Iftikhar Ali
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 16 (APP): The High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HPLF) wrapped up its 2021 session Thursday, with Ambassador Munir Akram calling its outcome as a “beacon of hope” for the developing countries trying to recover from the devastating economic and social impacts of the coronavirus pandemic.
In his closing remarks, Akram, the Pakistani ambassador who is also the President of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), said the deliberations over eight days, in which many world leaders, including Prime Minister Imran Khan, took part — virtually and in-person — were “intense and action-oriented.”
He expressed the hope that member states would be guided by that beacon of hope as “we navigate heavy seas” towards the post of the anti-poverty Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The HLPF, which is held under ECOSOC’s auspices, is the core UN platform for follow-up and review of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 SDGs.
Ambassador Akram, who presided over the intensive deliberations, said the forum examined the Voluntary National Reviews of 42 countries that illustrated both the common and differentiated challenges they confront in realizing the SDGs and responding to the COVID pandemic.
The status of implementation of key SDGs was also reviewed, he said, adding that “unless states, individually and jointly, take bold emergency actions, we will, by and large, be unable to achieve the most of 17 SDGs by 2030.”
Thursday’s meeting also unanimously adopted a Ministerial Declaration that prescribes the required actions and commits governments and other stakeholders to implement them.
Ambassador Akram said the main messages from the forum’s deliberations and the declaration are:
(1): The world must quickly contain and defeat the COVID-19 virus. No one will be safe until everyone is safe. The world economy will not fully recover, nor can we achieve the SDGs in time unless we do so. The COVID-19 vaccine is a global public good and must be made available to all.
(2): Finance is the key to COVID recovery, SDG achievement and in arresting climate change and environmental degradation. Finance mobilization must be pursued as a global goal to address all aspects of the triple crisis: Debt restructuring, concessional assistance, creation and generous reallocation of unutilized Special Drawing Rights (SDR) quotas, scaled up public and private investment in sustainable infrastructure and other employment generating projects and programmes.
(3): Poverty and hunger, which has increased sharply, must be addressed frontally, including through social protection programmes and safety nets, and massive concessional assistance to those in need, the poorest people and the poorest and vulnerable countries.
(4) The UN System must continue to be the principal advocate of the poor and act boldly to secure implementation of all the commitments made in the Ministerial Declaration. It must press the powerful to make the paradigm change in the methods and modalities of mutual cooperation, which embraces the objectives and equity, inclusion and universality.
“Without this, we will be consigned to a world that is increasingly divided between the rich and poor, to rising poverty, human suffering, social chaos and proliferating conflicts,” Ambassador Akram added.
The UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed also addressed the closing session.
She attributed the COVID pandemic to “a reversal of SDG progress in some areas, and delayed action on many of the major transitions required to meet our 2030 goals”.
Ms Mohammed said the pandemic has had a “deeply negative impact” on health and well-being; employment, businesses, incomes, education; and human rights, with “a particularly damaging effect on women and girls”.
She said many participants observed that some of the measures put in place during the pandemic could provide a foundation for SDG progress, giving the examples of digital learning, which could help to transform education more broadly, along with building on critical fiscal support many countries had provided to their economy, jobs and people.
“Governments should now consider whether some of these measures can be integrated into comprehensive social protection systems”, the UN official said.
Recovery efforts can be designed both to restart economies and accelerate SDG implementation, she added.
