Addressing ministers at UN Headquarters in New York, he referred to as for pressing motion to rescue lagging Sustainable Growth Objectives (SDGs) amid struggle, inequality and monetary pressure.
“Transformation just isn’t solely crucial – it’s doable,” he declared, highlighting landmark commitments adopted in latest months: the Pandemic Settlement on the World Well being Meeting in Geneva, pledges to increase marine protected areas on the third UN Ocean Convention in Good, and the new imaginative and prescient for international finance agreed in Sevilla on the fourth Worldwide Financing for Growth Convention.
“These aren’t remoted wins, they’re indicators of momentum and indicators that multilateralism can ship.”
The remarks opened the ministerial phase of the Excessive-level Political Discussion board on Sustainable Growth (HLPF), the UN’s central platform for reviewing the 2030 Agenda and its 17 SDGs.
Get again on monitor
Mr. Guterres warned that the world stays far off monitor to satisfy the 2030 targets.
“Solely 35 per cent of SDG targets are on monitor or making reasonable progress. Practically half are transferring too slowly. And 18 per cent are going backwards,” he stated.
He urged governments to behave with urgency and ambition.
“The Sustainable Growth Objectives aren’t a dream. They’re a plan – a plan to maintain our guarantees to probably the most weak folks, to one another, and to future generations.”
Citing good points since 2015, together with expanded social safety, declining baby marriage and rising ladies’s illustration, he stated the SDGs stay “inside attain” if world leaders channel assets and political will.
The Secretary-Normal additionally linked growth and peace, noting ongoing violence in Gaza, Sudan, Myanmar, Ukraine and elsewhere.
“At each step, we all know sustainable peace requires sustainable growth,” he stated, calling for fast ceasefires and renewed dedication to diplomacy.
UN Photograph/Loey Felipe
ECOSOC President Bob Rae addresses the ministerial phase of the HLPF.
Double down on multilateralism
Bob Rae, President of the Financial and Social Council, echoed the Secretary‑Normal’s name, warning that international disruption – from local weather change to financial disarray – requires deeper solidarity.
“The SDGs aren’t elective beliefs, however reasonably important commitments,” he stated.
“Now just isn’t the time for us to desert our beliefs…it’s now truly the time to double down on our multilateral obligations to 1 one other.”
Mr. Rae cautioned that shrinking nationwide budgets and rising nationalist politics are undermining progress however insisted that “multilateralism delivers actual, tangible advantages for folks at each stage of society.”
He referred to as for nearer partnerships with civil society, native governments, and the non-public sector, stressing that SDGs have to be “built-in into budgets and insurance policies world wide, not as at odds, however because the core of how governments ought to serve their folks.”
Match ambition and supply
Philémon Yang, President of the Normal Meeting, emphasised aligning political commitments with concrete motion.
He praised the Compromiso de Sevilla and final 12 months’s Pact for the Future, which purpose to reform international monetary programs, scale up local weather finance, and strengthen worldwide tax cooperation.
“The hole between ambition and supply can solely be closed by solidarity, assets and political will,” he stated.
“The deadlines for the 2030 Agenda are quick approaching,” he warned. “Whether or not we prefer it or not. And whereas progress is lagging, we’ve the instruments and ambition to ship.”
Accountability and partnership
The HLPF, established on the landmark Rio+20 UN Convention on Sustainable Growth in 2012, serves as the first UN platform for monitoring SDG progress, together with by Voluntary Nationwide Evaluations (VNRs).
This 12 months’s discussion board, convened beneath the auspices of the ECOSOC, runs till 23 July with a concentrate on 5 objectives: well being, gender equality, respectable work, life under water, and international partnerships.
Greater than 150 nations have introduced VNRs – with 36 reporting this 12 months – showcasing nationwide efforts and challenges in implementing the 2030 Agenda.
Mr. Guterres praised the opinions as “acts of accountability” and “templates for different nations to comply with and study from.”
With simply 5 years left to satisfy the worldwide objectives, he urged ministers to “remodel these sparks of transformation right into a blaze of progress – for all nations.”
