The next World Government Summit in Dubai will develop a platform for reporting on the progress of the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the UAE’s Minister of International Cooperation & Development has announced.

Speaking on a panel titled ‘The UN SDGs in Action: Transforming Our Global Vision into Reality’, Her Excellency Sheikha Lubna bint Khalid Al Qassimi said: “This summit is in its fifth year, and it's now the World Government Summit, so this place is very fitting for us to discuss the SDGs.

“Going forward I would like to announce that during the summit next year we will start to collectively to work on a mechanism for reporting on the SDGs and use this platform to do the reporting for everyone [member nations].”

The “project management” platform will use from the latest reporting and monitoring tools and innovation and is to ensure nations are “not skewing” from the SDGs, Al Qassimi revealed.

She said: “Twenty years ago it would be hard to monitor but today’s technology and connectivity… the tools we have today compared to before… makes it much easier to monitor.”

She added technology and innovation will make it “much more feasible” to deliver the SDGs as well.

“We have the tools and innovation – we will get better,” the minister insisted.

Al Qassimi shared that alongside the summit, delegates from the UN and various nations have participated in ‘SDG in action sessions’, which included the “best brains” to talk about financing SDGs, how nations can keep ourselves on track with reporting and monitoring.