda.
The government's own report admits failures in poverty reduction, climate action, biodiversity, gender equality, and responsible consumption.
While the newly established assessment of spillover effects is a positive step, the report remains critically incomplete.
It overlooks crucial negative externalities, specifically illicit financial flows and the overseas impact of Swiss multinational corporations.
Furthermore, the government refuses to engage in essential forward looking debates on beyond GDP and beyond growth paradigms necessary for discussing the beyond 2030 agenda.
Despite acknowledging these gaps, the government continues to enact budget cuts in vital environmental and social sectors while simultaneously increasing military spending.
As one of the world's wealthiest nations, Switzerland must embrace its responsibility as a global leader by actively investing in sustainability transformations and shaping the beyond 2030 discussions.
In light of these observations, we asked the Swiss delegation, how will Switzerland enhance action and policy coherence to ensure effective implementation of the 2030 agenda over the next four years? How will Switzerland expand its spillover assessment to include critical omitted aspects and establish robust accountability? How will Switzerland demonstrate true international leadership by actively engaging in the beyond 2030 discussions, including on beyond growth economics in full partnership with civil society and other sustainability drivers.
We urge the Swiss government to match its diplomatic reputation with domestic and international action that reflects the urgency of our times.
Thank you.
I thank the representative of the Economic Commission for Europe, Regional CSO Engagement mechanism.
I now invite the distinguished presenters to briefly respond to the question from the floor.
Preferably within 5 minutes.
I give the floor to the Minister of Economy and Planning of Saudi Arabia.
Your Excellency, you have the floor.
Thank you very much, Mr.
President.
I assume you mean 5 minutes per question or a total.
Take your time.
Sure.
Thank you very much.
I thank the representatives for their questions.
From Malaysia, the question on economic efficiency.
It's all started with the question around how do we operate at or even push our potential? If you look back decades in the past, the kingdom's economy was performing.
However, over time, we've been operating below our potential and operating below potential is similar to operating at a cost and Vision 2030 came to get rid of that accumulated cost.
One generation, the current generation, maybe in the next two or three may bear that cost, but it's not something that you want to carry forward.
Moving forward, there was a heavy burden to catch up with a lot of lost opportunity and potential.
The model was transform our economy in a manner that makes it more resilient, diversifies its sources of growth, not just sources of income or sources of revenue, and move forward, take our lessons learned and advance.
In the first half of Vision 2030, We've delivered a lot and we've mentioned some of these examples on the human capital side, on the diversifying of the economy side.
But then came a time where we said, there's time for wiser spend, more efficiency, economic efficiency.
How do we do more with less? How do we use this opportunity to shift not just the makeup of the economy, but its structure from relying on oil, revenue, from relying on public spending, only to lowering the degree to which our economic activities rely on these sources.
We've mentioned how we've achieved that.
Today, it's about operating at the right cost with efficiency, leveraging the power of the pen policy, creating a clear environment for the private sector to co lead and take off and contribute to more jobs, higher quality jobs, better and more complex exports in international markets.
I think the next period will witness even more exciting investment opportunities and stronger long term partnership opportunities for people looking on the outside.
Health care to a representative from Jordan, thank you for your question.
I think what's exciting about healthcare in the kingdom is that a very young population, 71% below the age of 35.
However, in about 18, 20 years, that population will enter its aging phase.
We've spent a lot on health care infrastructure in the past decades and that created some hidden gem of potential for our economy that we intend to leverage in the next phase.
We are achieving productivity gains and healthcare is a place where we can tackle a lot of our challenges and even be export oriented, given the examples that you mentioned that are available and many other examples that show how the private sector has succeeded in exporting services, products and value add in healthcare, and artificial intelligence and the use cases around healthcare also make this very exciting.
Moving forward, we're looking at a traditional sector to be a potential new source of economic growth with export potential.
To the representative from civil society on youth and NGO participation measurement, I think that's a very valid question.
We are a young population.
The NGOs are contributing more to our agenda.
There are strategies specifically focused on how to engage, support, and grow NGO activity in the kingdom.
As terms of data around that, I think that's an important thing to look at.
To the extent that it's useful for NGOs who we work with a lot, by the way, who for the most part are very serious, steadfast, self motivated and adding a lot of value to policy discussions in the kingdom and in some cases even abroad.
We can take a look at how specific data measures and track that to ensure that that momentum continues to move in a steady fashion.
Um, on energy, the representative from before that, I think culture's role, I think it's clear it's two levels.
We're preserving heritage and culture.
That's something that we're proud of and very valuable.
But also in preserving it, we create the underpinning of growth in the tourism activity.
Which we believe creates jobs and helps introduce the kingdom to a wider set of audiences and visitors and in the future partners, customers, and maybe even residents.
That's something that's very essential and our Ministry of Culture and their teams are doing a great job in that manner.
It also is a window into creating better household income for people who work in small and medium and micro businesses tied to cultural products.
On energy, representative from Morocco, I thank you for your question.
In solar and wind, the kingdom has established strong partners with the private sector.
We've managed to achieve the lowest tariff rates in these two energy products.
But in general, taking a step back, We are still committed to being the cleanest hydrocarbon producer and global energy steward, but also we are steadfastly moving towards having a healthy energy mix that helps us introduce renewable energy significantly and meaningfully to our local needs and potentially to our export potential.
In terms of how we're working with partners on SDGs, I think on two levels.
One bilaterally and two multilaterally, but also directly and indirectly by talking about the challenges we face in some of these goals and their sub measures, but also by talking to our partners and friends countries on what we've learned through our own transformation.
Unlocking or pursuing to unlock your potential sets you in a different path than normal and actually puts you in a position to be able to achieve a lot of what's stated in sustainable development agenda, and we work well.
We look forward to learning from our partners bilaterally and through multilateral platforms, but we're very open about sharing our experiences, what we succeeded in, what we have yet to succeed in, and that has helped us a lot in that direction.
Multilaterally, we're engaging and becoming more vocal with our partners on multiple levels.
If you look at the IMFCs meeting and the Drea Declaration recently.
That's another example of how the kingdom is becoming more consequential on the multilateral platform level.
I believe the key thing is to show up, participate, engage honestly and transparently, and be genuine about pursuing change and contributing lessons learned.
Thank you, Mr.
President.
Thank you.
Thank you, Minister.
I now give the floor to His Excellency, Marcus Ruby, State Secretary of Switzerland.
Thank you, Mr.
President.
Mercy.
Thank you.
I would like to thank Germany, as well as civil society, Italy, Morocco, Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as Cote Var for your questions.
We have distributed chocolate in the hope that the questions would not be too difficult to respond to.
I will attempt and begin with a question posed by Germany and this is a question on planning.
We have two facets.
We have the legislative planning process and integration of the SDGs into legislative planning is of key significance for us when it comes to achievement of results, and this is being done for legislative planning over the course of four years.
Presently, we have the 2030 to 23 to 2027 framework, and we are working on the forthcoming 2028 to 2031 period.
Second, we have the steering process, and our government has established a particular architecture to see to it that the SDG 16 is achieved, those focused on the direction and guidance committees to ensure that these bodies be established in an adequate way and incorporate in sectorial policies.
Turning to the question from civil society.
What will guide our efforts around ensuring coherence? Our efforts will be guided by effectiveness and efficiency concerns.
This is set out in the report and by measures that have the greatest impact, as well as by a participatory approach which allows for all of the relevant stakeholders to make their contribution And on the basis of all of this, we are currently working on the action plan, the 2008 to 2031 action plan, and civil society has been brought in and engaged in all of these second turning to spillover, addressing the repercussions.
And this is a complicated exercise since the publication of our last 2022 national report.
I think that We have made insignificant progress.
However, as I mentioned, we took the first step, but we have not where we would like to be to establish a framework of reference for the spillovers.
In our view, this would be beneficial for research institutions.
There's a need to to find the data, to make the calculations for the indicators that we have developed.
Third, we took the opportunity of the high level political forum being held this year in order to deepen our thought to consideration of the beyond 2030 scenario.
Switzerland does not yet have a very clear vision, but we are prepared for any kind of scenario, and it is also very clear that civil society will be engaged both when it comes to our position and positioning in view of 2030 and beyond 2030.
Third, the question from Morocco having to do with renewable energies, Switzerland has been benefiting from excellent basis of hydraulic energy, water, and solar energy as well as wind power, and we are definitely a leader but there are certain delays, and these are attributable to political obstacles, geographical obstacles, as well as social obstacles and the direct democracy procedures at times do slow down certain developments.
We have a federalist structure, challenges related to the winter, and there are issues particularly that arise during the wintertime.
But when it comes to solar developments, progress has been encouraging.
Fourth, I will address Bosnia, Herzegovina and Cotivoi together with the question having to do with the federal system.
In order to, host data and to bring in the views of international actors.
We have established a digital platform.
It is called S Digital 2030.
The cantons and the local bodies bring in information and contributions, and this is accessible to the public.
There is no censorship here, and the Everybody has an opportunity to see who is contributing to what.
That's the first aspect.
We have also organized workshops where we invite international actors, and we have also built direct links in our national reports and these establish local relationships, perhaps mayor of Geneva mention the Geneva report and how synergies have been established at the local level.
My presence.
My presence as a mayor at the Swiss delegation reflects the commitment for cities and for regions to achieve the sustainable development goals.
We have had an ongoing constructive dialog participatory workshops, methodologies have been established and this has all allowed us to establish this focus on a broader framework of the United Nations and national framework, regions and Also, the city of Geneva.
For us, it is very important for us to have ties to national level policies to ensure that there's consistency there.
And at the city level, as I mentioned, the mayor's forum is held each year in Geneva, and this is an opportunity for us to share comparative analysis, to share views on global challenges, but also about to pragmatic solutions that we can arrive at at the urban level.
The question from Italy, last but not least, I will now give the floor to Madam Bertholdt to provide information about the youth council.
Thank you very much as was mentioned in the presentation.
We will soon launch a youth council for Sustainable Development and this will work in close cooperation with the delegates from federal councils in order to ensure that the proposals from young people for a sustainable future are taken on board.
This is a long term partnership which has now been made formal, and this is critical in order to ensure that there be a real impact and to ensure meaningful engagement on the part of young people.
Thank you, Mr.
President.
I would like to thank His Excellency, Faisal Benfada Ibrahim, Minister of the Economy and Planning of Saudi Arabia and His Excellency Marcos Loi, Secretary of State of Switzerland, as well as the team.
I now briefly pause the meeting very briefly to allow the podium to be rearranged.
I invite the VNR presenters of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Tunisia to approach the podium and take their seats.
Okay.
Congratulations corporation And Thank you.
Hold.
Excuse me.
Here in the background.
How do I justify it Thank you.
Distinguished delegates.
Dear colleagues, for the third set of panel presentations, I'm pleased to welcome the distinguished presenter from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Tunisia.
Before we begin with the presentation, I would like to appeal to the presenting country to adhere to the agreed 10 minutes per presentation.
The forum will first hear the voluntary National Review by Tunisia.
I now invite His Excesy Samir Abdel Hafid, Minister of Economy and Planning of Tunisia to make the presentation.
You have the floor, sir.
Thank you very much, Excellency.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is an honor for Tunisia to present our third Voluntary National Report for 2026.
Through this exercise, our country is renewing our commitment to the sustainable development goals.
A preparation of the report was done jointly by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of migration, as well as the Tunisians abroad and the Ministry of Economy and Planning and with support provided by National steering committee, a technical committee, and 17 working groups.
The methodology is based on a multidimensional approach, bringing together quantitative, qualitative, and systemic tools which are based on five complementary components.
A standardized collection of data, model modeling, interactions and synergies, international alignment, and RIA analysis, which reflect the fact that 89.3% of the SDG targets are covered by Tunisian public action, data prices, which shows that of the 203 applicable indicators in 84.20 0.3% indicator was measured with a prioritization on targets that have emerged brought about a common bedrock of eight core targets and collective mobilization, large scale collective mobilization has been initiated and this has allowed for all stakeholders to be involved, ladies and gentlemen, It is important to also underscore the fact that first and foremost, Tunisia is a pioneer country, a leading country in Africa when it comes to local implementation of the SDGs through the fact that we have joined the global Local 2030 coalition and this reflects the ability to implement the first voluntary National Review of Tunisia through them in the Gina Wever in the Center western part of Tunisia.
Second, all Tunisian public policies continue to be governed by the core principle of leaving nobody behind.
And this is done through the targeting of social transfers for 386,000 families, 26% increase in the budget dedicated for young people and offers have been provided for specific family accommodations, and a strategy has been established a national 2022 to 2030 strategy for older persons offer of alternative pathways through schools, the second chance and new chance schools.
These have provided for 80% of beneficiaries to be integrated into the system and rehabilitation for informal neighborhoods for a large number of residents has been provided.
This is 1.7 people who have been Um, who have benefited.
There is a focus on the relevant SDGs.
For SDG six clean water and sanitation, a number of structural reforms have been initiated by Tunisia.
For example, we would mention the drafting of the Water 2050 strategy for a more inclusive hydric system and the establishment of an 80% go by 2050 for the reuse of wastewater that has been treated and the signing 2023 of a trilateral agreement with Algeria and Libya are relating to the joint management of shared aquifers.
These reforms have resulted in four new desalination centers being made operational and first of cloud related system and wastewater is being recycled and access of drinking water for 98.7% of the people and there has been a 28% increase in public investments in the hydraulic sector.
And for 2030 for the 2030 horizon, there is a focus on establishment of a hub for providing support to implementation of SDG six, and we've established a regional hub, and we have allocated 332.5, 1 million dinars for rehabilitation of networks and the intelligent computing systems.
Turning to CG seven, clean energy at an affordable cost, the energy transition establishes a transitional energy transition mechanism with a generation of energy from renewable sources as well as since 2024, there have been a tax benefits covering 50% of expenditures related to technological innovations, and these efforts have facilitated The share of renewable energy increasing from 2.3% in 2021, rising to 6% in 2025, and now that figure stands at 9% and energy intensity of our economy has also dropped by nearly 10% and 98% 0.8 rate has been achieved for clean energy use, including liquid natural gas.
For the SDG seven prospects by 2030, this focuses on a 30% reduction in primary energy consumption, modernization, digitalization, and the flexible nature of the National Electrical network through the Smart Grid project.
This has been endowed with a 121 million euro budget that the LMD project is dedicated to electrical interconnection between Tunisia and Italy and there's been an increase in the share of renewable energy to 35% of the electrical mix by 2030.
This is an ambitious objective, turning to SDG nine industry in innovation and infrastructure.
We have sought to reshape the labor code to prepare a second generation of the Startup Act.
Mechanism, as well as to implement industrial strategy and innovation for 2035, as well as to improve the business environment.
This has particularly allowed us to To achieve unemployment reductions from 16.6% in 2021 to 15.2% in 2025 and the manufacturing sector share in GDP is now at 14% and there is a national labeling for more than 1,100 startups.
Turning to prospects related to SDG nine, and this has to do inter aa with the promotion of industrial clusters, as well as the development of techno pools, so called techno pools, and the achievement of structural projects, a national statistical mechanism, a carbon adjustment mechanism, alongside borders has been established, and we have an a Hub Industry 4.0, which has been deployed to reduce the regional digital gaps and we implemented a final draft of the National AI strategy.
Turning to SDG 11, sustainable cities and communities, we have worked to see to it that urban national policy has been updated and we have also deployed a RS Cat program in those regions particularly vulnerable to climate risks, and we have also implemented local voluntary reviews.
This has allowed us today to have a housing ownership rate of 75.1% at the national level and that number is higher than 92% in rural areas and 315 informal neighborhoods have been rehabilitated, so to speak, and the waste collection rate increased from 55% in 2021 to 63% in 2025, turning to SDG 11 mobilization of the most innovative technologies for sustainable housing and strategic use of space technologies, as well as the design of public spaces that are more inclusive, safer, as well as adapted to address the needs of citizens.
Turning to the last LSDG 17 on partnerships, we have initiated reforms, the purpose of which is to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of coverage, transparency, and when it comes to fiscal issues, as well as other financing related issues for innovative projects, particularly focused on the green transition and technologies.
Achievement of this goal focuses in on increasing resources are owned by the state in the fiscal component and these have increased increase from 80% to 91% and there has been a 30.3% increase in direct foreign investments as compared to 2024.
Now for 2030, our goal is to continue to enhance regional international economic integration as well as to ensure diversification of our partnerships.
As well as international partnership, which continues to play an important role for us, a decisive role through economic diplomacy, which is resolutely focused on regional cooperation, south south and triangular cooperation, as well as mobilization of investments and access to innovative financing for the achievement of the SDGs.
I would like to conclude Excellencies, with the challenges and the report and the review has identified a number of them, including the water energy infrastructure nexus based approach needs to be adopted by us, and this needs to be established as a bedrock for our future resilience.
And, uh territorialization of public policy as well as access to water to health and to a clean environment needs to be made as a constitutional law established the foundation for national strategy to contribute to development and sovereignty.
Fourth, there needs to be a cross cutting position held by partnerships within this global architecture, financing for the necessary transformations and hence by growing mobilization of indirect foreign investments, public private partnerships as well as using innovative financing, and this is today's an opportunity for us to convey our gratitude to our international partners, in particular, United Nations agencies.
Thank you.
I thank the Minister for Economy and Planning of Tunisia for that presentation.
The forum will next hear the voluntary National Review by the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
I now invite His Excellency Zenon Gay Mukangu, permanent representative of the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the United Nations to make the presentation.
You have the floor, sir.
Thank you very much, President.
I would like at the outset to apologize on behalf of His Excellency Glen Bon Bis, Minister of State, Minister of Planning and coordination of Development aid for the DRC.
He would have liked to be here in New York to deliver this presentation with the eloquence for which he is known, but unfortunately, he was not able to make it Here to New York and so I will deliver this presentation on his behalf.
As regards the DRC, the Democratic Republic of Congo, we have covered SDG six, seven, nine, 11, and 17 and say as follows since our last voluntary national review the DRC has undertaken ambitious structural reform in order to step up attainment of the SDGs and to sustainably improve the living conditions of our population.
So amongst these efforts, we have the extension of the social safety nets with the implementation of universal sanitation coverage.
We also have gradually operationalized school canteens in order to break the connection between malnutrition or undernutrition and school performance.
We've strengthened a basic education, 21 million children have been enlisted in school in 2023 to 2024 compared to just 14.7 million 2019.
And we have promoted public private partnerships with a law aligned with international standards to encourage improvement in this area.
We also have a portfolio of priority projects for public private partnerships.
But the global multidimensional crisis is hampering our progress, notably The development momentum is facing a resurgence of armed conflict, climate crisis, but also an unstable international context.
In addition to this instability, we face an unprecedented contradiction in terms of official development assistance globally.
As regards SDG six, clean water and sanitation, we can reaffirm that 2020-2025, the proportion of the population having access to a source of drinking water has gone from 57.6% of the population to 58.6% of the population, despite sustained investment to some of this has been absorbed by demographic growth that is estimated at 3% per year and faced with growing urbanization, the DRC is investing in infrastructure for water supplies in the urban area.
These efforts have made it possible to increase the production or increase total production by 42 million cubic meters, achieving 591 million cubic meters produced in the last year.
SDG seven, increasing the energy off of clean energy.
We have liberalized the energy sector in the country with the aim of achieving harmonious development of energy provision in urban, per urban and rural sectors.
The results so far are very encouraging because the totaled installed power has increased by some 20% in these five years, going from nearly 3,000 megawatts in 2020 through 646 migawatts in 2024.
There are new projects aimed at improving this by further 2.5 megawatts.
In addition to this, if we continue at this pace, we will be able to double our installed power and photovoltaics represent on their own, 80% of projects under construction at the moment.
Globally, by 2024, 73,499 rural households who have had access to sustain private connections Just over 26,000 households have been connected to many networks of private providers and 30,127 households have benefited from individual solar systems, and 550 public relation points have been set up.
As regards SDG nine, the DRC has gone for a multimodal transport system and is massively investing in road construction since 2023.
1,305 kilometers of roads have been laid, bringing our total road stock from 6,000 6,000 kilometers, apologies compared to 5,065 previously.
We have also seen considerable progress in telephone communications and mobile Internet.
In six years, the number of mobile telephone subscription has increased by 81% and the level of penetration has gone from 46% in 2020 to 66% in 2025.
In terms of diversifying the economy and the industrial base, the government is implementing six special economic zones pilot zones of Malku for instance, is now operational and this has enabled the creation of more than 2000 direct jobs and 8,000 indirect jobs and once at full capacity, it should generate 6-8 thousand direct jobs.
As regards SDG 11 sustainable communities and cities, a Get a handle on urbanization represents a major challenge for the DRC.
The urban population will go over 50% by 2030.
This means that there will be growing pressure on urban infrastructure.
There are a number of different initiatives underway to contain the impact of this and this is part of the Metro Kin Project, for instance, this is a transport initiative aimed at improving and modernizing mobility at Kinshasa with an urban train covering 300 kilometers and also the Kinshasa Kia Mona Project, which is a major Urban extension initiative as regards SDG 17, achieving the SDGs by 2030.
This requires significant means for the DRC.
We have a roadmap for stepping up the SDGs developed by the government and it is set to be at a cost of 70 billion USD in a context of reduced foreign financing, the DC has seen a drop in ODA that has gone from 5.8% of GDP in 2020 to 4.2% in 2025.
In order to achieve effective partnerships, we have put in place reform measures and fiscal cleanup measures, and we hope to multiply by five our revenue.
The DRC continues to be committed to implementing the 2030 agenda and its 17 SDGs.
Despite notable progress, there are challenges in terms of security, demographics, and other issues and they continue to hamper our progress towards the SDGs, and this calls for greater mobilization from all of our partners.
The DRC has made tangible progress on the path to sustainable development, but we are cognizant of the considerable gap that exists between the progress that we have made and the progress that is needed in order to get on the right track for achieving the SDGs, four years away from the deadline, DRC hopes to strengthen mobilization and our progress and to consolidate our partnerships in order to sustainably get ourselves on the path and on track for the SDGs with strong local rooting.
I thank you.
I would like to thank his Excellency Nong Mu Congo, the permanent representative of the Congo, for the Democratic Republic of the Congo for his presence and for overcoming the challenge of replacing his minister at the last minute, who, unfortunately, was unable to join us here in New York.
We are now going to hear some remarks and questions from member states and from other participants.
I would invite you to press the microphone button if you wish to take the floor.
Before I give the floor to the first speaker from the floor, rather to remind delegations that they should please limit their interventions to a maximum of 2 minutes.
I now give the floor to the distinguished representative of Lebanon.
They will be followed by the United Kingdom, Italy, and Norway.
Lebanon, you have the floor.
Thank you, President.
First of all, I would like to thank Tunisia and the DRC for their exhaustive presentations in relation to their voluntary national reviews, their VNRs and we welcome the efforts of Tunisia and the DRC in achieving the 2030 agenda and we thank them also for their encouragement for others.
For Tunisia question, the framework of climate change and global warming especially as regards Tunisia.
You said that Tunisia has adopted a strategy through 2050.
Could you give us a little bit more information about this strategy by 2050? Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, Lebanon, United Kingdom, you have the floor.
Thank you very much Chair.
Thank you all of you for your presentations.
My question is to the DRC.
We recognize and thank you for your leadership on the Ebola response, which we know has been impacting communities and frontline workers along with the conflict in the eastern part of the country.
Given these current shifts, how are you planning to adapt coordination structures and scale up finance to be able to sustain interventions and deliver results? And how could the Ebola response be used as a catalyst to build stronger and more resilient health systems, including in some of those conflict affected areas? Thank you.
Italy, you have the floor.
Thank you, Mr.
Chair.
We congratulate with Tunisia and Democratic Republic of Congo for their successful presentations.
I will bear directing my question to Tunisia.
Italy and Tunisia are working together within the partnership platform for localizing the SDGs, acknowledging the role of the SDG localization.
How is Tunisia ensuring the integration of sustainable development goals into its national development planning while strengthening the role of local and regional stakeholders.
Thank you.
Thank you, Italy, and now Civil Society financing for Development mechanism.
You have the floor.
President President Civil Society welcomes this National report in 2026.
This is an opportunity to see how far we have come and the persistent challenges in a context marked by human displacement, health crisis and armed conflict.
Just 14% of the SDGs are on the right track, but around a third are regressing.
The significant demographic growth puts a lot of pressure on education, health care, social protection, and employment.
It goes beyond the capacity of institutions and limit the outlook for development for all.
It is therefore essential that we strengthen the capacity of the observatory on sustainable development in order to ensure better monitoring of SDG across all provinces of the DRC in zones affected by conflict, access to water, sanitation, electricity, and to essential services continues to be very limited.
Women, young people, and persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples, and rural communities continue to be the most impacted.
Furthermore, The exacerbation of the security crisis in the east of the country and the Ebola crisis, which has been declared urgent as having a negative impact.
Civil society calls for urgent coordinated and transparent action and addresses the following questions to the government, how will the government guarantee universal access to water and energy in rural areas affected by conflict? Where there is an absence of basic services which fuels instability.
How are you going to protect civic space and guarantee direct financing to local organizations of women and young people and disabled persons to enhance social cohesion.
Faced with persistent crisis, what is the national strategy to bring humanitarian action together with sustainable development to ensure that peace is a true driver of the SDGs? I thank you.
Thank you.
Civil Society.
I now give the floor to Nigeria.
You have the floor.
Thank you, Mr.
President.
Let me also thank both the representatives of Tunisia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo for their insightful briefings on the VNRs.
My question goes to the representative of Tunisia.
Nigeria's SDG implementation strategies have highlighted the importance not only of sub national ownership, data systems, and multi stakeholder partnerships.
My question is this, how has Tunisia addressed these dimensions in its 2026 voluntary National Review and what innovations have proven most effective? Thank you.
Thank you, Nigeria.
Now, women's major Group.
I am Rabe Ali from Tunisia and I will be speaking on behalf of the NGOs and the Women measure Group.
We commend Tunisia for presenting its third VNR and for its continuing engagement with the 2030 agenda.
However, while the report highlights several achievements, we regret that it doesn't fully follow the structure and integrated approach of SDGs framework.
We are particularly concerned that the review provides no substantive assessment of progress under SDG 5.8 and didn't adequately address the challenges faced by rural women.
To strengthen the credibility, and exclusiveness, and effectiveness of the national development process, we recommend ensuring greater transparency by publishing the methodology indicators, data sources and participatory mechanism used in the preparation of the VNR, developing urgent and comprehensive recovery plans for essential public services and social protection systems, mainstreaming a feminist approach that places SDG five at the center of climate, economic and social justice policies.
After reviewing this third VNR, we would like to ask In the framework of the National Development Plan 2026, 2030, what concrete reforms will the government implement to address the persistent employment of university graduates? Beyond the Social Security measures introduced in the financial Law 2026, what long term measures are being developed to ensure that the private sector create decent sustainable employment opportunities? Regarding SDG four, when the Supreme Council for Education complete the curriculum reform process to align education and training system with emerging sectors including the digital economy, renewable energy, and green industries in order to address the current skills mismatch and support.
I thank the representative of women's major group.
I now give the floor to the last speaker, the State of Palestine.
You have the floor.
Sra say the race.
Thank you, President.
First of all, we'd like to thank the DRC and Tunisia for their presentations.
We thank them for their efforts to achieve the SDGs in 2030 and we congratulate them on their performance in the World Cup.
We have a question for Tunisia, 2,000 kilometers separate Tunisia and Palestine, but the Mediterranean Sea continues to be the link between the two countries.
Can you give us more information about the efforts of Tunisia to strengthen cooperation, to protect the Mediterranean and to strengthen the sustainable management of maritime resources? Thank you.
I thank the representative of Palestine for the statement.
I now invite the presenters to very briefly respond to the question from the floor within not more than 5 minutes each five.
I now give the floor to the distinguished Minister of Tunisia.
Thank you very much.
I would like to thank all of the delegations for their interest in Tunisia's VNR.
I will begin by addressing Lebanon's question about our strategy for water resources by 2050.
This is a strategy is Qualitative and it is focused on five pillars, water sovereignty and strengthening non traditional sources in order to achieve equality in terms of access, strengthening agriculture, reduced things of cost, and strengthening the link between energy, water, and digital governance, as well as migration.
We're also strengthening desalination in order to ensure that thousands of cubic meters of clean water are achieved.
This is our goal by 2050.
We're also a Working for better use of available resources including guaranteeing a percentage for agriculture.
We're also going to be strengthening resources to combat wasting of water.
We also are installing smart meters and also natural aquifers.
We hope to cover 25% of our energy uses through renewable energies and we're establishing innovative programs for solar energy.
For instance, this is one example that we also seek to diversify sources of financing for water resources and different types of water technologies.
Thank you very much for that question.
To respond to the question posed by Italy, We have very close links with Italy in a number of different sectors.
Local sectors, as well as part of our program for 2026 through 2030, Tunisia for the first time in its history has gone from a decentralized approach to a more participatory approach based on local consultations and also national consultations.
We're working locally and regionally.
And we're working together with a number of different ministries to produce development reports, and we've also worked together with We have brought together all of these reports under the Ministry for Economy and Planning.
We have prepared a final plan, and this includes This includes a plan for 2026 to 2030 and last week, we have approved the development plan at the National Parliament.
In this way, the plan was accepted at the society level, particularly when it comes to those goals which are in alignment with the SDGs.
Likewise, and with support from the United Nations UN Habitat Program, Tunisia has also enhanced the SDGs at the national level, and this has been done in partnership with local actors, including civil society, women and young people, in order to take informed decisions.
And in this regard, the National Voluntary Review is an opportunity for us in north and Western Tunisia where there was a pioneer.
There was a landmark first national voluntary Review in Tunisia in the North of Africa.
And this was a milestone and through these mechanisms which bring in participation, which is a main way to address the concerns expressed by the populations and to transform these concerns and these expectations into national concrete plans and in order to incorporate the SDGs in national planning.
Thank you.
As for Nigeria, Regarding the question on the local ownership of the sustainable development goals, when preparing our third report on the SDGs, Tunisia was keen on doing it in a participatory manner and all stakeholders have contributed at the governmental level, 17 teams took part in preparing this report, including 120 representatives of various ministries and public institutions.
Under the supervision of a national committee and with a technical support from experts.
We have also conducted several consultations, whether directly or virtually, that included the private sector and several stakeholders on the regional level, in addition to students, youth, and disabled people, and we took into account their concerns and proposals that were integrated in the report.
This approach allowed us to reinforce the participation of all stakeholders in the process.
Turning to the last two questions, first of all, thank you Nigerri for the last two questions.
One question that had to do with women and the status of women in Tunisia, I would recall the fact that Tunisia is the country, the only Arab country and this is with great pride that we state this.
The only Arab country that in recent years have had two women heads of government and this is a reflection of the importance attributed to the status of women.
In Tunisia.
We have also adopted a great number of reforms and economic as well as social policies, the purpose of which is particularly to address the need for the protection of women, rural women who contribute enormously to local development.
When it comes to the question of unemployment, youth unemployment in particular, yes, indeed, the issue of unemployment does exist, approximately 15.2% is the average rate to date.
But this rate varies based on when one considers various social categories, and it is high for young people with diplomas.
And so we have a economic diploma development program for the period up until 2030, and this includes a strategy, a strategy whose major focus is to ensure the alignment between college graduates and the needs of the job market in addition to skills conversion and reskilling programs that already exist, which will then be re converted in order to meet the market needs, both at the local level and international level.
I would conclude with the Mediterranean Sea.
This is a common asset, Tunisia, Algeria, and France.
We all share those of the countries to the south of the Mediterranean and the north of the Mediterranean.
Palestine, also, I think that this is a common good and the protection of the Mediterranean Sea is a responsibility of all.
We think that Tunisia is doing everything possible to protect it because for us, the Mediterranean Sea is also a resource for life.
Thank you.
I thank the ministers as a president.
I would like to give the floor to my colleague Zenon and begging him to be brief, please.
Thank you very much, Mr.
President.
I will try I'm not an expert in that area, but I will try to respond to the question posed by the United Kingdom.
Financing for SEGs remains at the heart of implementation there of the National Strategic Plan for the period of 2028 and the DRC has approximately $100 billion financing, which is outstanding for transformative innovations and for acceleration of progress toward the SEGsn this regard, the DRC intends to mobilize all financing sources while at the same time, enhancing coordination of the main stake among the main stakeholders.
This includes, first and foremost, the mobilization of internal revenues, domestic revenues in the context of a drastic reduction of foreign resources, including official development assistance.
We have stepped up efforts for mobilizing domestic resources in five years, we have doubled our domestic revenues, and this is a reflection of an unprecedented level of commitment But there is still some leeway when it comes to continuing to enhance our ability for mobilization, specifically when it comes to the mining sector.
Second, prudent debt policies.
We are among the least developed debt indebted countries in Africa.
Less than 30% of GDP is what debt represents, and there were difficulties related to the recent past with high levels of debt And despite that, we have engaged in prudent debt practices, we have refocused on investments with high positive yield, and we have raised $2 billion through Eurobonds, and these resources are completely focused on implementation of transformative projects including energy, transport, and roads.
Third, a public private partnership.
For the DRC, there is no doubt that the achievement of the SDGs also hinges on involvement of the private sector as well as bilateral partners.
And in this way, we have strengthened our institutional framework For fruitful public private partnerships, we have a dedicated law which aligns with international standards.
This law was adopted, and it is currently being revised to fine tune it.
For effective and coherent PPPs, we have also a portfolio of 40 projects, mature structural and priority ones, and this dedicated structure has also been set up for efficient management and integrated management of the public private partnerships.
Fourth, innovative and dedicated financing.
For specific questions, we also have innovative and other forms of financing that we harness.
We have health promotion tax that we have implemented derives from certain sales and this tax helps to finance the healthcare system.
The DRC is currently also finalizing a strategy to finance school cafeterias, and this is currently being established through innovative financing mechanisms.
And lastly, in terms of the climate, It is a euphemism to recall the fact that DRC is at the very heart of the fight against climate change.
Unfortunately, the country is not benefiting from the relevant resources in light of the challenges, and so coordinated efforts are currently underway to ensure greater mobilization of climate related international financing and domestically the DRC is currently implementing a carbon tax with a two pronged goal to reduce emissions and to increase resources for targeted climate related initiatives.
And we would also like to recall the fact that despite the significant efforts, we continue to face urgent and competitive needs when it comes to having access to sufficient resources, particularly in the context of the armed aggression which we are enduring, but also in the context of the emergence of the Ebola epidemic.
Beyond the financial relevant contributions and support to our government was also counting on international cooperation to have access to additional resources, specifically when it comes to addressing those above issues, and this is why our minister was unable to travel to New York for this meeting.
With that, I thank you and stop here.
I wish to thank His Excellency Samir Abdel Hafed, Minister of Economy and Planning of Tunisia and His Excellency Zenony Mukango, permanent representative of the Democratic Republic of the Congo of the Congo to the United Nations.
I also thank delegations for their valuable contribution.
Dear colleagues, we have completed our program of work for this meeting.
The forum will reconvene tomorrow morning at 10:00 A.M.
Sharp in this conference room to hear messages from the UN Environmental Assembly and regional perspectives on SDG implementation, as well as further voluntary national presentation.
The meeting is adjourned.