The United Nations CODES Action Plan (“the Plan”) was presented during the Fifth Session of the United Nations Environment Assembly (“UNEA-5”) in February/March 2022. The Plan is a creation of the Coalition for Digital Environmental Sustainability (“CODES”), an alliance established in March 2021 in response to the UN Secretary General’s ‘Roadmap for Digital Cooperation’.
A
few months later, in June 2022, the Plan was launched by a UN-backed
coalition of 1,000 stakeholders from over 100 countries. It is
championed by the United Nations Environment Programme (“UNEP”), the
United Nations Development Programme (“UNDP”), the International Science Council
(“ISC”), the German Environment Agency (“UBA”), the Kenya Ministry of
Environment and Forestry, Future Earth and Sustainability in the Digital
Age, a think tank at Concordia University, Canada. These co-champions
act as the Secretariat for CODES, working closely with the UN Office of
the Secretary General’s Envoy on Technology.
The Plan is meant to inform the emerging set of priorities for the ‘Global Digital Compact’ as set out in the UN Secretary-General’s report ‘Our Common Agenda’.
Our
Common Agenda was released by António Guterres in September 2021 and
called for the world to “turbocharge action” on the UN’s Sustainable
Development Goals (“SDGs”). It also called for a ‘Summit of the Future’
which is to be held in September 2024 and the outcome is expected to be
the ratification of the ‘Pact for the Future’.....<<<Read More>>>...