October 24 marked UN Day, “the anniversary of the entry into force in 1945 of the UN Charter.” Each year, the organisation hopes to communicate the achievements of the United Nations, and to outline goals for the UN moving forward.
This year’s UN Day was used to highlight concrete actions people can take to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.
At the Sustainable Development Summit on 25 September, 2015, UN Member States adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which includes a set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, fight inequality and injustice, and tackle climate change by 2030.
The SDGs, otherwise known as the Global Goals, build on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), eight anti-poverty targets that the world committed to achieving by 2015. The MDGs, adopted in 2000, aimed at an array of issues that included slashing poverty, hunger, disease, gender inequality, and access to water and sanitation. Enormous progress has been made on the MDGs, showing the value of a unifying agenda underpinned by goals and targets. Despite this success, the indignity of poverty has not been ended for all.
The new Global Goals, and the broader sustainability agenda, go much further than the MDGs, addressing the root causes of poverty and the universal need for development that works for all people.
UNDP Administrator Helen Clark noted: “This agreement marks an important milestone in putting our world on an inclusive and sustainable course. If we all work together, we have a chance of meeting citizens’ aspirations for peace, prosperity, and wellbeing, and to preserve our planet.”
The Global Goals will now finish the job of the MDGs, and ensure that no one is left behind.
On Sunday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in a statement said: “This year’s observance of United Nations Day occurs at a time of transition for the world and for the United Nations. Humanity has entered the era of sustainability — with a global commitment to fulfil the great promise of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.” Under the agenda are 17 goals that will “propel us towards a better future for all on a healthy planet.”
As the most representative intergovernmental organisation of the world today, the United Nations’ role in world affairs is irreplaceable by any other international or regional organizations. The United Nations has made enormous positive contributions in maintaining international peace and security, promoting cooperation among states and international development.
Today, people of the world still face the two major issues of peace and development. Only by international cooperation can mankind meet the challenges of the global and regional issues.
The United Nations can play a pivotal and positive role in this regard. Strengthening the role of the United Nations in the new century and promoting the establishment of a just and reasonable international political and economic order goes along with the trend of history and is in the interest of all nations.
In order to strengthen the role of the United Nations, efforts should be made to uphold the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations. The authority of the Security Council in maintaining international peace and security must be preserved and role of the United Nations in development area should be strengthened. To strengthen the role of the United Nations, it is essential to ensure to all Member States of the United Nations the right to equal participation in international affairs and the rights and interests of the developing countries should be safeguarded.
The United Nations, through its UNDP Representative to Guyana, recently reaffirmed the Organisation’s commitment to supporting the Government and country in achieving our developmental objectives and to working with Guyana to achieve SDGs for a better life for everybody, thereby ensuring that no one is being left behind.
In his message the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon noted too that even as the world is in transition, so too the United Nations is also in transition, from its eighth Secretary-General to the ninth. He therefore urged all to give their full backing to Secretary-General-designate Antonio Guterres in continuing the UN’s global mission of peace, sustainable development and human rights.
“I have been honoured to serve ‘we the peoples’ for the past ten years. Together, we have put in place some solid foundations for shared progress – which we must build on by working even harder to empower women, engage youth and uphold human rights for all,” the Secretary-General stated.
