HORIZONTAL INTEGRATION
Tuesday, 18 August 2020
The National Council for Sustainable Development was established as an individual institution of the Hungarian Parliament, by five-party consensus, in the autumn of 2008. Its members including politicians, representatives of economic and scientific life, churches, trade unions and civil society. The chairperson of the Council is the current Speaker of the Parliament.
The guidance document for preparing the Hungarian NSDS points out that, during the decision-making process (e.g. legislative, investment, budget, institutions or governmental issues in a broader sense) all important social and environmental factors have to be considered beside the long-term effects.
All Government ministries were involved in the development of the old and the renewed NSDS and could comment on early drafts. In the renewing process all ministries had opportunity either to have delegate in a working group, on the other hand Ministry of Rural Development collected the written comments and sent to the Council.
The country’s VNR has been prepared through an inter-ministerial coordination mechanism set up in 2017, which has greatly enhanced both policy coherence for sustainable development and the achievement of the sustainable development framework. Based on this mechanism, a platform has been created which facilitates the involvement of non-governmental entities as well, including the Hungarian Central Statistical Office and other consultative stakeholders, the academia and the business sector. This coordination entity is involved in the national-level realization of the sustainable development framework, while the Inter-ministerial Coordinative Committee for International Development Cooperation continues to be responsible for the coordination of the implementation of the external dimensions of the 2030 Agenda.