From October 2024, I was tasked with coordinating our Secretariat’s integrated project management report, providing updates our agreed project outputs and indicators, and tracking progress and gathering detailed updates on a wide-range of activities from colleagues. The collaborative working file that I developed enabled colleagues to provide detailed and content-rich summaries of their work so that we could provide a full project update internally and to later support drafting of reports for wider release.
After that submission in December, from March 2025, I was tasked with synthesising these technical submissions from 2024 into an annual Progress Report to the Secretary-General’s High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, held under the auspices of the UN Economic and Social Council.
Under the guidance of the Head of Secretariat, I was tasked with authoring the report and coordinating review and contributions from Secretariat colleagues, producing early drafts featuring technical information on the progress of our programmes of work. Subsequent drafts then formed narrative texts which aligned the activities of our programmes to our new ‘four global solutions’ which organise the work of our organisation in the coming year. The final draft focused on producing graphs and graphics, whilst finalising the report for formal review at UN HQ in NYC before publication.
The note required drafting to a Parliamentary standard, ensuring compliance with UN publishing standards, legal definitions, and terminology.
The final report is transmitted by the UN Secretary-General to the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, held under the auspices of Economic and Social Council, and referenced by the 80th General Assembly.
The report builds on my experience delivering Parliamentary-quality texts to a political body, and is my first instance of delivering such a text at the United Nations – a proud career highlight to date!
Note by the United Nations Secretary-General to the Economic and Social Council:
The Secretary-General transmits herewith the progress report on the 10-Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production Patterns, prepared by the United Nations Environment Programme, in its capacity as secretariat of the 10-Year Framework, and building on an annual reporting mechanism for Member States and stakeholders covering the period January to December 2024. The present report is prepared pursuant to General Assembly resolutions 67/203, 68/210, 69/214 and 70/201. The objective of the report is to share with Member States and other stakeholders progress achieved in 2024 on the implementation of the 10-Year Framework on the basis of the reporting of Member States and stakeholders. In addition, the report presents key messages for decision makers for the consideration of the 2025 high-level political forum on sustainable development.