By Dawn Nelson
 
WILPF Earth Democracy is developing an agenda to integrate the work from this issue committee into broader WILPF work. WILPF Earth Democracy issue committee member Dawn Nelson will attend the 2018 High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) on Sustainable Development at the United Nations to observe national reports and civil society engagement on sustainable development goals (SDGs) to identify innovative ways for WILPF membership to engage on issues of poverty and environment in the United States.
 
Taking place in mid-July, the 2018 HLPF theme this year is “Transformation towards sustainable and resilient societies,” and at the forum 47 nations will review progress towards the SDGS. Achieving the SDGs is a necessary conversation and a moral imperative for any developed nation that allows extreme poverty. The US is one such nation, as detailed in a special UN report recently released about the extensive poverty in the United States, a report that Nikki Haley, US Ambassador to the UN, denied as true.

“For one of the world’s wealthiest countries to have 40 million people living in poverty and over five million living in ‘Third World’ conditions is cruel and inhuman.”
—Philip Alston, UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights.

As we bear witness to the impacts of the war economy on society, we must remember that working for peace is also a fight for justice. With the United States pulling out of the Human Rights Council and the denial that poverty exists in the US, it is clear that the American people must remember who we are as a nation.
 
The Poor People’s Campaign clearly articulates a peace economy begins with investing in social and economic wellbeing for all people. Achieving the SDGs is a way to measure that progress and take empowered action. WILPF Earth Democracy will bring the lessons learned at the HLPF to lead discussion on these topics in the coming months. Stay tuned!