As the echoes of our recent landmark conference, “Driving the Next Decade of Sustainable Development” still resonate in our minds, we wanted to take a moment to express our gratitude and provide a follow-up on the event’s outcomes.

This 10th Anniversary conference, co-hosted with our network members in Kenya – The Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis (KIPPRA), Global Centre for Policy and Strategy (GLOCEPS) and the Institute for Economic Affairs (IEA) – was held on the 24th and 25th of October 2023 in Nairobi, Kenya. It brought together the leadership of our member institutions from Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as key partners from across the globe. You can now watch the highlight videos from the two-day event here.

The conference embodied our collective mission to address the knowledge asymmetry and participation deficit in the global development discourse. Through these two days of thought-provoking discussions and knowledge sharing, we took significant strides toward achieving our objectives:

💡  Rebalancing Global Power Asymmetries: The conference sparked commitment among participants from both the Global South and North to work together in creating a more equitable global development community.

💡 Enriching Visions of Change: By engaging with a wide array of perspectives, we broadened our understanding of the nuances involved in ensuring truly sustainable development and the leading role that think tanks from the Global South can play.

💡 Developing Future Strategies: We charted a course for the next ten years of Southern Voice, aligning our objectives with the ever-evolving challenges we face. Additionally, we identified key issues and spaces to work in for the upcoming years.

💡 Enhancing Collaborations: We identified common ambitions, challenges, and complementary capacities that will guide our strategic cooperation in the years to come.

The conference also saw the launch of the second edition of our State of the SDGs initiative, entitled “Leveraging Abilities to Navigate Inequalities”, which explores the impact of COVID-19 policies on students in Africa, migrants in Latin America, and the owners and workers of small and micro businesses in Asia. You can read the full report with country case studies here.

In our commitment to promoting sustainability and reducing our environmental footprint, we developed an app to encapsulate all essential information for attendees. It included the complete event schedule, detailed speaker profiles, and comprehensive session descriptions, providing a seamless and eco-friendly way to access vital conference details.

Want a closer look at the conference? You can access the conference pictures here. Do not forget to tag us if you share them on your social media channels!

Much like our conference attendees, we will not be leaving the conversation in Nairobi! Keep an eye out for upcoming newsletters and articles on our webpage, where we will share more key in-depth conclusions from our meeting.

If you have any questions, suggestions, or would like to get more involved, please reach out to us through our Engagement Officer, Zamiyat Abubakar (zamiyat@southernvoice.org).  Your voices and contributions are essential to our collective success.

Thank you for being an essential part of the Southern Voice network and see you at the next conference!

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