Professional and Career Topics

The UN 2020 High Level Political Forum (HLPF)  runs from July 7-16th. This year the entire meeting will be virtual and available on UN WebTV for those that want to follow. Recordings will be available after the event. 

One of the outcomes of the HLPF is the Ministerial Declaration. The 2020 Declaration is currently being negotiated and the 29June 2020 draft is here. Infrastructure is mentioned seven times in the draft and sustainable infrastructure once.  This is progress in comparison with past Declarations but the text is vague. This is despite the numerous reports that are available explaining the criticality of infrastructure for sustainable development many from UN agencies;  see e.g. Interagency Statement on Sustainable Infrastructure.  See also the Sustainable Infrastructure Partnership. 

Engineers can help by  being prepared and taking advantage of opportunities to communicate broadly how sustainable and resilient infrastructure can contribute to sustainable development.

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William Kelly Ph.D., P.E., ENV SP, F.ASCE
MR
Silver Spring MD
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Hi Dr. Kelly,

Thank you for sharing, I'll be tuning in and reading up on these initiatives. I think with recent technology improvements, developing countries can leapfrog into sustainable infrastructure. Clean energy technologies such as solar and batteries continue to drop in cost.

I noticed they define sustainable infrastructure as both physical and social infrastructure. I'm interested to see how these developing countries innovate on their own style of sustainable growth. They aren't restricted the "built environment" as we are so they may be possibilities for novel types of sustainable growth.


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Paul Lee P.E., M.ASCE
Civil Engineering Associate
Los Angeles Dept. of Water and Power
Los Angeles CA
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