Experts, Eminent Scientists to Draft Report on Sustainable Development Ahead of Global Review Set for 2019

Before leaving office, former Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed 15 eminent scientists and experts to draft the Global Sustainable Development Report.

The Report is a key component of the mechanism to follow up and review progress on the recently agreed 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals.  It aims to strengthen the science-policy interface and provide a strong evidence-based instrument to support policymakers in promoting poverty eradication and sustainable development.

The document is intended to provide guidance from a scientific perspective that will support implementation for the Sustainable Development Goals and the 2030 Agenda in ways that integrate economic, environmental and social dimensions.  It will be available for a wide range of stakeholders, including business, civil society and the general public.

The next Global Sustainable Development Report will be published in 2019 and will be the first of a quadrennial series that will inform the high-level global reviews of the 2030 Agenda at the United Nations in those years.  Member States requested the formation of this independent group to draft the report in 2016, and these 15 individuals were appointed after an extensive consultation process with Member States and relevant United Nations organizations.  The group is diverse, seeking to balance a wide range of relevant scientific disciplines, expertise and regional perspectives.

The group will continue through to the high-level political forum on sustainable development in the fall of 2019, where its report will be considered as part of the global review of progress on the 2030 Agenda.  Endah Murniningtyas (Indonesia) and Peter Messerli (Switzerland) will serve as co-chairs of the group.

The group will be supported by a task team co-chaired by six entities:  the United Nations Secretariat; United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO); United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP); United Nations Development Programme (UNDP); United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD); and the World Bank.

The members of the independent group of scientists are as follows:

• Wolfgang Lutz (Austria), Founding Director of the Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital, Program Director of the World Population Program at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis and Director of the Vienna Institute of Demography of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. 
• Jean-Pascal van Ypersele (Belgium), Co-Director of the Interdisciplinary Master Programme in Science and Management of the Environment, Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.
• Parfait Ekoundou-Enyegue (Cameroon), Professor and Department Chair of Development Sociology, Cornell University, New York.
• Katherine Richardson (Denmark), Professor of Biological Oceanography, Leader of the Sustainability Science Center at the University of Copenhagen, and leader of the macroecology and oceanography theme at the Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate.
• Eeva Furman (Finland), Director of the Environmental Policy Centre at the Finnish Environment Institute SYKE and Chair of the Finnish National Expert Panel on Sustainable Development.
• Jean-Paul Moatti (France), Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of the French Research Institute for Development (IRD).
• Ernest Foli (Ghana), Principal Research Scientist at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research Forestry Research Institute of Ghana.
• Endah Murniningtyas (Indonesia), former Deputy Minister for National Resources and Environment at the Ministry of National Development Planning/National Development Planning Agency of Indonesia.
• David Smith (Jamaica), Coordinator of the Institute for Sustainable Development at the University of the West Indies, Coordinator of the University Consortium for Small Island States and the Caribbean Chair for the Sustainable Development Solutions Network.
• Muhammad Saidam (Jordan), Director of the Environment Monitoring and Research Central Unit in the Royal Scientific Society in Jordan.
• Jurgis Staniskis (Lithuania), full member of the Lithuanian Academy of Science, Professor at Kaunas University of Technology, and Director of the Institute of Environmental Engineering.
• Gonzalo Hernández Licona (Mexico), Executive Secretary of the National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy.
• Eun Mee Kim (Republic of Korea), Professor and Dean at the Graduate School of International Studies and the Director of the Institute for Development and Human Security at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, Republic of Korea.
• Peter Messerli (Switzerland), Director and Professor for Sustainable Development, Centre for Development and Environment, Institute of Geography, University of Bern, and Co-chair of Future Earth’s Global Land Programme.
• Amanda Glassman (United States), Chief Operating Officer and senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, Washington, D.C.

More information on the independent group of scientists and the Report can be found at https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/globalsdreport/2019 or by contacting Matthias Klettermayer, Public Information Officer, at tel.:  +1 212 963 8306, or e-mail:  klettermayer@un.org.