The Committee for Development Policy (CDP) 27th Plenary Session was successfully held from 24 to 28 February 2025 at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, United States. The session lasted for five days and consisted of 19 thematic sessions. José Antonio Ocampo, former UN Under-Secretary-General and former Minister of Finance of Colombia, Chairman of the CDP, Carlos Alvarado, former President of Costa Rica, Kori Udovicki, former Deputy Prime Minister of Serbia, Ahmed Galal, former Minister of Finance of Egypt, and other CDP members, as well as officials from UN agencies, attended the conference. Zhu Xufeng, Professor, Dean of the Public Policy & Management, Tsinghua University and Executive Director of the Institute for Sustainable Development Goals of Tsinghua University (TUSDG), attended the plenary session as a re-elected CDP member. During the plenary session, representatives from various countries had extensive exchanges on many key issues.
Photo of Plenary Session
The opening ceremony on the afternoon of 24 February was chaired by Arunabha Ghosh, Vice-Chair of CDP, followed by a brief overview of the agenda of the plenary session by Matthias Bruckner, Acting Secretary of the CDP. Robert Rae, current President of the UN Economic and Social Council, and Li Junhua, UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, attended and delivered speeches emphasizing the important role of CDP in promoting global sustainable development, lifting the world's Least Developed Countries (LDCs) out of poverty, and international cooperation. The Opening Ceremony also elected a new CDP Bureau, which will serve until 31 December 2027. At the same time, members exchanged views and discussed how to address current economic, social and environmental challenges through innovative policies and global cooperation.
Zhu Xufeng attended the Plenary Session (first from left)
On the afternoon of 26 February, the Plenary Session held an Open session on the theme Advancing Sustainable Development by 2030 and Beyond. The session was chaired by José Antonio Ocampo and was given an opening speech by Francine Pickup, Deputy Director, Bureau for Policy and Programme Support, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The meeting was open to all missions to the United Nations and relevant United Nations officials and was broadcast live on UN Web TV. Participating experts shared their insights on the post-2030 path to sustainable development, centered on the continuing challenges facing the international community in achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the changing international development environment. Sabina Alkire, Director of Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) at Oxford Department of International Development (ODID), Nyovani Janet Madise, Director of Development Policy and Head of the Malawi office of the African Institute for Development Policy (AFIDEP), and Taffere Tesfachew, Senior Advisor on Economic Transformation to the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI), and Carlos Alvarado, former President of Costa Rica, were among the CDP members who held a roundtable discussion on the progress and challenges in realizing the SDGs, as well as how to promote sustainable development through international cooperation.
CDP 27th Plenary Session Group Photo
On the morning of February 28, the Plenary Session held a United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) interaction session, aiming at informing ECOSOC member states of the outcomes of the discussions at this Plenary Session and conducting in-depth exchanges with them. Liu Liqun, Counselor of the Permanent Mission of the People's Republic of China to the United Nations, also attended the session. The session emphasized the important role of CDP in advancing the global sustainable development agenda. Finally, Krzysztof Szczerski, Vice-Chairman of ECOSOC, delivered a closing speech, and José Antonio Ocampo and the member of CDP reported the results of the Plenary Session to the ECOSOC members and summarized the discussions on various topics during the interaction. Representatives of Member States engaged in an in-depth discussion on the outcome of the session and the future promotion of international cooperation on SDGs.
ECOSOC Interaction session site
The CDP was established by the ECOSOC in its resolution 1998/46. The members of the CDP are nominated by the Secretary-General of the United Nations and appointed by the ECOSOC. Membership reflects multifaceted development experience as well as geographical and gender balance. The members of the current CDP come from a wide range of countries and regions around the globe, including expert representatives from both developing and developed countries, such as the United States, China, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Sweden, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation, India, France, Serbia, Nigeria, South Africa, Ethiopia, Fiji and others, reflecting a broad geographic and sectoral representation. The CDP advises and makes recommendations to ECOSOC on a wide range of issues related to the implementation of the UN's 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, mainly in the areas of LDCs, development cooperation, and global and multilateral governance. For example, CDP would review the list of LDCs, report to ECOSOC and the UN General Assembly, and revise the criteria for reviewing LDCs and monitoring the entry and exit of countries from the list of LDCs. Members of the CDP attend annual plenary sessions at UN Headquarters in New York, deliver policy briefs, and support the Committee's panel meetings. In addition, members would also participate in other UN meetings, including the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development.
During the meeting in New York, Zhu Xufeng also visited the School of International and Public Affairs, School of Social Work, Center for Sustainable Development of Columbia University, and the Marxe School of Public & International Affairs at Baruch College, City University of New York, among other academic institutions.
