UN aims to ‘end poverty’ with 2030 agenda for sustainable development

It is to “build on the Millennium Development Goals and complete what these did not achieve”, as said by the document.

Negotiators set out 17 new sustainable development goals seeking to end poverty, promote wellbeing and safeguard the environment, all by 2030.

“They are people-centred and planet-sensitive”.

The document will be formally adopted at the Sustainable Development Summit at the UN headquarters in New York on September 25-27.

In its declaration, the agenda sets out for Heads of State and Government to “resolve, between now and 2030, to end poverty and hunger everywhere”.

But the new drive will go significantly further, targeting the causes of poverty and the need for development that works for all people.

“We are resolved to free the human race within this generation from the tyranny of poverty and want to heal and secure our planet for the present and for future generations”, as reported by the text of the agreement.

More than 100 countries agreed on a framework in Ethiopia in July to bankroll the sustainable development goals by mobilizing domestic resources such as taxes, leverage private investment and channel foreign assistance.

“There is no reason why we can’t see remarkable transformation”, he said.

Meanwhile, a number of the economic targets include sustainability elements. The environmental dimension of sustainable development is covered in the goals on oceans and marine resources and on ecosystems and biodiversity, bringing core issues into the goal and target framework. The agenda calls for a revitalized, global partnership for sustainable development, including for multi-stakeholder partnerships, as well as for increased capacity building and better data and statistics to measure sustainable development.

“The SDGs represent a breakthrough in the way the worldwide community thinks about the interlinkages between growth, social norms, and the environment, and the UAE is proud to have high ambitions across these objectives”, said Lana Nussaibah, the UAE’s ambassador to the UN.

Sticking points in the negotiations, which were supposed to be completed Friday, included differences over references to good governance, reproductive rights for women and occupied territories – and on how to refer to climate change ahead of the December summit in Paris which will hopefully adopt a legally binding climate agreement to keep global warming from reaching unsafe levels.

The successful outcome of the Addis Conference gave important positive momentum to the last stretch of negotiations on the sustainable development agenda.