Remarks António Guterres, United Nations Secretary-General, at the First Thematic Consultation on “Our Common Agenda” Report under the theme “Accelerating and scaling up the Sustainable Development Goals, leaving no-one behind” - General Assembly, 76th session.
Mr. President of the General Assembly,
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I extend my warm appreciation to the President of the General Assembly for convening this series of thematic consultations on my report on “Our Common Agenda”.
And my thanks to you, Members of the General Assembly, for your rich and substantive engagement with the ideas in the report, during High-Level week, and in public and private meetings since then.
I was encouraged by the adoption of resolution 76/6, which is an important signal of your ownership of the follow-up process, starting with these consultations.
This series of thematic meetings is the first opportunity for an in-depth discussion between Member States on specific recommendations and ideas in the report.
They represent a clear recognition of the leading role of Member States, as we reflect together on how best to move forward, including on preparations for a proposed Summit of the Future.
A large number of the proposals in the report have strong existing mandates and frameworks stemming from Agenda 2030, the SDGs and their targets, the Paris Agreement, the Addis Ababa Action Agenda and other intergovernmentally-agreed documents, most prominently the United Nations Charter and relevant resolutions of the General Assembly and ECOSOC.
There is no intention to duplicate or replace processes that are already delivering results. We must turbocharge our existing processes, so that they can rise to the more complex realities that we face.
Other proposals are simply put forward for consideration by Member States without the need for further action by myself or the Secretariat or the agencies.
But there are a number of proposals that require a clear direction and decisions by Member States, and considerable additional work by the United Nations system in support.
These include, among others, the Summit of the Future; the 2025 World Social Summit, reform of the international financial system; the Dialogue on Outer Space, the Global Digital Compact, the Emergency Platform, identifying complementary measures to GDP; establishing a joint structure on financial integrity and illicit financial flows; a Declaration on Future Generations and a forum to represent their interests through a repurposed Trusteeship Council or other means; the United Nations Youth Office; and General Assembly measures to address the territorial threats of climate change and responses to environmental displacement.
Ultimately, it must be our intention to make progress on the substance and the search for consensus as much as possible this year, so that Member States will have at their disposal a body of material that you can use in preparing for the proposed Summit of the Future in 2023. It is clear that both this Summit and the World Social Summit will be intergovernmental.
Another important contribution to your deliberations as Member States will be the findings of a High-level Advisory Board that I seek to establish. This will help us to identify global public goods and potentially other areas of common interest where governance improvements are most needed, and propose options on how this could be achieved, to be considered by Member States at the Summit of the Future.
Excellencies,
When I presented Our Common Agenda report in September, at the request of this Assembly, I said the world faced a stark choice between a breakdown scenario of growing tensions, environmental degradation, climate chaos and instability, and a breakthrough towards a safer, more peaceful future.
Developments since then only served to reinforce the dangers of breakdown.
In January, I shared my concerns about the five-alarm fire threatening to engulf us.
COVID-19 continues to wreak havoc. The global financial system is failing most of humanity.
Inequalities are skyrocketing, undermining the implementation of the Sustainable Developments Goals. Species are disappearing faster than ever before. Climate action is too slow to avert catastrophe. Technology continues to drive us, rather than the other way around. And tensions between States are high and rising.
We are on a precipice – but we have the power to pull back from the brink. It is not too late to make the right decisions, particularly for those who are being left behind.
But we don’t have a moment to lose....
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