Statement delivered by the Representative of
of Greece to the UN
Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals
Focus Areas 16 (Peaceful and inclusive societies, rule of law and capable institutions)
9 May, 2014
Before starting, I would like to stress that Greece aligns itself with the relevant comments made by EU in its Monday’s, 5th of May, statement.
Focus Area 16: Peaceful and inclusive societies, rule of law and capable institutions
• At the outset, we would like to stress that peace and security, as well as good governance and rule of law are interrelated and mutually reinforcing with development, while being essential for sustained and inclusive growth. Therefore, it is crucial to deliver on those critical issues through the post-2015 framework.
• As already mentioned by many other delegations, although recognizing the interlinkages among them, we believe that peaceful and inclusive societies on one hand and rule of law and capable institutions on the other, should be two distinct focus areas and combining them does not reflect their distinct character, nor their importance.
• We welcome the inclusion of crime, violence and organised crime and, in particular, human trafficking in the first section, referring to peaceful societies, but we maintain that it is not practicable to address them all under a single target.
• Like also mentioned by Costa Rica, we believe that reference to illicit flows of arms should be reinstated in the peaceful societies section.
• In target b, we would like to propose an amendment, as outlined also by Peru, on behalf of the Group of Friends of Culture and Development, namely adding at the end of the sentence the word “cultural” so that the phrase should read “…in the social, political, economic and cultural fields”.
• We strongly support target e of the first section, referring to planned and managed migration policies and we would like to propose the following amendments of this target, which should read: “by 2030 implement policies for planned, well managed and legal migration”.
At this point, we would also like to stress the importance of return and readmission policies, including reintegration.
• Furthermore, in target a, in the second section of this focus area, which refers to rule of law and capable institutions, we would like to propose an amendment, namely, after the end of the sentence, to add the following: “including strengthening the capacity of parliaments and all elected representatives”.
• Finally, we would like to express our strong support in target f of the second section pertaining to freedom of media, association and speech.
