Press Stakeout by the President of the General Assembly,
Mr. Dennis Francis,
to the press upon conclusion of Sustainability Week (including the launch of a Call to Action on Energy)
22 April 2024
[As delivered]
Dear Friends,
We have just concluded what has been a very eventful and pioneering Sustainability Week.
I extend my sincere gratitude to everyone who attended or followed online and contributed to the success of this first-ever Sustainability Week.
The Week was greatly enhanced by the presence of several distinguished high-level speakers and expert panellists.
I am particularly thankful to the Heads of State and Government – the President of the Republic of Poland, the Prime Ministers of the Republic of Barbados, and the Republic of Uganda – as well as the Ministers and several high-level officials who took time out of their busy schedules to join us.
I also express our thanks to all those who contributed to the success of our social media campaign – #ChooseSustainability – which encouraged participants as well as the public to commit to taking specific actions on a day-to-day basis to promote sustainability.
Thus far, 45 Member States actively pledged or supported the campaign.
Furthermore, our challenge on the “Act Now” app for the general public resulted in 147,706 actions – almost 600% (591%) above our initial target of 25,000!
I am delighted to note that more than 50 UN entities and civil society organizations partnered with us to promote this campaign.
This Week we convened:
- a High-level Thematic Debate on Debt Sustainability and Socioeconomic Equality for all.
- a High-level Thematic Event on Tourism.
- a High-level Meeting on Sustainable Transport.
- an Informal Dialogue on Building Global Resilience and Promoting Sustainable Development through Infrastructure Connectivity.
- and a Global Stocktaking to mark the Completion of the UN Decade of Sustainable Energy for All.
Following the global stocktaking, I launched a Call to Action to the international community to:
- Deliver on extending access to electricity to over 600 million people currently without it.
- Provide clean cooking solutions to over 2 billion people who still rely on harmful fuels, to rapidly accelerate the transition to clean, renewable energy, in a just, orderly, and equitable manner.
- dramatically scale up finance and investment for developing countries.
- and boost public-private partnerships, especially for technology transfer to the developing countries; in particular, Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States.
As we conclude, let us carry forward this momentum to the Summit of the Future and beyond and turn commitments made this Week into actionable and sustained efforts to meaningfully benefit prosperity, planet and people.
I thank you.
[Q&A portion]
[Question]:
Thank you, Mr. President. My question is the issue of debt sustainability was highlighted during the week. My question is, did the week offer impressive solutions or a path forward for resolving this challenge? Thank you.
[President Dennis Francis]:
Well, I think you’re aware that the UN, we at the UN, all of us, have been promoting. In fact, we’ve been more than promoting, in fact, we’ve been insisting that the international financial architecture needs to be reformed in order to allow and to permit the poorest of the poor, the most vulnerable countries, that is the LDCs, the LLDCs and the SIDS, but not only those, some middle-income countries as well who are stuck in the debt trap…to allow them the opportunity to be able to borrow from the multilaterals and on commercial markets at more affordable rates with longer periods of amortization. And yet at the same time to be able to invest in sustainable development.
That sentiment that call was echoed by virtually every one of the speakers who took the podium and will no doubt be included in the discussions that will take place between the UN and the multilateral development banks such as the IMF and the World Bank. This is crucial because what it means, what it will mean is that developing countries do not, will not have to make a choice in a way it’s Hobson’s choice between investing to improve the standard of living and welfare of their people on the one hand and repaying their debts on the other hand. repaying the interest on their debts. It may or may not be known to you that there are several developing countries who spend more money repaying the interest on their debt, not the principal, the interest, than they spend on education, on poverty, and on hunger.
That is not sustainable. It is not equitable. It is not fair. and it is not right. Because what it means is that unless something is done to redress that situation, those countries, those hundreds of millions of people will have been relegated to a life of hopelessness and misery while the rest of the world moves forward. Not sustainable.
[Question]:
Mr. President, Dezhi Xu with China Central Television. So, my question, obviously we heard a lot of good ideas and people’s support on the sustainability this week with panelists and ministers and heads of state. But do you have confidence those good ideas could be implemented? And another question, if I may. Yesterday, Security Council just vetoed the Palestinian admission draft resolution. What do you want to say to those Palestinian people and what can the GA do?
[PGA]:
Thank you. Let me take your first question first. Implementation is largely a matter of political will. So, I suppose the question you’re really asking is whether the political will exists to implement it. That is something we shall have to wait to see. I can’t predict that it does. What I can say is that the decisions are implementable. And so, we hope that the will be mustered to do what is necessary to deliver the Sustainable Development Goals. But at the end of the day, it’s the Member States that will determine the extent to which they are committed to moving forward to lift people out of hopelessness and misery.
With respect to the resolution yesterday regarding Palestine and the role of the General Assembly, there are two possibilities: We are waiting in the Office of the President for the relevant players to advise us as to what the likely timing would be in which the matter will be taken up at the General Assembly. But that is as far as I can go, because to go further would be to speculate. And the one thing we do not do in this presidency is speculate.
[Question]:
Thank you, Mr. President. Stefano Vaccara, La Voce di New York, Italpress. Mr. President, until a few years ago, I would say just before the pandemic, there were huge, huge protests by young people for environment, sustainability, huge. And then, you know, then the pandemic came, and then the wars, other things. Students protest, but for a Palestinian cause, other things. What is your message to those young people that before they were going on the street, new young people, I mean, the one that were maybe too young, but now they should go on the street for environment. What is your message? Should they still go and protest to push the country to act? Or maybe, no, maybe this institution can go ahead and fix everything without the push from young people.
[PGA]:
I have been clear throughout and consistent in my encouragement to young people to get involved. The future is their future. And you know, the African region has a very apt saying in all the negotiations that we have. Nothing about me without me. That, in my view, is equally applicable to the youth. They’re smart, they’re motivated, they’re articulate, and they understand the issues. They have a right to help, to make a contribution to shaping the future, a future that they will inherit, and not just inherit, a future in which they will become the decision makers.
So, it makes sense, it makes perfect sense, that they should get involved now. I attended a youth event a couple of evenings ago, and one of the questions asked by a very bright young lady is, you know, people say we are young, and we should wait until we are more mature, maybe age 30, to make a contribution, to demand action. Why should we wait until 30, she asked. And I said to her, very bluntly, who said you should wait until 30? You’re an adult now. You’re a young adult. You don’t have to wait until age 30. You can speak up now and speak up loudly and firmly and decisively. So, make your contribution. Demand action. The UN requires and encourages the support and the engagement of young people.
They have got brilliant ideas that can help us. And so, we are happy and gratified that there is such a keen interest to participate in these processes, to make a contribution. We are certainly encouraging it in the context of the summit of the future. It is their future. There’s a sense in which we are in the phase of passing the baton on. They are the thought leaders of tomorrow. So, my advice to them is stay engaged. It’s a long haul. Development is a long haul. I’ve been in this business almost 45 years. It doesn’t happen in an instant. That is not how change happens. Stay engaged. Expand your knowledge. Try to be constructive. But do not give up the fight. Do not give up the fight. It is an important fight if you are truly committed to development. And once people are involved, it is a more than justifiable cause.
[Question]:
Thank you, sir. My name is Noreen Hussain with IPS News. You’ve already raised this point with the Summit of the Future, so my question actually relates to that. The discussions that have been held, the outcomes that have been raised over the last week, how will they be revisited or how will the Sorry, let me rephrase that again. The outcomes of this Sustainability Week, will you be revisiting them again? Or have they influenced how you will revisit them again during the Summit of the Future? Thank you.
[PGA]:
Well, the harvest of this process this week will definitely go forward into the deliberations on the summit of the future. As we’ve said repeatedly, the Summit of the Future will impart a substantive aspect of the summit process is to complete the SDGs, to incentivize action, to accelerate action, to complete the SDGs by 2030. That was the commitment that the UN gave to the international community in 2015, and the UN is committed to honoring that commitment. Of course, the summit of the future will go beyond the SDGs. It will do additional things. But the harvest of this process and to all the other processes taking place, there’s a process taking place, for example, in Nairobi in Kenya towards the second week of May involving civil society. All of these elements will come together in the context of the Summit of the Future, which has to be holistic, it has to be forward-looking, it has to be clear, it has to be practical, and it has to be implementable.
This is a process of change. And so, I encourage you to remain engaged. And to choose sustainability. Because sustainability is a big concept, but it has very powerful, implementable dimensions at all levels of society. At the individual level, at the household level, at the local government level, at the state level, at the national level, and at the global level. So that if you decide one day of the week to leave your car at home and drive to the office, that’s a sustainable action. If you decide to turn off the tap in the morning while you’re brushing your teeth so that you don’t waste 10 gallons of water, which the people in California and in the Southwest do not have, that’s a sustainable action.
If you decide not to use a single-use plastic vessel, that’s a sustainable action. Because if you don’t, that single-use plastic vessel will likely find its way into the sea and into the fish, which you then eat. It’s not healthy. So, all of these elements, these little choices that we make every day, but which cumulatively add up to have an adverse impact on the environment and on sustainability, we can all contribute to the cause, the noble cause of sustainability and of keeping our planet and our environmental ecosystems healthy. And healthy is important because that is the only way those ecosystems can support us.
Thank you all very much.
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