Luanda - Angolan Head of State João Lourenço stressed the need to coordinate effort to end conflicts, instability, insecurity and unpredictability that hamper investment and deprive markets of the credibility that international partners need to invest more in their economies.
João Lourenço was addressing the summit on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as part of the High-Level Week of the 78th Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations, taking place in New York (US).
Delivering his speech, in his capacity as chairperson of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), the Angolan president said he was aware of the interdependent relationship between peace and development.
João Lourenço stressed the country’s commitment to continue to develop actions with a view to achieving the community's 2050 vision in the future, which envisages a region with political and social stability, peaceful and developed from economic, justice and freedom point of view for its citizens.
He defended combined effort to achieve these objectives (Vision 2050), which are specific to this region and shared by international partners.
“But it can be achieved if there is much less embarrassment and obstacles. If the situation in our region and the international community improves, develop without unilateral punitive measures against SADC member states, as in the case of Zimbabwe”, he said.
Climate change
On the other hand, the Angolan President said that the Southern African region has been subject to the consequences of climate change, with all the harmful effects that this has on the region's economies.
He highlighted the need to implement the international climate change agenda and fulfill the promises made by developed countries to make financial resources available, in order to, with some other complementary resources, ensure financing for adaptation until 2025, to achieve the goals objectives of recapitalising the green climate fund.
João Lourenço highlighted the importance of global cooperation, solidarity and joint action, to face the multiple and complex challenges that the world currently faces.
“We are facing a time in which the assessment we make regarding our performance will allow us to take measures to correct or rectify anything that appears to us not to have been carried out in the most appropriate way,” he said.
The statesman also added that it is necessary to make the meeting “a true turning point, towards a more dynamic, committed and engaged approach, with a view to strengthening our political commitment and mobilising will capable of helping to advance in areas, whose The results will be positively reflected in the improvement of the general living conditions of our populations”.
Cooperation
João Lourenço said that the SADC region has made notable progress in implementing the cooperation and regional integration priorities, outlined in the organisation's 2050 vision and the indicative strategic plan for regional development 2020 – 2030.
“… We must recognise that a set of conditions that derive from the Covid-19 pandemic, climate change and other factors, namely the instability that affected some countries in the region, have had a considerable negative impact on the ability of countries to comply, more effectively , the strategic plans that aim to deepen the regional integration of Southern Africa and promote its development, in a perspective that highlights the ambitions for the Africa we want, established in the African Union's 2063 agenda”, he highlighted.
According to the President, the progress could have been more significant and more expressive, “if we had not had to deal with the global crisis and other specific ones in our region that forced us to divert our attention from the central issues of development in order to confront them".
He said that the difficulties in accessing financial resources, under comfortable conditions for the economies of this region, represent another side of the problem for carrying out essential projects in key areas, to boost development, on which the creation of conditions that favour the necessary and urgent change in the poverty framework and indicators.
The event is one of eight initiatives taking place in parallel with the UN General Debate, from the 19 to 26 September.
The opening session of the two-day event also included speeches by the President of the General Assembly, the Secretary-General of the United Nations and the President of the Economic and Social Council, as well as a number of heads of state and government.
During the SDG Summit, the Heads of State and Government are addressing the mid-point of the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and creating a decisive opportunity to accelerate efforts in this direction.
The event represents a central platform for the United Nations to push member states to take renewed political leadership in implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. OHA/SC/DAN/NIC
