This article was first published on El Auditor.info

The Argentine Monitoring Platform for the 2030 Agenda (PAMPA 2030) began working with the Millennium Development Goals in 2012 and, in 2015, continued its work with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This multi-stakeholder platform, which brings together trade unions, civil society organisations, academics and social movements, monitors the implementation of the SDGs in Argentina.

PAMPA 2030 is an initiative launched by three national trade union centres, the CGT, CTA-A and CTA-T, which went on to open up the space to other actors from a range of organisations, movements and sectors. “We produce parallel reports on the progress and setbacks in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda,” said Marita González, coordinator of PAMPA 2030, in an interview with El Auditor.info.

The first report dates back to 2017. “We realised at the time that channels for civil society representation were lacking, and we noticed that other organisations were calling for the same thing, so we set up a forum for dialogue, to get to know each other. From there we started working together on independent monitoring by civil society organisations and gradually incorporated more stakeholders. That was how we came together. Our number one action priority is to monitor what the state is doing in terms of progress and setbacks in implementing all the SDGs, such as those related to hunger, poverty, gender, education, decent work, climate change, marine conservation and other goals,” said González.

They also carry out training and capacity building at national, provincial and local level. “We are working at local level to empower society to be able to help with the monitoring effort, as well as developing a programme to raise awareness about the 2030 Agenda and have launched a competition for series and documentaries about the issue,” explained the coordinator. They also publish research papers on their website.

Sustainable development handbook

The organisations grouped in the platform are currently working on an Argentinean handbook for the 2030 Agenda, together with the International Labour Organization, the United Nations and Argentina’s National Council for the Coordination of Social Policies (CNCPS). “We want a handbook that includes the perspectives of civil society, social actors, the state and the UN system. We want to reach out to the education system so that the issue is incorporated into the curriculum,” explained González.

One of the aims for 2022 is to be able to take this handbook to other regions. González continued: “We recently worked on it in Mar del Plata and we plan to take it across the country – we have to strengthen our local reach and that’s why we want to present it in eight provinces next year, to involve local civil society in developing the priorities and tools required to monitor the 2030 Agenda.”
They are currently finalising several reports on young people, post-Covid and inequality.

“As regards training, we are developing a seminar on SDGs and preparing the second call for the Forum for Social Participation. We started with monitoring the last year of all the Goals, because Argentina presents its report next year and our role is to contribute to offering a clearer and fuller analysis, because it is the social actors’ report regarding the 2030 Agenda,” said González.

Participation in sustainable development

For the PAMPA 2030 coordinator, civil society is responsible for monitoring governments’ public policies and ensuring that the Agenda truly benefits from a cross-cutting perspective on all the goals. “This is an agenda for all. A development model cannot be conceived without civil society actors: organisations, institutions, trade unions, movements, academia. The Agenda is an invitation for us to think about the world, to transform it, and this cannot be done without participation and without a dialogue that articulates all demands.”

“The 2030 Agenda is a horizon that takes shape locally. The particularities of each place give rise to differentiated demands. The only way to move forward with it is for society to build alliances with democratic and horizontal perspectives,” González concluded.