As Delivered

Thank you very much, Ambassadors. It is an honor for me to be here for UNDP.

Welcome again to the HLPF side event on SDG 16.

And also good morning, good afternoon, and good evening to everyone who’s online in that sense.

Together with our fellow SDG custodian agencies, UNODC and OHCHR, UNDP is proud to provide an annual global progress report on SDG 16. The next edition will be launched in September at the UNGA and in Geneva this October. It will offer deeper insights into global trends, and spotlight country-level reforms that are driving change.

And it’s important to note that we have also seen real improvement in data availability. As Ambassador Tania Romualdo mentioned, without data, there is no transparency and trust. So, let’s be honest - we have seen progress. Between 2023 and 2025, the proportion of countries with SDG 16 data rose from 37% to 54%. That’s meaningful progress, but yet not enough.

Governance data is often politically sensitive and difficult to measure. But when grounded in professional independence and methodological rigour, official statistics offer something indispensable: a trusted foundation for dialogue, for accountability, and for reform.

That’s why the work of the Praia Group on Governance Statistics is so essential. It plays a vital role in developing international standards and tools to guide the production of official governance statistics, including the very indicators used to track SDG 16.

Thanks to the Praia Group, national statistical offices are increasingly equipped to measure complex issues like political participation, discrimination, and access to justice. This is why UNDP has been a lead supporter of the Group from the very beginning—and why we remain firmly committed to its work today.

But despite this progress on data availability, the Secretary-General’s SDG Progress Report, released just this Monday, offers a sobering assessment of where we stand on SDG 16:

In 2024 alone, nearly 50,000 lives were lost to conflict, one every 12 minutes, disproportionately affecting women and children.

By the end of last year, 123 million people had been forcibly displaced.

While global homicide rates declined by 12 percent between 2015 and 2023, we are still far from the 50 percent reduction target.

Access to justice remains out of reach for many.

One in three prisoners worldwide is held without a proper sentence.

Human rights defenders and journalists continue to face growing risks—the number of journalists killed rose by 38 percent in 2024, with conflict zones especially dangerous.

Yet, there are also progress:

Budget reliability has improved,

Access-to-information laws have expanded,

And more countries now have functioning human rights institutions.

But the reality remains stark: no SDG 16 targets are on track.

This is a moment that calls for urgent action, to protect lives, restore trust, and uphold rights. That means investing in peacebuilding, justice reform, and civic space; strengthening institutions; and addressing the root causes of conflict and exclusion. It also means sustained political will and international cooperation to deliver lasting results.

We must reframe SDG 16 not only as a multilateral commitment, but as a strategic investment, one that underpins every other goal in the 2030 Agenda.

As Ambassador Tania Romualdo mentioned before, it is the foundation of the SDGs.

And right now, we have an opening to do just that. If we look at the end of the Financing for Development process, and the outcome of the 2025 Seville Conference, El Compromiso de Sevilla, there is an opportunity to elevate SDG 16 within global development. The outcome is clear: mobilizing finance for sustainable development requires far more than capital. It requires building trustworthy, capable, and inclusive institutions, strengthening domestic resource mobilization, tackling illicit financial flows, and ensuring that public investment is equitable and accountable. El Compromiso de Sevilla highlights the need for participatory governance and social dialogue since rebuilding the social contract and restoring trust in institutions are essential for unlocking the scale of financing needed to deliver on the 2030 Agenda. In other words, El Compromiso recognizes that progress on SDG16 must be at the heart of the development financing.

SDG 16, therefore, is not just another goal. It is a foundational enabler, de-risking development finance by building stable and transparent systems that funders – and people, investors- can trust.

At UNDP, we see this every day. Every day investments in SDG 16 help countries prevent, navigate, and recover from crises. They accelerate progress across multiple sectors, from health to education, from climate resilience to economic recovery.

But no single actor can do this work alone.

Delivering on SDG 16 demands genuine partnerships, rooted in shared goals, mutual accountability, and sustained engagement across governments, international organizations, civil society, and the private sector.

And here, allow me to thank the government of Norway for the partnership with UNDP in our work on SDG 16.

It also requires empowering national and local leadership, ensuring that the people closest to the challenges are at the forefront of designing and driving the solutions.

Now is the time to push for concrete financial commitments to peace, justice, and inclusion, and to ensure the value they deliver is clearly understood, measured, and prioritized. There is an opportunity before us: to reassert SDG 16 as a central pillar of national and global development agendas, and to back it with the investments, partnerships, and political will it demands.

UNDP remains fully committed to this effort.

But let me end where I started, with the focus of today’s discussion. We cannot deliver on SDG 16, or on any part of the 2030 Agenda, without good data. Reliable, disaggregated, and timely data is essential to see where change is happening, where gaps remain, and where efforts must be intensified. This is especially true for governance, where progress is often difficult to measure and easy to overlook.

That’s why investing in governance statistics is not a technical luxury, it’s a strategic necessity. It equips countries to diagnose challenges, design smarter reforms, and drive accountability at every level.

If we want institutions that are more inclusive, more just, and more effective, we need the evidence to build them. That means backing governance data with the political will and resources it deserves.

Thank you very much. Muito obrigado.