UN deputy chief calls for more efforts to reach SDGs

UN Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson on Thursday called for more international efforts to reach the Sustainable Development Targets (SDGs), saying that "We are accountable to children and grandchildren all over the world -- failure is simply no option."

Eliasson, speaking at a high-level thematic debate on achieving the SDGs, said that "The 2030 Agenda is a global blueprint for ending poverty and for building a safer and more equitable world with people facing with hope a sustainable future."

In September last year, world leaders adopted the SDGs, a set of 17 development goals, also known as the 2030 Agenda, as a blueprint for the global development efforts for the next 15 years.

"It is a universal agenda, one which all countries are to integrate with their national plans and aspirations," he said. "It enshrines a responsibility to focus on the world's most vulnerable and those afflicted by protracted conflicts or caught in the nightmares of humanitarian disasters."

While noting that the breadth and depth of the Agenda call for adopting new approaches and for breaking down silos, he said that achieving the SDGs will require the collective efforts of all governments and the full range of other actors.

"We need to take an integrated approach to development efforts, connecting them both to humanitarian action and human rights as well as to peaceful societies and well-functioning institutions."

Meanwhile, the goals must be meaningful on the ground, which means making goals and targets relevant and adapted to national and local situations, he added. Endit