“The diagnosis is not good, but we try to keep the roadmap to development” summarized Ambassador Lachezara Stoeva, president of ECOSOC, in her dialogue with civil society at the Civil Society Forum of the Fifth LDC Summit. The Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) is the UN intergovernmental body in charge of overseeing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Statement by Roberto Bissio, on behalf of Social Watch, at the SDG Summit 2023 Informal Stakeholder Dialogue that was held virtually on 7 June 2023.

By Roberto Bissio^*

During the Summit on the Least Developed Countries (Doha, 5-9 March 2023), the UN convened a meeting of UN Resident Coordinators (RCs) of all 46 LDCs. UN reform measures to provide better in-country agency coordination and convening started with getting the RCs to report directly to the Secretary-General, DSG Amina Mohammed told the accompanying Civil Society Forum.

By Roberto Bissio^*

A reform in the international financial architecture is needed and urgent. High level UN officials and civil society agreed on that proposition during the UN Summit on the Least Developed Countries.

“The international financial architecture is absolutely no longer fit for purpose. It is morally bankrupt” said UN deputy secretary general Amina Mohammed in a candid dialogue with civil society organizations at the closure of the Civil Society Forum on the last day of the Summit on the Least Developed Countries held in Doha last March 2023.

In her introductory comments to the first plenary of the Civil Society Forum at the LDC5 Summit, Gita Sen, General Co-coordinator for Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN) summarized civil society interventions at the opening session, noting that these “set the tone for the seriousness of the challenges LDCs face and the Global South more generally”.