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Leading Sustainable Mountain Development

10.07.2018

Building a coalition of key Mountain Partnership governments to increase the visibility of mountain issues in national processes will be under discussion during the High-Level Political Forum, Mountain Partnership side event which will be taking place 16 July 2018 in New York, USA. Lead by the Government of Andorra and co-organized with the Mountain Partnership/FAO, UNDP GEF Small Grants Programme and the governments of Argentina, Chile, Italy and Switzerland, the event “Leading Sustainable Mountain Development” will also focus on pro mountain policies and actions for the implementation of the 2030 Agenda at the country level.  

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development explicitly recognizes the crucial role of sustainable mountain development with the inclusion of three mountain related targets under two of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. The global commitment to include mountain peoples and environments is reflected in SDG 6 on clean water and sanitation and SDG 15 on life on land.  The most clearly expressed target is target 15.4, to “ensure the conservation of mountain ecosystems, including biodiversity, in order to enhance their capacity and to provide benefits that are essential for sustainable development”. Target 6.6 and target 15.1 to  “protect and restore water-related systems, including mountains” and , “ensure the conservation, restoration  and sustainable use of terrestrial and inland freshwater ecosystem and their services, in particular forests, wetlands, mountains and drylands” also play a decisive role for the livelihood of communities living in mountains.

In December 2017, the Mountain Partnership endorsed a framework for action to increase and coordinate the efforts of its members towards the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Under the Framework for Action, members commit to review their policies and strategies to reflect the relevance of mountains in their national development. In implementing the Framework for Action, a special attention is given to ensuring that the Mountain Partnership members highlight mountain issues in their Voluntary National Reviews and include key messages on sustainable mountain development in their communications to the HLPF. The HLPF event will also encourage the submission of VNRs from all Mountain Partnership member governments and from all mountain countries at large.

So far, thirty-nine Mountain Partnership member governments have presented Voluntary National Reviews at the High-Level Political Forum, 15 of them at the HLPF 2018.

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Framework for Action

Photo:©FAO/Tomek Kozlowski