Recap of CODES' Engagements during the UN High-Level Week in New York City
SDG Digital Day, SDG Summit, General Assembly, Ministerial Meeting on the Summit of the Future – it was a crowded September week in New York. CODES took the opportunity to actively engage in the global dialogue and to collaborate with partners for a #SustainableDigitalAge. We share some of the highlights and relevant links for our global community.
SDG Digital Day: CODES commitments at the UN High Impact Initiative Session on DPI
The ITU UNDP SDG Digital Day on 17 September 2023 was a milestone in our common effort to steer awareness and action for aligning digital innovations for sustainability challenges. The day-long high-level event at UN headquarters brought together member state leaders, innovators and advocates to showcase a great array of best practices and to collect promises from around the world. CODES was invited to partner in the High Impact Initiative Session on Digital Public Infrastructure and Prof. Dr. Dirk Messner presented two CODES commitments that will make a positive impact in the near future. First, a UNDP-led repository of meaningful, bankable and sustainable DPI blueprints to be scaled globally (our latest update under CODES Impact Initiative 9, see workshop report below). And second, a UNEP-led global environmental data strategy by 2025, ensuring data quality, accessibility and interoperability (a centerpiece for CODES Impact Initiatives 2 and 8).
You can watch the entire SDG Digital day here, the DPI session starts at 4:57:30, Dirk’s input on behalf of CODES starts at 6:10:30. You can also watch our co-champion Sally presenting a great UNEP showcase to prevent plastic litter starting at 1:44:00.
CODES SDG Summit Side Event: Sustainable DPI and DPI for Sustainability
Our CODES side event “Sustainable DPI and DPI for Sustainability” on 17 September 2023 at the SDG Action Weekend explored the transformative potential of Digital Public Infrastructures for the environmental dimension of the SDGs, a central debate to accelerate their achievement. The contributions by our four CODES co-champions Dr. Sally Radwan (UNEP), Prof. Dr. Dirk Messner (German Environmental Agency), Philip Thigo (Kenyan Government) and Dr. Francine Pickup (UNDP) were accompanied by insights of Tim Wood (Co-Develop), Alexandre Pinho (Microsoft) and Dr. Christine Zhenwei Qiang (World Bank). Together they discussed DPI's role in catalyzing environmental action, including mitigating its own environmental impacts and enhancing digital solutions for climate mitigation and environmental protection.
You can watch the event recoding here.
Climate + DPI Workshop: kick-off event for CODES Impact Initiative 9
Climate and DPI practitioners, including CODES colleagues from UNDP and UBA, joined forces at a workshop on “Climate + Digital Public Infrastructure” on 20 September 2023 at the Rockefeller Foundation in New York. The workshop is part of a bigger endeavor of Codevelop, Rockefeller, GIZ, USAID and UNDP to systematically explore use cases for how DPI can be adapted, replicated, and scaled to address climate change and potentially other environmental threats. Hence it is a great pleasure for CODES to affiliate and support this process as CODES Impact Initiative 9 in the future.
You can read a brief post by our partners at Co-Develop on Addressing Climate Change with DPI here. If you are interested in the initiative and have something meaningful to contribute, please reach out any time.
World Cleanup Day: CODES at global live broadcast from New York
The World Cleanup Day is a wonderful annual action program that involves millions of people around the world in litter cleanup and waste mapping activities. The initial organization started in Estonia before growing to a global movement and so the Estonian House in New York organised a worldwide live broadcast on 16 September 2023 on the side-lines of SDG Action weekend. Together with former Estonian president Kersti Kaljulaid, CODES co-organiser Dr. Marcel Dorsch was invited to talk about digital sustainability and why digital waste management is a task with many facets.
You can watch the full World Cleanup Day live broadcast here.
CODES Special Steering Group Meeting: ITU as new CODES co-champion
Next to our many official events in New York we also met for a special CODES Steering Group meeting. It is with great pleasure to announce that ITU will become a full CODES member as a co-champion. We already had very good cooperation with ITU in the last months, but the close partnership with such a critical player for shaping the Digital Age is of course of great importance for our common cause. Additionally, we are grateful that Dr. Francine Pickup, UNDP Deputy Assistant Administrator and Deputy Director in the Bureau for Policy and Programme, will support CODES in regular leadership meetings. A warm welcome to Francine and ITU colleagues Tomas Lamanauskas, Alex Wong and Robin Zuercher!
CODES Partnership with UN Tech Envy Amandeep Singh Gill and team
Last not least, it was a pleasure to meet and strategize with our close CODES partner Amandeep Gill about next steps towards the Global Digital Compact. Amandeep and his team are dedicated to address digital sustainability as a matter of utmost importance in the process.
