The United Nations Summit on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) was held on 18-19 September 2023 (local time) in New York. As an important event during the summit, the UN hosted the SDG Action Weekend - The SDG Acceleration Day on September 17 to promote the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by exploring policies and practices in various fields.

The SDG Action Weekend - the SDG Acceleration Day themes on energy and environment, food systems, governance models, education transformation, digital construction, etc. Xu Haoliang, UN Under-Secretary-General and Associate Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Guy Ryder, UN Under-Secretary-General for Policy, Maria-Francesca Spatolisano, UN Assistant Secretary-General for Policy Coordination and Inter-Agency Affairs of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Pablo Saavedra, Vice-President for Equitable Growth, Finance and Institutions of the World Bank, Xue Lan, Director of Institute for Sustainable Development Goals of Tsinghua University (TUSDG), and Dean of Schwarzman College of Tsinghua University, attended the Session on "The Future of Governance" and gave speeches.

Speech by Prof. Xue Lan

Xue Lan stated that 1) strategic planning is a key tool in advancing the implementation of the SDGs, 2) Agile government governance plays an indispensable role in realising the enormous potential of digital technology, 3) Cooperation between governments and civil society is critical to enhancing crisis management capacity.

The SDG Action Weekend - the SDG Acceleration Day

Participants engaged in a dialogue on the critical role of public sector transformation in achieving the SDGs and aimed to support member States in accelerating the transformation of the public sector and public services towards sustainable development through mindset shifts and capacity building.