Share Sydney Ideas
The 2030 agenda: Is Australia on track?
Where are we at with Sustainable Development Goals, and where to from here?
Our panel featuring John McArthur, UN Foundation senior advisor and Brookings Institution senior fellow, Sam Mostyn (Carriageworks, Citi Australia) and more, discuss global efforts towards the Sustainable Development Goals.
From ending poverty to climate action, reducing inequality and ensuring quality education — the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) are a collection of 17 global goals set by the United Nations General Assembly in 2015. The aim is to set the agenda for 2030 with a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity, now and into the future.
Where does Australia sit with this plan now, almost five years since its inception? How can we step up as a global leader on this front and make way for sustainable development in all areas of life?
John McArthur will explore global efforts towards SDGs and how Australia can draw from best practice around the world. John will be joined by leading University of Sydney researchers to discuss their work relevant to SDGs.
This event was held on Thursday 28 March, 2019 at University of Sydney, and co-presented with the University's Planetary Health Platform and Sydney Environment Institute.
The speakers
John W McArthur is a senior fellow in the Global Economy and Development program at the Brookings Institution. He is also a senior adviser to the UN Foundation and a board governor for the International Development Research Centre.
He was previously the chief executive officer of Millennium Promise, the international non-governmental organisation. He has also been a senior fellow with the Hong Kong-based Fung Global Institute, a faculty member at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, and policy director at Columbia’s Earth Institute.
Alana Mann is a Key Researcher in the University's Sydney Environment Institute and Chair of the Department of Media and Communications in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Sydney. Through her work she aims to promote citizen engagement, participation, and collective action in food systems planning and governance.
She is Chief Investigator on the Australian Research Council (ARC) funded project FoodLab Sydney: Addressing food insecurity through participatory social enterprise (2018-2020) with partners including the City of Sydney, TAFE, and FoodLab Detroit. In 2018 Alana was a visiting scholar at both Harvard Law School and Cornell University. Her new book Voice and Participation in Global Food Politics (2019) foregrounds the communicative dimensions of resistance by diverse rural and urban coalitions of food producers and eaters against the corporate capture of our foodways.
Patricia Garcia is a highly respected humanitarian and human rights advocate with experience in project design and delivery, campaigning and fundraising. She has been appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2016 and was a finalist in the 2016 NSW Australian of the Year awards for her contribution and services to the international humanitarian aid and development sector over the past two decades.
Patricia was a Human Rights Research Fellow at the University of Sydney’s Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (CPACS) from 2000–2002 and she designed the Human Rights course for the Master of Peace and Conflict Studies at CPACS. She is a 2017 Rotary Peace Fellow and Honorary Associate at the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies SSPS, University of Sydney where she is a sessional lecturer on human rights and humanitarian practice including the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Agenda.
Sam Mostyn is a non-executive director and sustainability adviser, with a long history in sports governance. Her current board roles include Mirvac, Transurban and Virgin Australia, and she is the Chair of Citi Australia. She joined the board of the Sydney Swans in 2017, after over a decade serving as a Commissioner with the Australian Football League.
Sam has served on the boards of Reconciliation Australia, the Australian Museum, Sydney Theatre Company and now chairs Carriageworks. Between 2013-2017, she was President of the Australian Council for International Development. She was an inaugural commissioner with the National Mental Health Commission, and is Deputy Chair of the Diversity Council of Australia. She serves on the board of the GO Foundation, founded by Adam Goodes and Michael O’Loughlin to provide education scholarships to indigenous students. Sam has served on the Business & Sustainable Development Commission, and was recently appointed Chair of ANROWS, the Australian National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety.
Image credit: Photo by Alessia Francischiello on Unsplash