Human Rights and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by all UN Member States in 2015, recognizes that respect for all human rights is essential to building a more equitable, inclusive, and sustainable world for everyone. Human rights principles and standards are reflected in all 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 167 targets, and human rights are increasingly recognized as a key accelerator to achieving sustainable development for people, prosperity, planet, peace and partnership.

The Regional Office for South-East Asia works to ensure that the implementation of the 2030 Agenda is fully aligned with international human rights norms and standards. This includes supporting the UN at the regional and country level, governments, national human rights institutions, civil society, and other stakeholders in their respective work to achieve the 2030 Agenda.  This includes ensuring that recommendations from international human rights mechanisms guide the implementation of the SDGs; grounding the operationalization of “Leaving No One Behind” in the principles of equality, non-discrimination and participation of particularly vulnerable individuals and groups; and strengthening meaningful and effective stakeholder participation across all areas of work in the 2030 Agenda.

Resources

Asia Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development 2021 and human rights

The Regional Office for South-East Asia engaged in the Asia Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development 2021 in a number of ways, including by co-organizing side-events, participating in the the APFSD Youth Forum, the Asia-Pacific People’s Forum, the annual regional VNR workshop, and as co-chair of the Issue-based coalition on Human Rights, Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment, developing the SDG 16 goal profile and the related roundtable.

Human Rights in the 2030 Agenda

The 2030 Agenda is firmly anchored in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the international human rights treaties. Both Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and human rights are universal, interrelated and indivisible and are to be realised for everyone, everywhere.

Integrating Human Rights into the Voluntary National Review

Human rights data, analysis and recommendations can strengthen the Voluntary National Review (VNR) by addressing issues such as inequality, discrimination, accountability, rule of law, participation, and inclusion, and can support reporting on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that have corresponding human rights (e.g. water, health, housing), help in identifying groups at risk of being left behind and ways of effectively addressing their situation.