Global challenges have become increasingly urgent, including
• The gap between poor and rich
• The unstable frameworks for development
• Persisting hunger and malnutrition
• The threat of violence
• The lack of access to social welfare and basic services including health care
• The consequences of climate change and accelerating loss of biodiversity
• Dwindling resources
• Population dynamics, and
• Worsening soil degradation around the globe.

All issues closely related to reducing poverty are more topical than ever. The transition to a green economy, as laid out in the outcome document of the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, is a very specific approach with a very specific goal. It has also become clear that without security there can be no positive development. That is why it makes sense to incorporate all these aspects in the approaches we adopt to achieve the desired solution.

The post-2015 development agenda

The United Nations Special Event towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), held on 25 September 2013, thus adopted a roadmap for a post-2015 development agenda. The agenda is to connect poverty reduction with sustainable development within a set of goals that are valid for all countries. Negotiations on the agenda are to begin in late 2014. In September 2015 it is then to be adopted at a summit meeting.

The groundwork has already been performed:

• The results of the open working group set up at the Rio+20 Conference, which has elaborated a set of sustainable development goals (SDGs)
• The results of the committee of experts that has been looking at how to finance sustainable development
• The discussion of the set of objectives to follow on from the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The German government is actively and intensively involved as partners in the work of the European Union, the United Nations and various processes inside Germany, whereby the outcome is by no means a foregone conclusion.

Green economy

In the 50-page outcome document of the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development entitled "The Future We Want", the international community affirms its support for the concept of a "green economy". This is the first time the UN has declared the green economy to be an important instrument in achieving sustainable development. Interested states are to be accorded support to help them with the transition to a greener way of doing business.

It was also agreed that the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) should be strengthened. UNEP, firstly, is to be formally upgraded and see its budget rise.

Upgrading the UNEP
The UNEP Governing Council decided in February 2013 to make the United Nations Environment Assembly of UNEP (UNEA) the main governing body of UNEP. It replaces the Governing Council and the former Global Ministerial Environment Forum. The Committee of Permanent Representatives, composed of all accredited Permanent Representatives to UNEP, prepares the decisions of UNEA. UNEA will meet every two years as of June 2014.

Secondly, the Commission on Sustainable Development has now been replaced by a high-level political forum on sustainable development (HLPF).

The high-level political forum on sustainable development (HLPF)
The one-day inaugural session of the high-level political forum (HLPF) was held on 24 September 2013 in New York. The meetings of the forum will be convened every year under the auspices of ECOSOC for eight days, including a three-day ministerial segment to be held in the framework of the substantive session of the Council. In addition to this the forum will meet every four years under the auspices of the General Assembly at the level of Heads of State and Government for two days at the beginning of the General Assembly session.

The HLPF is to provide political leadership, guidance and recommendations for sustainable development. As of 2016, the forum is to monitor the implementation of the post-2015 development agenda.

The next meeting of the HLPF is scheduled for mid-2014.