Delegations break out in applause as H.E. Macharia Kamau, Permanent Representative of Kenya and Co-Facilitator of the Intergovernmental Negotiations on the Post-2015 Development Agenda, declares the adoption of the outcome document, “Transforming our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.”
NEW YORK, 02 August 2015 – Member States of the United Nations adopted today an ambitious “people-centered” Agenda that will define international, regional and national development agenda priorities for the next 15 years.
The Agenda, as contained in the outcome document entitled, "Transforming our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, announces 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 targets that cover the economic, social and environmental dimensions of development. It identifies the eradication of poverty in all its forms and dimensions, including extreme poverty, as the greatest global challenge and as an indispensable requirement for sustainable development.
The Agenda will be launched at the UN Summit for the Post-2015 Development Agenda to be held on 25-27 September 2015 at the UN Headquarters in New York. The Summit will also launch a Technology Facilitation Mechanism (TFM) to support the SDGs through science, technology and innovation.
Philippine Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Lourdes O. Yparraguirre, delivering the Philippine intervention
The Philippine delegation, led by Permanent Representative Lourdes O. Yparraguirre, strongly advocated for the recognition of the positive contribution of migrants to inclusive growth and sustainable development in source, transit and destination countries and the promotion and protection of the rights of migrant workers, regardless of migration status. It also pushed for the inclusion of the special challenges facing middle-income countries, gender equality and empowerment of women, and for the adoption of an ambitious and universal climate agreement during the COP21 conference in Paris this coming December.
“We wish to recall that the Rio+20 outcome document on “The Future We Want” calls upon States to promote and protect effectively the human rights and fundamental freedoms of all migrants regardless of their migration status, especially those of women and children,” Ambassador Yparraguirre said during negotiations.
“The middle-income countries (MICs) are not yet in a comfortable situation just because they have passed what many believe is an arbitrary threshold. The reality is that 73 percent of the world’s poorest people are to be found in MICs, so if we are to eradicate poverty in all its forms and dimensions, we need to complement MICs’ mobilization of domestic resources with ODA, capacity building and technical assistance. In turn they can overcome the so-called middle-income trap and continue to be engines of regional and global growth,” she stressed.
Representatives of the193 member states of the United Nations and of civil society and stakeholders, including UN organizations, gathered at the UN Headquarters in New York from 20 July to 02 August 2015 for the final round of negotiations for the Post-2015 Development Agenda.
The SDGs will replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and seek to complete what the MDGs did not achieve.
The post-2015 development agenda is complemented and supported by the Addis Ababa Action Plan (AAAA), which is the outcome of the 3rd Financing for Development Conference, held last 13-16 July 2015 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The AAAA provides a track for the means of implementation (MoI) of the post-2015 development agenda, through the harnessing of domestic and international resources, both public and private, as well as trade, and science and technology.
Negotiations for the post-2015 development agenda began in November 2014 with the appointment of H.E. Macharia Kamau and H.E. David Donoghue, Permanent Representatives of Kenya and Ireland to the United Nations, respectively, as co-facilitators of the process.
The Philippine Mission to the UN, together with the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), represented the Philippines at the negotiations. The negotiations also involved extensive consultations with major groups and other civil society stakeholders. END