Progress requires shared action: Lessons from the 2025 High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development

Each July, global attention turns to New York City, where the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) convenes at the United Nations headquarters. In 2025, the HLPF spotlighted two Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): SDG 5, achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls, and SDG 3, ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages. 

These two goals are not only central to human rights and development, they are deeply interconnected and foundational for progress across the entire SDG framework. We know that the SDGs are off track. The post-pandemic recovery, ongoing humanitarian crises, climate shocks, and political instability have all exposed, and deepened, gender and health inequalities around the world. No country is on track to achieve gender equality.  Without significant progress on SDG5, the whole framework falls apart. 

Lucky Iron Life joined the Canadian delegation to the HLPF, and a clear message emerged: progress doesn’t happen on its own — it happens because people make it happen. That’s why we must keep pushing.

As we experience backlash against global institutions, there is a clear realization. If we didn’t have the UN system, we would need to invent it. 

Yes, the UN system is flawed, built by humans, and inevitably imperfect. But a perfect system will never exist. We cannot let the pursuit of perfection become the enemy of meaningful progress. Yes, the UN involves a lot of talking – but talking matters. It’s the mechanism that brings people together to build consensus. The alternative is silence, and that outcome will be far worse.

Forums such as the HLPF are how we keep pushing. 

We know that gender equality is a powerful catalyst, driving positive changes across the SDGs. Canada has focused on cross-sector partnerships, including areas such as health, education, and economic opportunities, so that women and girls are at the centre of all international assistance efforts. Canada is a founding donor to the Equality Fund, which supports more than 650 women’s rights and feminist organizations across 90 countries.   

Canada’s 10-Year Commitment to advancing the health and rights of women and girls exemplifies the deep connection between SDGs 3 and 5. This commitment promotes better access to gender-responsive nutrition services and comprehensive sexual and reproductive health and rights. Ensuring the inclusion of sexual and reproductive health services in primary health care strengthens health systems and advances the 2030 Agenda. 

Achieving gender equality and ensuring healthy lives for all are not optional. They are essential. The conversations at the HLPF this year made one thing clear: change is driven by people who refuse to give up. As global challenges grow more complex, our commitment to multilateralism, inclusive partnerships, and human rights must grow stronger. 

Now is the time to act. To push harder, speak louder, and invest deeper. A healthier and more equal world is not just possible, it is necessary.