Busan, South Korea — On January 22-24, AsiaDHRRA participates in the Busan Democracy Forum with theme “UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and Democracy: Promoting Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies”.

This was co-organized by the Permanent Secretariat of Community of Democracies (PSCD), Asia Democracy Network (ADN), and the Asia Development Alliance (ADA). The event was supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea, the Metropolitan City of Busan, and Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOIKA).
The forum focused on the UN Goal (16), gathered together high-level policy-makers, international organizations, governments, civil society and academic institutions from around the world who are engaged in the promotion of peaceful and inclusive societies.
Mags T. Catindig, AsiaDHRRA Program Manager, during the Session 2 on SDGs and ODA in Asia, shared the experiences of AsiaDHRRA and AgriCord in directly implementing bilateral, multilateral, ODA partnerships and programs.
AsiaDHRRA calls for a more effective development aid—financing that is closer to sector or communities most affected by development initiatives.
Moreover, Catindig moderated Session 4 about Fundamental Freedom and Anti-Discrimination in Asia. Three (3) key recommendations were extracted from the session including: popularization of issues and data on migrants, refugees, displaced communities, undocumented people, Dalits, etc.; representation of the said sector in the SDG processes and mechanisms; and, inclusion of these issues and use of appropriate terminologies in the SDG discourses and official documents.