Finland impressed at the UN – all-inclusive participation in the 2030 Agenda implementation
Finland’s widely participatory stakeholder model made an impression on the international audience at an interactive side event organised by Finland on Tuesday 18th of July at the United Nations High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) in New York. At a breakfast meeting held at the Permanent Mission of Finland to the UN, Finnair and Neste, which have made operational commitments to sustainable development, assured that sustainable development makes sense in business; Kepa, the Finnish NGO platform, and Kehys, the Finnish NGDO Platform to the European Union, described their roles in boosting and following the implementation. Additionally, Plan International Finland, Finnish Agenda 2030 Youth Group and the indigenous people Saami presented concrete examples of what cooperation in achieving global sustainable development goals (SDGs) means.
Representatives of Member States, companies, missions, organisations and the media filled the conference room in the Permanent Mission, at the early hours of the day. They had arrived to hear Finland update its achievements after presenting the voluntary national review a year earlier. In the opening speech, State Secretary Risto Artjoki presented the Government’s Report on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda, which focuses on two areas: carbon-neutral and resource-wise Finland, and non-discriminating, equal and highly skilled Finland. Artjoki emphasised the need for ambition and determination, identifying bioeconomy, cleantech and circular economy innovations as concrete examples of Finland’s actions.
At the side event held a year ago, educating children and youth to respect sustainable development was raised as a special challenge. The Finnish National Commission on Sustainable Development has also recognised the need of increasing young people’s role in the implementation of the SDGs and, now in New York, it was a pleasure to tell that the Finnish Agenda 2030 Youth Group had been established in the spring. Finland’s UN Youth Delegate Ilmi Salminen clarified that the Youth Group has two objectives: Participation in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and enhancing awareness of sustainable development. Salminen’s message focused on climate change, gender equality and gender-related stereotypes as well as incorporation of the youth’s expertise in the work. “In future, today's youth will be a hundred per cent of the world population,” Salminen reminded, underlining that it is essential that young people’s voice is heard. Finland’s 2030 Agenda Group attracted much attention in the UN, and afterwards Salminen noted that as far as she knows, a similar model is not used in any other country.
Programme Manager Mari Luosujärvi from Plan International Finland, which is a children’s rights organisation, noted that Finland’s strength in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda lies in that it gives leeway to civil society organisations to use many channels for monitoring participation and decision making. Annika Lindblom, Secretary-General of the National Commission on Sustainable Development at the Ministry of the Environment, and Kati Ihamäki, Director of Corporate Sustainability at Finnair, stressed that besides serving as “watchdogs”, the CSOs contribute valuable expertise to matters concerning sustainable development. Luosujärvi noted that in the implementation of the SDGs, Finland should in future pay attention to improved global coherence, that is, evaluation of all national decisions also from developing countries’ perspective.
The theme of this year’s HLPF was eradicating poverty and promoting prosperity in a changing world. Anne Nuorgam, representative of the Saami Council and Member of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, told that indigenous peoples belong to the poorest people in the world but often remain unnoticed. Nuorgam pointed out that even though Finnish legislation takes the Saami well into account, we have a global responsibility to see that the regions and communities of the indigenous peoples are paid attention to in all corners of the world, too.
Commitments tripled
The international community was happy to hear that Finland's pioneering model, Society’s Commitment to Sustainable Development, has advanced as a general practice and that as many as 700 commitments have already been made.
Kati Ihamäki told about the airline’s concept of the 2030 Agenda and its status in the company’s profile. Finnair’s sustainable development strategy is based on three aspects: clean, caring and collaborative future. A central focus in its commitment is equality, which is promoted for instance by a balanced distribution of the genders and various age groups in different work duties. Simo Honkanen, Senior Vice President for Sustainability and Public Affairs at Neste, inspired the audience by telling how the oil refining and marketing company’s solutions have contributed to the attainment of the SDGs. Neste is a forerunner in the area of renewable fuels, but Honkanen emphasised that besides environmental issues, the company places high priority on the social dimension. Observant members among the audience where pleased to see that both companies have a broad-based and integrated approach to sustainable development.
Thomas Gass, Assistant Secretary-General for Policy Coordination and Inter-Agency Affairs at the UN, who is responsible for the 2030 Agenda, was impressed by the presentation and invited the panellists to tell about their ways of communicating the SDGs to their staff and respective networks. Honkanen underlined that it is important to clearly inform about the SDGs as part of the business activities and to engage in continuous dialogue with global stakeholders. He compared the present thinking to the situation ten years earlier and noted that a dramatic change has taken place: “Now a growing number of organisations understand that this is a question of a state of mind, not a matter of resources.” Ihamäki encoraged that giving an operational commitment is an easy way for companies to participate in sustainable development. The commitment lowers the threshold to start reporting, which is important because many SMEs find that reporting on sustainable development is what they find challenging.
Anna-Stiina Lundqvist (Kepa) and Rilli Lappalainen (Kehys) discussed monitoring of the implementation from the NGO perspective. A full list of the indicators of sustainable development will be published individually on kestavakehitys.fi/en website, providing everyone an opportunity to review the results and to take part in the development of the monitoring. According to Lundqvist, it is good that NGOs participate in the planning actively, but difficulties are caused by the lack of resources for data collection and by the fact that all indicators do not necessarily address the global responsibility to a sufficient degree. In Lappalainen's view, the model’s special value lies in that it has reassessed the roles. “It’s great that everyone can participate in the monitoring along with the Parliament,” Lappalainen clarified. The system is a good example of experimental culture, which involves venturing a new kind of model of operation.
The event was a follow-up of the successful side event held in summer 2016, where the S Group, Rudus, Kepa, Kehys and the City of Espoo told about their operational commitments and described their actions in promoting sustainable development. Many of the participants had been present also in the previous year. Ambassador Kai Sauer summed up that the wide representation of stakeholders is in the heart of the implementation of the SDGs in Finland and that it is good to see that new groups have joined in the course of the year. Sustainable development was actively discussed also on social media, and the organisers were happy to note that live streaming on Facebook reached about 5,000 viewers.
More information: Deputy Secretary General, Marja Innanen, The Finnish Commission on Sustainable Development, +358 295 160 027, marja.innanen(at)vnk.fi
Text and picture: Sanni Inovaara, Prime Minister's Office of Finland
