UNA-NYC Hosts Annual Meeting with Ireland’s Ambassador Fergal Mythen

UNA-NYC hosted its annual meeting at the Irish Mission to the United Nations on June 8. After a brief survey of our New York host chapter’s accomplishments over the past year, we listened to Ambassador Fergal Mythen, the Permanent Representative of Ireland to the United Nations, who joined with UNA-NYC Executive Vice President Robin van Puyenbroeck in conversation, discussing aspects of Ireland’s participation in the UN and climate-related efforts.

Ahead of the 2023 SDG Summit in September, where a comprehensive review of the state of the SDGs and political guidance offered on transformative actions for achieving them, Ambassador Mythen was appointed by the President of the General Assembly (PGA) as a cofacilitator to lead intergovernmental consultations on the Political Declaration for the SDG Summit during the 77th session of the General Assembly. A zero draft of the declaration was circulated to all member states and for stakeholders to contribute to the process of dialogue.

And so on June 7th, UN DESA (Department of Economic and Social Affairs) in partnership with the SDG Action Campaign, convened a virtual informal stakeholder dialogue to provide major groups and other stakeholders as well as civil society organizations with an opportunity to provide inputs to the SDG Summit Zero Draft Political Declaration (which can be accessed here).

The exchange featured remarks by Ambassador Mythen of Ireland and by Ambassador Alya Ahmed bin Saif-Al Thani of Qatar. Additionally fourteen stakeholders representing different networks, coalitions, major groups and other stakeholder constituencies provided substantive inputs to the zero draft of the 2023 SDG Summit political declaration. The dialogue also included an interactive survey for participants to share their expectations for the SDG summit. Ambassador Mythen highlighted some of these efforts in his conversation with Robin during the evening.