Democracy, Development and Human Rights: Indicators for SDG16

 

Wednesday March 2 • 12:00 – 14:00 • Palais des Nations • Room XXVII

Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals demands democratic and inclusive societies. The SDG 16 on promoting just, peaceful and inclusive societies, is a development goal in its own right but also a necessary instrument to deliver development as set out in the entire 2030 agenda. The indicators to be used for measuring progress on these ambitious goals are about to be defined. As a next step, countries will design their own follow-up mechanisms for the SDGs. They will have a possibility to choose additional indicators to measure progress. But how can you measure progress on representative decision-making, inclusivity, rule of law, transparency and reduction of violence? The UN will propose a few indicators, but leave it to each country to complement with other indicators. So which ones should be used? And is it possible to measure democratic progress?

The Permanent Secretariat of the Community of Democracies and the Civil Society network of the Community in cooperation with CIVICUS are organising an event to start a discussion on developing a complementary set of indicators for SDG 16. We will have input from scholars who helped the UN develop indicators, from governments who have started designing their follow-up mechanisms, and from global civil society representatives who actively are helping to realize the 2030 development agenda. We want your input to this concrete discussion on how to use democratic and human rights principles as instruments when implementing the Sustainable Development Goals, on possible designs for the national follow up, and what role civil society can play to make sure that SDG 16 is implemented.

Speakers

• Staffan Lindberg, Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Gothenburg. Director, V-Dem Institute and Principal Investigator, V-Dem (Varieties of Democracy)
• David Yang, Deputy Assistant Administrator, Bureau for Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance, US Agency for International Development
• Anselmo Lee, Secretary General, Asia Democracy Network (ADN)
• Mandeep Tiwana, Head of Policy and Research, CIVICUS

 

Government representatives are invited to share information on their national follow-up mechanisms.

Moderator

• Maria Leissner, Secretary General of the Community of Democracies

 

More updates on this discussion will be shared via our website and our social media platforms.