New York, 12 July 2022 (TDI): The United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) will hold a side event alongside the HLPF in New York on 13 July 2022.

UNWTO-JICA side event

Vafadari M. Kazem, a professor at the Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University will serve as moderator of the meeting.

The event aims to highlight how well to comprehend the SDGs from the view of tourism. It will also show the true potential of the tourism sector as a driver to fulfilling the SDGs.

Sustainable development goals
Sustainable development goals

The side meeting also aims to bring key public and private sector tourism stakeholders together. These will, therefore, discuss the contribution of tourism towards achieving many goals through the work of the One Planet Network-Sustainable Tourism program.

Other works include community-based interventions; socio-economic recovery plans as well as tourism strategies.

The event will also include a panel discussion on tourism and SDGs. Panelists include Takashi Aoki, Leader of the JICA Project Enhancing the Mechanism for sustainable Community Based Tourism Development in the North Region in the Dominican Republic, and Chris Rocker, the Chief executive officer at South Pacific Tourism Organization.

The Long Run Executive Director, Delphine Malleret-King will also be on the panel. Other panelists include Nadine Pinto who is Global Sustainability Manager at Travel Corporation. Lina Fernanda Pinto, the International Cooperation Program and Delegate of the Directorate of Quality and Sustainable Development of the vice-ministry of Tourism of Colombia is also a panelist.

UNWTO and JICA

UNWTO and JIC have a long history of working together to promote the 2030 Agenda.  The two organizations have, therefore, joined together to produce a manual of common and harmonized indicators, and explanations. This aims to assess the impact of tourism and its contribution to the SDGs. This is at the project level therefore; it can be used for all tourism projects.

The indicators chosen will also highlight the transformative power tourism has at all levels and also the effects of investments and interventions in the sector.