Opening Remarks by the President of the General Assembly,
Mr. Dennis Francis,
at the High-Level Thematic Debate on Debt Sustainability and Socio-Economic Equality
15 April 2024
[As Delivered]
Your Excellency, Mia Amor Mottley, Prime Minister of Barbados,
Your Excellency, Robinah Nabbanja, Prime Minister of the Republic of Uganda,
Mr. Antonio Guterres, Secretary General of the United Nations,
Your Excellency, Paula Narvaéz, President of the Economic and Social Council,
Mr. Achim Steiner, Administrator of the United Nations Development Program
Excellencies, Honourable Ministers,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Good Afternoon!
It is a special pleasure to welcome you all – especially those high-level delegations who travelled from capitals to be here – as well as representatives from Member States and Observer Missions in New York, representatives of the UN system and several other stakeholders, at this first-ever United Nations General Assembly Sustainability Week.
You will recall that sustainability is one of the four watchwords adopted in the vision for my Presidency – together with peace, progress and prosperity.
While unanticipated developments related to international peace and security have commanded the Presidency’s attention, and rightly so, I am delighted that over the past seven months of my tenure, we were nevertheless able to couple our focus on the aforementioned matters with other critical dimensions of the Assembly’s work including sustainable development.
As you know, the thrust of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is the better advantage to be enjoyed by society as a whole from transitioning to a more sustainable, more resilient, more equitable and stable world; a world that discourages or nullifies the impulse to conflict and discord and promotes instead peace and harmony.
Over the next five days, we will delve into sector-specific reflections on five key sectors of the economy that have the potential, if infused with a sustainability dimension, to unleash their extraordinary potential to drive progress across all of the Sustainable Development Goals, as we maintain a laser focus on the forthcoming all important Summit of the Future in September.
I hope that by consolidating several high-level General Assembly mandated meetings into this single week of authoritative discourse, we will lift the level of confidence and indeed motivation to move beyond the rhetoric of sustainability to setting in motion, the actions necessary to initiate the process of transition, and so supercharge progress towards achieving the sustainable development goals.
Excellencies,
Today’s High-Level Thematic Debate on Debt Sustainability and Socio-Economic Equality issues from the realization that – without first tackling the debt problem, principally affecting countries in special situations in the Global South – all that we seek to accomplish in the context of global development, including the SDGs, will remain a far-fetched mirage.
It is precisely for that reason that I deemed it tactically appropriate to open the week with a discussion on this crucial matter: the overload of debt, which will be followed in sequence by conversations on tourism; sustainable transport; resilience in infrastructure connectivity; and finally, a Global Stock take marking the completion of the UN Decade of Sustainable Energy for All.
Each of these matters are deeply interconnected, reflecting the inter-linked nature of sustainability, and in fact, the linkages between the Sustainable development goals themselves. We see this in the fact that sustainable transport requires both safe resilient infrastructure connectivity and sustainable energy. And without both of these as critical inputs, the travel and tourism industry will surely collapse, leading inevitably to more poverty, hunger and misery.
For very many countries in the global south, meeting one’s obligations through servicing the debt undermines the government’s capacity to invest in sustainable development; in such critical sectors as education, health and social protection etc., resulting in the chronic underfunding of those sectors, with telling social and developmental consequences, both for the short and long term.
Excellencies,
I hope that all of you found a card from me on your desk, with a pin commemorating Sustainability Week. This is not merely a token – but rather, an invitation for each of you to join me and Choose Sustainability. Asking you to make a pledge to take action, both individually or organizationally, to promote sustainability in your day-to-day lives.
I thank those Member States and representatives who have already joined the #ChooseSustainability campaign, and look forward to welcoming many more of you in that pledge.
As I mentioned earlier, the subject of engagement today is debt.
Let us not mince words. The debt crisis is, in fact, a development crisis, and one that permeates the Global South.
In 2023, global public debt reached an astounding 313 trillion dollars. Public debt has risen more rapidly in developing than in developed countries – with developing countries’ external debt stocks hitting 11.4 trillion dollars.
Notably, over the past two decades, economic growth in developing countries has decelerated, dropping to approximately 4 percent from 6 percent. To keep things in perspective, for each percentage point of growth lost, an additional hundred million people were pushed into poverty.
Turning to the countries in special situations, the total public debt for the Least Developed Countries stands at 344 billion dollars; for Landlocked Developing Countries, 704 billion dollars; and for Small Island Developing States, 82 billion dollars.
Without immediate action to address such high rates of indebtedness, there is no relief in sight for poverty alleviation among other things. Consider that the twenty-eight countries with the weakest credit ratings have an average debt-to-GDP ratio of 75 percent – locking them into an interminable cycle of poverty and under-development with virtually no prospects for reaching the SDG’s – the so called debt trap.
And all too often it is the well-being and welfare of the people that is sacrificed in order to meet onerous debt obligations, with the poorest and most vulnerable being hit the hardest.
In other words – as the Fireside Chat will reveal in its deliberations later – People Pay the Price.
In regions like Africa, and indeed in other developing regions of the world, the interest payments on debt are astronomical, often exceeding the Government’s combined expenditure on health and education.
Excellencies,
Currently, around 700 million people live on less than 2.15 US dollars per day.
By 2030, an estimated 600 million people will still remain impoverished – indicative of the glacial pace of ‘progress’ that falls far short of our SDG goals.
Meanwhile, 10% of the world population owns 76% of the global wealth and interestingly, the wealth of the world’s five richest individuals surged from 405 billion to 869 billion dollars since 2020.
It is clear that the gap between the wealthy north and the developing south is widening, increasingly limiting the life chances of people living there. The world is on track to witness its first trillionaire by 2030 – while it will take another 229 years to eradicate poverty.
As always, those most affected by socio-economic inequalities are young people, women, persons with disabilities, people in rural and remote areas – and other vulnerable groups. And if nothing is done to correct this situation, they will literally be left behind, denied from enjoying the fruits of development, and ignored.
Clearly, this is neither acceptable nor sustainable.
Ultimately, achieving debt sustainability and socio–economic equity necessitates a well-coordinated multilateral effort to reshape and reform the international financial architecture – especially the International Financial Institutions, so that they can better support and facilitate sustainable development in the Global South.
Excellencies, Honourable Ministers,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
With an eye to laying the groundwork for a successful forward–looking Summit of the Future in September, the time for decisive action to address the questions related to debt and development is now.
Our collective aim should not only be to achieve debt sustainability – but to fundamentally restructure the international financial system, whose policy frameworks pose a real challenge to sustainable development by creating poverty and perpetuating inequality.
The situation is urgent, and I trust that the collective expertise of stakeholders present today – from academia, NGOs, the private sector, and Member States – will generate insightful ideas and approaches to resolve the debt crisis and establish a fairer global financial system that achieves socio-economic equality for all.
I thank you.
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