The Global Forum for National SDG Advisory Bodies – a Stakeholder Forum and Partners Initiative

With the support of the Finnish National Commission on Sustainable Development and funding from the Prime Minister’s Office, Stakeholder Forum received a four-month grant in 2019 to support the early activities of the Global Forum for National SDG Advisory Bodies.  Along with the German Council for Sustainable Development, the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, and Stakeholder Forum, the Finnish Commission is a founding partner of the Global Forum, which was formally established at its launch event during the 2019 SDG Summit in September.

The grant was used to further develop early activities to strengthen network cohesion among the Global Forum’s membership, expand agreed-upon communications efforts including maintaining the Global Forum website, and populate the website with knowledge-based resources as agreed in the Global Forum’s mission.  Additional efforts in those early days were to formalize the Global Forum’s Advisory Committee, including agreed roles and activities, liaise with United Nations officials and Member States to seek further funding for Global Forum, in particular, to fund the core human resources needed to deliver the agreed Forum work program and to coordinate the Global Forum’s activities in New York in the run-up to and during the 2020 High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development in July.

After its launch and early activities, in 2020 Stakeholder Forum handed over its role as the first secretariat of the Global Forum for National SDG Advisory Bodies to The Partnering Initiative (TPI), an internationally recognised pioneer in the theory and practice of cross-sectoral partnering, and African Monitor, which brings African voices to the development agenda by ensuring that citizens have the capacity, platforms, and opportunity to participate in decision-making processes.