German Government & UNDP sign statement to establish UN SDG Action Campaign Center in Bonn

This morning, on Tuesday 24 of May 2016, State Secretary Friedrich Kitschelt and the United Nations Assistant Secretary-General, United Nations Development Programme Assistant Administrator and Director for Policy and Programme Support, Magdy Martínez-Solimán signed a Statement of Intent to undertake global activities and open a Global SDG Action Campaign Center in Bonn, supported by the German Government.

The settlement of UN SDG Action Campaign stands for another milestone in the relevance of Bonn being at the same time a UN city and becoming furthermore a global hub of sustainability. The Campaign’s activity corresponds with Bonn’s slogan of ‘Shaping a Sustainable Future’ since 18 UN-organizations employing 1.000 staff members are within short reach. The Federal German Government strongly supports these efforts as we see the added value of a strong partner” – State Secretary Kitschelt.

The Center will be a strategic hub for the UN SDG Action Campaign to deliver on its mandate to inspire people’s action on the Sustainable Development Goals, connect and amplify stakeholder efforts, including those of the UN system and Member States, open up measures of accountability, aggregate citizen-generated data, showcase impact, share best practices, and incubate and test out innovative efforts around SDG implementation.

The success story of the long-standing partnership between the Campaign and UN Volunteers (UNV) programme will serve as a strong foundation for the new Campaign Center, which is intended to make a mark at the local level also; supporting the efforts of the UN family in Bonn (UN Bonn) and the Municipality of Bonn, among other key local actors.

“The signature of this Statement of Intent and the establishment of the Global Campaign Center sends a strong signal about Germany’s commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals. The Center will be central to the UN’s strategy of providing cutting-edge advocacy support, big data expertise and analytics to Member States and partners across the globe, 24/7 from Bonn. UNDP is proud to be the principal UN entity backing the Campaign.” – Mr. Martínez-Solimán.

 

The Global Campaign Center of the UN SDG Action Campaign will be located in Haus Carstanjen, which was the first site of UN Bonn and housed the signature of the historic Marshall Plan. This will ensure the synergetic efforts and joint work of the UN SDG Action Campaign with the recently inaugurated Knowledge Center for Sustainable Development of the UN System Staff College.

In addition to the Global Campaign Center, the UN SDG Action Campaign will maintain a distributed operational base, including presence in New York to facilitate the link with the UN Secretary General’s Executive Office and the UN Development Group management process, as well as the presence for New York-based events and conferences.