Remarks by the President of the General Assembly
Mr. Phil¨¦mon Yang,
Second Committee, 16th?plenary meeting
General Assembly, 79th session
17 October 2024
[As Delivered]
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Let me begin by extending my warm congratulations to Your Excellency, Mr. Muhammad Abdul Muhith, Permanent Representative of Bangladesh, on your election as Chair of the Second Committee.
I also wish to congratulate the members of the bureau on their election.
I have no doubt that the Chair, assisted by the bureau, will find great success in leading the important work of the Second Committee during the 79th session.
We meet today at a highly complex moment, with geopolitical conflicts creating complex uncertainties, and shifting focus away from the urgent development needs of the Global South.
Among these countries, economic growth is slow and uneven.
Debt burdens are rising.
Debt burdens cripple economies in the developing countries.
And the impact of climate change, one of the defining challenges of our time, is being disproportionately borne by peoples across their diverse societies.
With less than six years until our deadline to meet the Sustainable Development Goals, we have no time to lose in meeting the development financing needs of countries in the Global South.
The economic transitions needed to reach the Goals by 2030 will require investments at an unprecedented scale.
A massive $4 trillion will be needed annually for developing countries alone.
This represents a more than 50 per cent increase over pre-pandemic estimates.
We know that only 18 per cent of the Goals are on track to be met by 2030.
And we know that mobilizing investment across the Global South would unleash progress across the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Smart investments in health, education, energy, agriculture, infrastructure, digitization and other areas would catapult our efforts to get back on track.
Savings for financing the 2030 Agenda can also be made from other fields, including through reduction in military spending.
The Pact for the Future and its annexes present an historic opportunity for us to do just that.
The Pact contains about 25 actions that are directly related to the work of the Second Committee ¨C from sustainable development and cooperation on science, technology, and innovation, to the reform of the international financial architecture.
Many other actions are indirectly related to the Committee¡¯s work.
Therefore, you are in the unique position to both advance the implementation of the Pact and catalyse progress across the 2030 Agenda, transforming our ambitions into actions that improve the lives of our 8 billion people on the planet.
There is much work to be done to achieve these aims.
This year, the Committee will engage in negotiations on the 2024 Quadrennial Comprehensive Policy Review, setting the course of the Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ development system for the next four years.
It is critical that we recalibrate the system towards the achievement of the Goals.
Your work on the Policy Review will thus be highly consequential.
More broadly, I welcome the joint meeting held recently between the Second Committee and the Economic and Social Council.
I am confident that by leveraging the synergies between these two work programmes, we can find the solutions we need.
In this connection, I note that the Committee for Programme and Coordination, in its sixty-fourth session, did not provide conclusions and recommendations on three programmes of the Second Committee.
I therefore appreciate the Chair¡¯s initiative of convening an informal meeting to consider the open programmes, before they are considered by the Fifth Committee.
Your deliberations this session will be vital to informing the outcomes of several major conferences on the horizon, including:
-?????The 2024 Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ Climate Change Conference, in Azerbaijan in November,
-?????The Third Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ Ocean Conference in France in June next year, and
-?????The Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development in Spain?in July 2025.
As you embark on your work, I echo the Chair¡¯s call to maintain your tradition of consensus as we work together towards our shared goal of leaving no one behind.
I am confident that, together, we can advance action across the 2030 Agenda and find solutions to the funding gaps of those countries most in need.
I wish the Committee utmost success in concluding its work within the agreed deadline.?
I look forward to the productive outcomes of your deliberations.
I thank you.
?
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