Lopez Group Foundation Inc.Cedie Lopez Vargas, president of LGFI, gives a token of appreciation to Mike Provido for giving a lecture to the Lopez Group (LGFI) sponsored a brown bag session on the sustainable development goals (SDGs) with a speaker from the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) on April 27.

The session, entitled Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, was attended by 14 participants from LGFI, First Philippine Holdings Corporation, Energy Development Corporation, Eugenio Lopez Foundation Inc.-Lopez Museum and Knowledge Channel Foundation Inc.

Speaker Michael Provido, United Nations Development Programme program coordinator- NEDA, shared a brief assessment of the Philippines’ accomplishment in the Millennium Development Goals before discussing the salient features of the post-2015 agenda and the SDGs.

Provido said the Philippines was not able to meet MDG targets on education, gender disparity, maternal mortality, access to reproductive health services and HIV-AIDS.

On the other hand, he highlighted the priorities of the Philippine government in the implementation of the SDGs under the tagline “Make the 2030 Agenda a reality and leave no one behind.” These include recognition of migrant rights, addressing climate change with urgency, collective action for conservation, and equality of opportunities.

In her closing synthesis, LGFI’s Faith Bacon cited the need for clear benchmarking and data to ensure measurability of gains; for the private sector to explore the possibility of participating in setting the indicators, which is still a work in progress; and for aligning future Lopez Group CSR initiatives-reporting with the SDGs targets and indicators. 

FPH Sustainability Group’s Agnes de Jesus and LGFI’s Dario Pagcaliwagan and Angela Lopez-Guingona