Georgetown: Guyana will join its global counterparts in formally adopting the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development at the Sustainable Development Summit, which begins today at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
The agenda, aimed primarily at eliminating poverty globally, protecting the planet and promoting peace and partnerships, includes 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, tackle climate change, fight inequality and injustice by the year 2030.
Business Minister Dominic Gaskin said: “These Sustainable Development Goals, as they are called, will be the new goals that we will have to work on achieving. One of these specifically pointed out is to promote sustained, inclusive and economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all.” The Minister also posited that programmes such as these can safeguard the country’s economic future.
The Goals replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which the UN in September 2000 rallied the world around, in a common 15-year agenda to tackle poverty and hunger, deadly but treatable diseases, and illiteracy. This new development agenda applies to all countries, promotes peaceful and inclusive societies, creates better jobs and tackles the environmental challenges of our time – particularly climate change.
The objective was to produce a set of universally applicable goals that balance the three dimensions of sustainable development: inclusive economic growth, sound environmental stewardship, and fair and transparent governance.
The 17 Goals as agreed by all 193 member states of the UN cover a 15-year timeframe to 2030 and include 169 targets. The majority of Governments seem happy with the proposals, but a handful of member states believe an agenda consisting of 17 goals is too unwieldy to implement or sell to the public, and would prefer a narrower brief. Or so they say. Some believe the underlying reason is to get rid of some of the more uncomfortable goals, such as those relating to the environment.
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