The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) provide a global roadmap towards lasting and equitable growth. The annual High-Level Political Forum is the opportunity to measure progress, and share ideas for achieving them. IFLA is there, underlining what libraries can do.

Opening of the United Nations High Level Political Forum 2019On 9-18 July 2019, ministers, officials, experts, civil society and private sector representatives are meeting in New York at the High-Level Political Forum to discuss progress towards achieving the SDGs.

The SDGs themselves offer a comprehensive view of what it will take to create fairer, richer societies, now and into the future. They underline both that success requires progress on all fronts, and that governments need to pay attention to cross-cutting drivers of development.

Information is one such driver, and access to it, including the skills to use it, is included twenty times across the SDG framework, more or less explicitly.

Libraries, of course, are essential partners for governments in delivering this. This is the message that IFLA’s representatives will be bringing to those present. 

Where We’ll be Active

IFLA will be using all opportunities to highlight the work of libraries, and to establish contacts to help our members. Official sessions and side events with a wide variety of high-profile speakers offer a good opportunity to do this.

In addition, two specific events about libraries will highlight the particular role of our institutions.

A first, co-hosted with the UN Dag Hammarskjold Library, focuses on partnerships, the subject of SDG17.

Libraries are key nodes in knowledge partnerships, facilitating cooperation and sharing across borders. But they are also practical partners on the ground, working with government and others to deliver progress. Find out more on our event page.

A second, co-hosted with the Permanent Mission of Argentina, follows up from the successful agreement of the Buenos Aires Declaration on 22 May in the context of the Forum of Ministers of Culture of Latin America and the Caribbean.

The Declaration underlines the commitment of governments in the region to libraries and information, and the event will look at how to realise its impact. Find out more on our event page. 

Interested in following the HLPF? Watch the livestreaming through the UN Web TV, and use the hashtags: #HLPF and #HLPF2019 in social media.

Read our blog to learn more about libraries at the High Level Political Forum. Follow our updates on Facebook and Twitter @IFLA, @IFLA_Lib4Dev, and stay tuned by using the #Lib4Dev and #DA2I hashtags.