UN regional forum opens with call for SDG progress
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GBNews24 Desk//
On the back of the COVID-19 pandemic and recent crises, the region is fast losing ground on its ability to achieve the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The Ninth Asia-Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development (APFSD) opened on Monday in Bangkok with a resounding call for countries to ensure recovery strategies are inclusive, just and leaves no one behind despite the mounting challenges ahead.
Organized by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) from 28 to 31 March, the Forum brings together a cross-section of key development actors, including senior government and UN officials, the private sector, youth and civil society representatives to share their experiences and mobilize regional action under the theme “Building back better from COVID-19 while advancing the full implementation of the 2030 Agenda in Asia and the Pacific,” said a press release.
Almost 90 million people in the region have been pushed back into extreme poverty to live with less than $1.90 per day. Meanwhile, over 30 million children are experiencing acute malnutrition. Some 109 – 166 million jobs have been lost in developing Asia and the Pacific, accounting for nearly 70% of total employment losses globally.
“We need to invest in women, young people, people with disabilities, people working in the informal sector as well as refugees and migrants. They have been hit the hardest by the pandemic and will continue to pay the highest price if we do not take urgent action,” said United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed in her keynote address.
She added, “Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals was never going to be easy. But it is still possible.”
“For seven and a half decades, ESCAP has been the most inclusive platform to promote dialogue and foster joint regional action in Asia and the Pacific. Advocating complementarity of development approaches and frameworks remain at the heart of the transformation and resurgence in the region,” said Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana, UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of ESCAP.
Also at the opening, Ambassador Suriya Chindawongse, Vice President of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) underscored, “The challenges of sustainable development and the consequences of not achieving it ultimately affects all of us because we are all interconnected and interdependent. In the long run, no island of prosperity and no atoll of affluence can endure in a sea of poverty and an ocean of inequity.”
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