High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development – July 2018

The High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development took place at the UN Headquarters in NYC. The event included Australia presenting its first Voluntary National Review (VNR) of its progress on the SDGs, and a Ministerial meeting with a central theme ‘Transformation towards sustainable and resilient societies’. The event showcase Australia’s work on the use of Earth Observation (EO) data and geo-spatial imagery to monitor and help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The Australian mission in NYC hosted a panel discussion which included representatives from Australia, Switzerland, Canada, Greece and Namibia, which was followed by two workshops: one on financing EO projects and building a business case for SDGs, and a second one identifying priority applications for EO in individual countries. These events were designed to inspire more governments and organisations to take action on using EO, while providing them with the necessary knowledge on how and where to start.

EO has enormous potential to improve the availability, consistency and continuity of data available for SDG reporting, but at this stage EO data is being used for SDG assessments in a very few countries. The events in NY highlighted the enormous potential of EO to support the SDG processes, and connected Australian EO practitioners with representatives from a wide range of developed and developing countries to share their experiences and describe their individual EO needs. This was a fantastic opportunity to promote the value of EO in the SDG process, and for countries to realise the remarkable potential of EO data for monitoring and achieving specific targets, and improve their national policies framework to enhance sustainability.