NEW YORK: Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday called for the early adoption of the International Covenant on the Right to Development, saying Islamabad supports efforts to ensure every individual has the right to pursue a better future and every nation has the means to achieve it.
Addressing a high-level meeting at the United Nations headquarters marking the 40th anniversary of the Declaration on the Right to Development, Prime Minister Sharif said the declaration had placed people at the heart of development four decades ago and affirmed development as an inalienable right.
“Every individual deserves the right to seek a better future and that every nation must have the tools to build it,” PM Sharif said.
Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif called for the early adoption of the International Covenant on the Right to Development, emphasizing that every individual deserves the right to seek a better future and that every nation must have the tools to build it.
The prime minister,… pic.twitter.com/q80SSgN3qk
— Prime Minister’s Office (@PakPMO) September 23, 2026
The Prime Minister said progress must go beyond wealth creation to advance social development and uphold human dignity.
He said the declaration’s message was profound, as progress must not merely create wealth but must advance social development and uphold human dignity.
Prime Minister Sharif regretted that this promise today confronted a stark reality across the developing world, where shrinking fiscal space and scarce resources were being diverted from human development.
Sharif said climate disasters were erasing hard-earned gains, while technological inequalities threatened to carry old divides into a new digital age, adding that a right could not be realised where the means to realise it were denied. He called for a proactive approach in this regard.
Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif addressing a high-level meeting at the United Nations Headquarters marking the 40th anniversary of the Declaration on the Right to Development in New York. pic.twitter.com/Kwo18EVjTQ
— Prime Minister's Office (@PakPMO) September 23, 2026
Highlighting Pakistan’s development efforts, Prime Minister Sharif said the country’s development pursuits were anchored in a homegrown economic transformation plan built on enhancing exports, embracing digital technologies, taking effective climate action, enhancing energy infrastructure, and ensuring equity and empowerment. He said the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) complemented this agenda.
Beyond national efforts, Prime Minister Sharif called for addressing debt distress, which he termed a debt trap, besides reforming the international financial architecture to provide concessional finance, deliver climate adaptation and loss and damage support, and bridge the digital and AI divide.
The Prime Minister said Pakistan supported the early adoption of the International Covenant on the Right to Development.
Prime Minister Sharif said that the true measure of development was not how far the world advanced, but whether humanity advanced together in a collective mode.
He expressed the hope that the anniversary would mark the moment when the world moved from declaration to action.
Pakistan has repeatedly highlighted the financial and climate-related challenges facing developing countries, arguing that limited fiscal space and rising debt burdens constrain their ability to invest in development.
Islamabad has also called for greater access to concessional financing and international support for climate adaptation, loss and damage, as well as technology and digital development.
The Right to Development was recognised by the United Nations General Assembly in 1986 through the Declaration on the Right to Development, which states that development is an inalienable human right and places people at the centre of the development process.
Pakistan has supported international efforts to strengthen the recognition and implementation of this right, including negotiations towards an International Covenant on the Right to Development.
