My first conference at the United Nations was deeply illuminating, despite the many esoteric acronyms. The STI Forum is short for the Multi-stakeholders Forum on Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As a part of the UN Major Group for Children and Youth (MGCY), I had the chance to observe the meeting from the perspective of a civil society “stakeholder”. Since the UN is dominated by states, such a forum aims to incorporate other “stakeholders”, including private companies, non-governmental organizations, academia and major groups from the civil society. Thanks to the Science Diplomacy Center at The Fletcher School, I learned about the intersection between science, and policy. Starting from there, I also learned about the Science-Policy Interface (SPI) and the Technology Facilitation Mechanism (TFM) at the UN.
