Australia
26 March 2015
United Nations Headquarters, New York
Post 2015 Sustainable Development Goals and Targets Session: Interactive Dialogue
Statement by Kushla Munro, Assistant Secretary, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
As delivered
We welcome the proposal of 6 themes for Interactive Dialogues during the September Summit.
We are especially pleased to see the theme of ‘Promoting peaceful societies and strong institutions’. The inclusion of this goal should be considered as a true “breakthrough” in the way that we as a global community prioritise our approach to sustainable development.
We also welcome discussions on economic growth and a renewed global partnership. A partnership based on national leadership, mutual accountability and finance from a wide and growing range of public and private sources.
Another important and engaging theme for an interactive dialogue would be one solely focussed on gender equality and women’s economic empowerment. We must recognise the role of women as agents for change and as being crucial to delivering on the ambition of the new agenda. This crosscutting theme warrants discussion by our leaders in September.
As raised by Chile and other member states, further consideration should also be given to broadening the dialogue on the environment, to discuss oceans. In particular, we recognise the vital importance of healthy oceans to sustaining life and livelihoods. Instead, our pragmatic approach is informed by discussions with our development partners, and an unwillingness to impose unmanageable reporting burdens on countries with limited capacity, particularly where it diverts attention from delivering good development outcomes.
In closing, we reiterate our thanks to the technical experts who have endeavoured, on tight timeframes, to send us clear messages about the manageability of what this process is proposing.
We look forward to further discussions on how we can better support the work of these experts, and on the principles for follow up and review processes that are efficient and fit for purpose.
Thank you.
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