First, before we go into the launch of the report, I’d like to say few words in solidarity with the women and girls in Afghanistan.
As you know earlier this year, I was there. I join the Secretary-General in strongly condemning the Taliban’s decision to ban Afghan women from working with the UN in Afghanistan.Ìý
It is a clear violation of our fundamental human rights of women.Ìý
I have met our female staff members and they are essential for the UN’s work, including in the delivery of life-saving assistance. Some national colleagues have already experienced restrictions on their movements.
The UN - we reiterate that both Afghan women and men are essential to all aspects of our work and it is taking all possible measures right now to support our national female staff at this difficult time.
UN national female staff will continue to receive their salaries and posts of women and staff will not be backfilled by [men.] The participation of female staff in the humanitarian response is essential if the UN is to reach populations in need of safety and effectively with principled and quality assistance.
Our leadership at the UN is continuing to engage with the Taliban de facto authorities as well as neighbouring countries, in fact we were in meetings this morning with the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Until additional clarification is received, the UN is instructing all of our national staff – men and women – not to report to the office.
The UN continues to remain committed to assisting Afghan people – two-thirds of whom are 23 million people in need of life-saving assistance, including 20 million people who are food insecure, six million of whom are one step away from famine.
I understand that a little later you’ll hear more at the UNAMA noon briefing.
Let me close by reminding the world that we do have a 2023 Afghan Humanitarian Response Plan. It’s currently the largest single-country appeal in the world.
And so, we are urging all our partners to stand in unity with the women and girls and the people of Afghanistan by ensuring this funding gets to them.
On a personal note, I am outraged.
I am terribly troubled by the fact that in the month of Ramadan, that what we get from the Taliban is a strike against the teachings and the belief of Islam.
The Holy Quran and the Hadith of the Prophet (Sallallahu Alayhi Wa Sallam) allows and gives rights to women on education for work.Ìý On Khadija, the wife of the Prophet (Sallallahu Alayhi Wa Sallam) was a merchant, the Prophet (Sallallahu Alayhi Wa Sallam) was an employee. The jihad was funded by the funding from a woman. I think it is not at this time, when we had to be closer to God, that we strike against the women of Afghanistan. These are women who are mothers, they’re sisters, they’re daughters, they are grandmothers, they are wives and it is clearly a very troubling time.
We continue to stand by the women and the girls of Afghanistan.
So, with that, we felt this was really important we said this, but we are here to launch our report. We are here to present the 2023 Financing for Sustainable Development Report.
In producing this report, the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs has collaborated with more than 60 of our UN and international agencies and institutions, and they’ve done this through an Inter-agency Task Force on Financing for Development. So, you will see a clear buy-in to the outcomes of this report.
We are nearing eight years since the adoption of the Addis Ababa Action Agenda and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. We gavelled through the Addis Ababa Action Agenda before the 2030 agenda which is a very important part of it.
Yet halfway to the 2030 deadline, progress towards the SDGs is clearly eroding before our eyes.
We have a lot of cascading global crises – from the COVID-19 pandemic to the impacts of the war in Ukraine to the escalating climate emergency and all have battered our countries, and developing economies in particular.
Tighter global financial conditions have been devastating for countries with crushing debt burdens. And recent bouts of banking instability in developed countries, though not yet a systemic crisis, further raise global risk levels.
The global financial system has currently failed to protect developing countries in this time of unprecedented crises – in part because it was never designed with their interests in mind and that’s very many decades ago.
Developed countries adopted expansionary fiscal and monetary policies that have enabled them to invest in recovery, returning them to pre-pandemic growth paths.
Meanwhile, financing constraints continue to prevent developing countries from responding to these crises and investing in sustainable development.
The ‘great finance divide’ that the task force reported on last year risks becoming a lasting sustainable development divergence.
As always, it is the poorest and most vulnerable that suffer first and worst.
At current trends, we have 574 million people – nearly 7 per cent of the world’s population – will be trapped in extreme poverty by 2030.
This year, a record 339 million people will require humanitarian aid – that's one in every 23 people on our planet.
In the face of these unprecedented challenges, we really must act with greater urgency and determination.
We need a two-track approach: first, we must do the most with what we have to provide the needed relief. And second and simultaneously, we must push for reform of the international financial system – to make it equitable, resilient, and accessible to everyone.
We will not solve today’s challenges by relying on the system that has helped to create them.
We currently need to rebuild global cooperation and find the solutions to our current crises in multilateral action.Ìý
As the FSDR 2023 show, industrialization has historically been an engine of growth, it has created jobs and there has been technological advancement.
New green sustainable industrial policies can help strengthen our domestic productive capacities, it can support the low-carbon transitions, and it can create decent jobs, and certainly enhance resilience.
Together with other policies and supported by integrated national planning, we see that they can lay the foundation for a new green industrial age, that is inclusive and sustainable energy and food systems, and faster, broader progress towards the SDGs, a further investment.
The report is setting out two actions that are crucial:
First, the international community must urgently scale up development cooperation and boost SDG investments, including through a large-scale SDG Stimulus.
This SDG Stimulus includes a three-pronged call to action that is focused on tackling the high cost of debt and rising risks of debt distress. We have over 60 countries, as I would say, on debt row; massively scaling-up long-term financing for development; and expanding contingency financing to countries in need.
Second, the current international financial architecture must be made fit for purpose.
We are already seeing the biggest rethink of international finance, monetary, trade, and tax systems since the 1940s. We have a window of opportunity to enact real and meaningful change.
But the conversation remains fragmented. The different strands need to come together and be fully aligned with the SDGs, with climate action, and achieving the just transitions for everyone.
Next week, Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors will meet in Washington. We will also see from the 17 of April, the ECOSOC Financing for Development Forum that will convene here in New York, followed by the SDG Summit and the High-Level Dialogue on Financing for Development in September.
These are critical opportunities for us to raise the bar, create the momentum for stakeholders to come together to secure our common future.
To prevent a lost decade for sustainable development, we really do have to deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals that were a promise to the world.
--- In a nutshell ---
We do have multiple shocks to the system (including the war in Ukraine).Ìý
• ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý We see this pushing people and countries into poverty.Ìý
• ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Inflation.Ìý
• ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Not the equal access to money.
• ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Money more expensive.Ìý
• ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý We see 345 million people facing acute insecurity through putting their lives and livelihoods in immediate danger. And I underscore, lives and livelihoods go together.
• ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý The change for those Food Systems.
Investments in energy transition and green jobs.Ìý
• ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý And we would say that the SDGs today are in emergency mode and we need the solutions for the longer-term prevention.
• ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý SDG stimulus.
• ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý It is a solution and a response that we offer to the world for financing development, including $500 billion dollars a year.Ìý
• ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý And of course, the debt relief.Ìý
Now I’m happy, together with my colleagues, to take any questions that you may have.
Thank you.
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