Remarks by the President of the General Assembly
H.E. Ms. Annalena Baerbock
to the Second Committee (Economic and Financial)
8 October 2025
[As Delivered]
Your Excellency Lamine Dibba, Permanent Representative of the Gambia, Chair of the Second Committee,
Under-Secretary,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Excellencies,
Distinguished delegates.
First of all, I would like to congratulate you, Mr. Chair, and the members of the bureau on your election to the bureau of the second committee.
I also commend your choice of the theme for this session, Five Years to 2030, Multilateral Solutions for Sustainable Development, as well as the pertinent and timely priorities you have selected.
Artificial intelligence, reform of the international debt and finance architecture, climate and disaster resilience, and support to countries in special situations, as we have heard, especially also for LDCs.
They offer us an opportunity to address some of the most pressing concerns facing sustainable development today.
Allow me to make three points for consideration as you embark upon your deliberations.
First, it is essential that we close the $4 trillion financing gap needed to achieve the SDGs.
This might be an incredible sum, but the benefits of mobilizing resources far outweigh the costs.
Nearly half of the $4 trillion is what is needed to transition to renewable energies. This means not only investments and money; this means jobs and economic growth for all stakeholders. So, it’s a win-win situation.
Likewise, public debt in developing countries reached $34 trillion in 2024. Alleviating the burden of such heavy debt would free countries, particularly those in special situations, to spend more money on schools and hospitals and to create jobs.
All of this is tied, of course, to one of your main priorities, and that is the need to fix financing.
Therefore, the Compromiso de Sevilla was so important. The second committee can now follow up on the clear action-orientated outcomes in the Compromiso de Sevilla and help to move the needle on this front.
Second, we need to close the excess gap in technological developments, including AI.
While millions of us are benefiting from existing technological developments, hundreds of millions or more remain critically offline.
The digital divide risks becoming a digital canyon.
The second committee can build on the recent Global Dialogue on Artificial Intelligence Governance and call for policy and practical considerations that close the gap and empower people and communities.
Third, as you discussed many times, we must close the gap in climate finance. Empowering the millions of people on the front lines of climate change.
While again, progress was delivered at COP27 with the Loss and Damage Fund, the reality is that adaptation remains deeply underfunded.
We need to break the cycle of heavy GDP losses associated with climate disasters, which currently amount to around $200 billion per year.
Again, the second committee can support momentum on these files by adding to calls for stronger, more ambitious climate targets and enhancing financing targets for adaptation, especially on the eve of Belem.
Excellencies,
But this is now the committee season and not high-level week anymore. This is really the working season. This was the easy part of my short intervention here because we all share it, the assessment. I would now like to turn a bit more in my role as a PGA in this extraordinary session onto the harder issues.
Because we can all agree that these trillions and billions are needed to accelerate sustainable development and boost climate resilience. However, we cannot delude ourselves into thinking this is business as usual.
We live in a world, and we have also heard it over high-level week, that some question the obvious.
We live in a world where people say out there, well, you promised great things, but we didn’t see anything on delivery.
We live in a world where the climate crisis does not care if you deny it, because CO2 does not have any border and does not have any passport.
All of this means that we live in a world where also in national debate, sometimes a short headline is more important than content.
In a world where national budgets are being slashed and where financial support for multilateral institutions is unfortunately low. Even here in our own institutions, we are currently spending beyond our means.
Therefore, I mentioned in the high-level week, this is an extraordinary session. We are at a crossroads.
Because a harsh reality is that none of our promised goals will come to fruition if we cannot pull through the financial and political headwinds, especially political headwinds facing this organization.
While it might sound contradictory, we have to reduce to realize.
The more inefficiency we can reduce, the more we can safeguard and strengthen the resources that are intended for the very people who need them most, the people we serve.
As I said at the General Debate, this is not an ordinary year, however, we can make it if we understand that we are all better together.
So this is not about the regular committee work, this is about a moment where I would like to encourage all delegations, and also the experts in the room, to encourage all of you to go back to your capitals and emphasize that the committee deliberations, as well as the processes of the 80th session, are bigger than just a resolution result. It’s really about the future of this institution. They are highly connected to the reform and to the UN80 process.
So, it’s essential that our work that we are doing here right now is obviously strong in thematic content, that any resolution delivers on the principles and purposes of the UN.
We must always ask ourselves as well, can we really implement the text we are producing here? We put this in the resolution of the General Assembly on the working methods during the 80th session, which underlined that we have to make our work more efficient and more effective.
The resolution furthermore strongly encourages Member States to reduce the frequency, length, and numbers of resolutions.
We must therefore think carefully before producing text that we have always the question in mind, does it still make sense if we copy and paste from the resolution one year or even 20 years ago? Or is there maybe, in these times of artificial intelligence, a more effective way than an SGs’ report, which in some of the cases is not even funded.
So, with every paragraph you’re discussing here, I would like you to ask yourself, does it really save not only money, but increase the chances that we can deliver on the ground on the SDGs?
While the SDGs may be off track and financing still is out of reach, I would also like to underline that we made it so many times before when this institution was under pressure.
We have skyrocketed sustainable development achievements.
Remember the 110 million more children and youth who are in school now because of the work of the United Nations, because of your work here in this committee.
1.5 billion people have been lifted out of poverty since 1990. 1.5 billion people.
Global HIV rates have dropped by 40% since 2010.
And we are reaching near universal access to electricity with renewable energies emerging.
New technologies could help to deliver on the SDGs.
So therefore, the crucial question is again, can we resonate again behind our understanding that we are better off together? And how can we keep the successes of the past by changing, by reforming, but also by benefiting from all of it together?
How do we, as your theme states, race to the finishing line of 2030?
I believe we can achieve it if we are not thinking first, so what is better for my country, for my delegation, for my mission, but what meets the other country, the other delegation, especially the small ones, that we can achieve the goals all together.
In this regard, I would like to thank you for the last weeks of this session, nearly beginning of the 80th session, and I’m looking forward to working together with you, always in the understanding that we are better off together.
I thank you, dear chair.