Against the backdrop of seemingly endless challenges across the world, United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed told a conference of development-minded partners in Nigeria that “no country, no region” could tackle them alone.
“In the regions today, no country is alone. Our borders don’t make any difference in the Sahel when we talk about issues of terrorism, migration, and climate change. No country, no region can tackle the global challenges of today,” Ms. Mohammed said at the opening of the Kaduna State Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Acceleration Conference 2019.
Under the theme “Building effective partnership for accelerated progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals”, the two-day conference aims to fortify partnerships to fast-track implementation of the global goals, which each country is adapting to reach ambitious targets on poverty and hunger eradication, among other challenges.
Calling the rise in global hunger over the past few years “a great concern”, Ms. Mohammed underscored that the world has enough to feed itself two to three times over, but inequalities mean that millions go to bed hungry and “short change us in the revenue [that] otherwise would have been put into governance.”
Despite a global decline in the number of people living in poverty, the Deputy Secretary-General observed that there are many reasons why extreme poverty remains.
She singled out the two explanations of “when there is no enabling environment and when there is no stability”.
Ms. Mohammed stressed the importance of using a national outlook, within a regional context, to drive what are global goals.
The Deputy Secretary-General also argued that effective partnerships are vital to achieving the SDGs. As a case in point, she focused on the room, where federal and state governments, members of the international community, civil society, and local and community authorities, were all participants.
Original source: UN News
Published on 23 January 2019
