UNITED NATIONS: Pakistan has urged for implementing the Political Declaration adopted by last September’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Summit, under which world leaders reaffirmed their commitment to combat inequalities, eradicate poverty and hunger, and build inclusive and peaceful societies that leave no one behind.
Ambassador Munir Akram said at the UN on Monday that these pledges and commitments on development should be endorsed by the UN Security Council so as to transform these into binding obligations.
In particular, the Pakistani ambassador stressed that those promises must be implemented to expand concessional and grant development finance, re-channel the unused special drawing rights, provide urgent debt relief, and meet climate commitments, among others.
No amount of development can bring peace when the peoples continue to be denied their inalienable right to self-determination
I took part in open debate of UN Security Council today on promoting peace through common development
The link to my statementhttps://t.co/Xxntd52czI
— Munir Akram, PR of Pakistan to the UN (@PakistanPR_UN) November 21, 2023
Pakistan Supports UN Peacebuilding Commission’s Efforts
Speaking in a Security Council debate on the promotion of sustainable peace through common development, Akram voiced support for the UN Peacebuilding Commission’s efforts to address the resolution of conflict situations through the promotion of development.
Ambassador Akram said that yet, no amount of development can bring peace when people are suppressed by foreign occupation and forcibly denied of their right to self-determination, as is happening in Illegally Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir and Palestine today.
Acknowledging the interdependence between peace and development, the envoy said that although hundreds of millions of people have been lifted out of poverty in the past eight decades, the Charter’s vision of prosperity for all the “peoples” has yet to be realized.
Noting that development progress made in the past few decades has been stopped and reversed – by the Covid-19 pandemic, climate change impacts, and proliferating conflicts., the Pakistani ambassador said 150 million people have descended into extreme poverty.
