Update
Communities achieving the SDGs by providing people-centered services to all
18 July 2017
18 July 2017 18 July 2017Civil society, United Nations agencies, government representatives and development agencies gathered to discuss the critical role of communities in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the Community Actors Speak Out: the Role of Community Action in Delivering the SDGs event in New York on 17 July 2017 on the side-lines of the 2017 High-Level Political Forum in New York
Luiz Loures, Deputy Executive Director of UNAIDS, joined leading members of civil society, the Dutch Minister of Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation, Lilianne Ploumen, the Danish Minister of Finance, Kristian Jensen, and Romain Schneider, Luxembourg Minister for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Action to discuss how the AIDS response has demonstrated the need to address structural, social and economic factors of vulnerability in order to make progress. Mr Loures, highlighted how decades of experience in the global AIDS response demonstrated how communities affected by HIV have been leading the delivery of people-centred services, addressing the holistic health care needs for their members, beyond HIV.
Members of the panel Alasan Senghore, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Dorothy Onyango, Women Fighting AIDS in Kenya and Niluka Pereira, Youth Voices Count, Sri Lanka reiterated the centrality of community in making progress in the SDGs. Community action has to be meaningfully and systematically integrated into global and national development and health strategies, implementation and financing plans, including universal health coverage strategies, and in the overall 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
The dialogue was organised by the International HIV/AIDS Alliance, Aidsfonds, UNAIDS, the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Aids-Fondet, and the Free Space Process in collaboration with the governments of the Netherlands and Luxembourg.
Quotes
“Community has the capacity to engage meaningfully, and commitments to engagement need to be monitored. Communities need to be meaningfully engaged in the SDGs so that they inherit the future that is made with them and not for them.”
“Women are left to be volunteers. We cannot be volunteers forever. Let us strengthen the networks of Women living with HIV. Our voices must be heard.”
“Access is a challenge not only for health emergencies. The only answer to [effectively] deal with health and humanitarian crises is through community engagement, empowering them and giving them the resources they need.”
“Historically the prime movement responding to AIDS was in the hands of civil society. Political commitment, funding, and scientific development are thanks to activism. Community action can be the pathfinder to achieve the SDGs. The critical point now is how to make sure that this pathfinder effect is taken forward by political leadership.”
“In the Netherlands government and civil society has a tradition of working together. They have been the key change agents and our partners. Without them the Dutch government would have never been as effective at the national, and also international level.”
“Efficient implementation of SDGs requires adequate investments for community actions, both by international donors and governments.”
