BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 22. The Second Baku Forum on Sustainable Development will be held in cooperation with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in November 2023, Head of the Department of Sustainable Development and Social Policy under the Ministry of Economy, Secretary of the National Coordinating Council for Sustainable Development Huseyn Huseynov told Trend.
He said this event will help strengthen international and regional cooperation in the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
"Besides, we are working on a draft SDG investment map for Azerbaijan to attract investments to our country," he said.
The official stressed the great importance of the education sector in the implementation of the SDGs.
"The UN Development Program, the Ministry of Economy and several leading universities of our country, in particular, the Baku Higher Oil School and the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy, have completed the ‘Sustainable Development Goals and Finance Academy for Youth’ training program. In the future, we also plan to implement such programs and engage other universities in them," he added.
The UN and its partners in Azerbaijan are working towards achieving the SDGs: 17 interconnected and ambitious Goals which address the major development challenges faced by people in Azerbaijan and around the world. As a result of this partnership, Azerbaijan has prioritized 17 SDGs, 88 targets, and 119 indicators covering economic, social, and environmental aspects of sustainable development.
UNDP has prepared specific steps for Azerbaijan to implement the SDGs until 2030. Over the last eight years, Azerbaijan has demonstrated its firm commitment to achieving the 2030 Agenda.
Azerbaijan has been one of the first countries to undertake a MAPS mission (Mainstreaming, Acceleration and Policy Support for the 2030 Agenda) which outlined concrete policy and programming steps that could be taken to accelerate the goals nationally, the experience which was presented at the First Baku Forum on Sustainable Development in 2018.
This regional event also marked the adoption of the Baku Principles which established provisions for the integration of SDGs and acceleration of their implementation. With UN support, the National Information Portal on SDGs was launched, which introduces an interactive dashboard, collects consolidated data, and tracks and monitors progress towards the SDGs in real-time.