Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen,
I am pleased to join you at this joint meeting of the Economic and Social Council and the Second Committee of the General Assembly.
The Sustainable Development Goals are in jeopardy. There are communities mired in poverty and lacking access to safe water, sanitation and affordable energy.
The 2030 Agenda recognizes that eradicating poverty in all its forms and dimensions, including extreme poverty, is the greatest global challenge.
Prior to 2018 the world had seen steady decline in extreme poverty. But the COVID-19 pandemic revealed the fragility of that progress, knocking us back almost 4 years, in absolute terms.
We have not been able to rebound.
The combined effects of the lingering pandemic and the conflict in Ukraine are expected to lead to a net increase of 75 to 95 million people in extreme poverty by the end of 2022 compared to pre-pandemic projections.
This reality paints a sobering picture. With our present approach, precious gains in income, welfare and livelihoods are at the mercy of crises and shocks.
A sustainable recovery is not possible without ending poverty in all its forms everywhere, a goal to which the international community is deeply committed. And we can only do this if we recognize and address both the direct and systemic drivers of this most pressing global challenge.
Excellencies,
To lift and keep people out of poverty we need policies and approaches that ¡®shock-proof¡¯ poverty eradication.
We must go beyond short-term and emergency measures. We need government policies that not only mitigate the impacts of shocks but that account for the long-term losses that might arise from short-term setbacks.
This includes providing public assistance in healthcare, education and social protection, and intervening in the labour market, including in the informal sector. Such actions are part of the key principle to leave no one behind.
We also need policies and programmes that reach the furthest behind first. People living in extreme poverty are increasingly concentrated in specific regions, social groups and communities within and across countries.
At the global level, countries with rising rates of extreme poverty are largely concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa, and extreme poverty continues to be overwhelmingly a rural phenomenon. More than 80 per cent of the world¡¯s extremely poor and 84 per cent of those in acute multidimensional poverty live in rural areas.
UN DESA¡¯s World Social Report 2021 took stock of this reality and proposed a reconsideration of rural development to close the rural urban divide. Greater investment is needed in rural infrastructural development and in provision of public services to rural communities. We must leverage new and existing technology, not only to boost agribusiness and the traditional rural economy, but to make rural areas more liveable and accessible.
Likewise, to eradicate poverty and break intergenerational cycles of poverty, Governments need to prioritize investments in targeted remedial actions for chronically disadvantaged groups to achieve fairer social outcomes. Such actions need to complement the pursuit of universal access to social protection, basic social services and new technology.
We need only think of the disparate impacts on education of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the clear, yet intersecting, lines of disadvantage that it revealed.
Ladies and gentlemen,
The multifaceted impacts of the concurrent crises also remind us that eradicating poverty requires going beyond social measures and policies.
Climate change, if uncurbed, would drive up to 130 million people into poverty over the next ten years. Climate action requires transfer of technology, finance and capacity development for developing countries. We have to avoid, the poorer countries being pushed into the ¡®standard¡¯ fossil fuel intensive development pathway, causing adverse impact on the global environmental commons and on the poorest communities.
We need to deliver on the commitments made at the High-level Dialogue on energy last September, and push even further, to deepen global investment in the energy transition. And we need to raise the level of global ambition in the commitments made at COP27.
There is also a collective global responsibility for maintaining a stable macroeconomic environment that is favourable to inclusive and sustainable growth. We need to preserve the fiscal space of countries so that they can invest in poverty eradication. Premature monetary tightening poses increasing risks. Many countries have warned of their crippling debt burden and looming threat of debt distress. We must make access to financing more affordable for those countries that need it most.
In short, we need to build societies that provide a fair chance for everyone.
Excellencies,
Accelerating implementation of the 2030 Agenda remains our best bet to shape the type of recovery that we need. This is why the Secretary-General has called for an SDG Stimulus Plan to support developing countries to quicken the pace. I echo this call.
I implore you to look to the SDGs and be reminded of the type of integrated and transformative steps we must take if we are to eradicate poverty and build an inclusive and sustainable society for all people, everywhere.
I thank you.