On 2 April The United Nations University, in collaboration with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, hosted "The Post-2015 Development Agenda: Setting the Stage!", a lecture by H. E. Mr. John W. Ashe, President of the UN General Assembly's sixty-eighth session.
Mr. Ashe is dedicating his presidency and the sixty-eighth session to engagement with UN Member States and relevant stakeholders in an effort to "set the stage" for the Post-2015 Development Agenda. To promote consensus building among the global community and establish definitive post-2015 objectives, Mr. Ashe and his team are organizing a series of high-level meetings and thematic debates during the first half of 2014.
Coinciding with these events, this special lecture at UNU reviewed the pressing global issues influencing the Post-2015 Development Agenda discourse. The 30-minute lecture highlighted the need for an inclusive post-2015 agenda, and explored the essential contributions of women, youth and civil society, while gauging progress on commitments to human rights, peacebuilding and the rule of law.
This event was an exceptional opportunity to hear Mr. Ashe's vision for the Post-2015 Development Agenda. His decades of experience in various international negotiations and at the forefront of sustainable development afford him an unparalleled perspective on the topic.
About the speaker
H.E. Mr. John W. Ashe is President of the UN General Assembly's sixty-eighth session. A citizen of Antigua and Barbuda, Mr. Ashe served from 1989 to 1995 as Scientific Attaché, Counsellor and Minister Counsellor for his country's Permanent Mission to the United Nations, and as Antigua and Barbuda's Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations from 1995 to 2004. Mr. Ashe has served on the governing boards of major United Nations funds and programmes, including as President of the UN Development Programme, UN Population Fund, and UN Office for Project Services Executive Board in 2010, and as President of the UN Children's Fund Executive Board in 2012. In 2004, he presided over the thirteenth session of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development and in 2012 was co-Chair of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20). In 2007, Mr. Ashe was awarded the Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George by Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, in recognition of his global diplomatic service.
