UN High Level Political Forum
17 July 2017, New York
Statement by Mr. K~stutis Navickas
Minister of Environment of the Republic of Lithuania
"Eradicating poverty and promoting prosperity in a changing world"
Mr. President, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,
My delegation aligns itself with the statement made on behalf of the European Union. In my
national capacity, allow me to underline the following.
The entire world progresses in implementing Sustainable Development Goals that are
universal, integrated and indivisible. Lithuania welcomes the approach to mobilize early action on
each of them. This year we discuss poverty eradication and promoting prosperity, though bearing
in mind that sustainable development will be achieved only by sustaining peace and ensuring the
respect to human rights.
The Government of Lithuania, last year, while implementing sustainable development
agenda across all policy sectors, carried out a comprehensive evaluation of national policy's
conformity with the SDGs. An inter-ministerial working group together with representatives from
the NGOs and other social partners concluded that Lithuania has a wide range of policy instruments
and legislation in place; however, main challenges to ensure effective implementation remain.
The Lithuanian Government's Action Plan for 2017-2020 foresees priority measures for
implementation of Agenda 2030. Long term social and economic development actions include
revision of social allowances and pensions, development of financial incentives and services for
young families and families with small children, improvement of access to medical care services,
improvement of taxation system aiming to facilitate growth. Lithuania has recently adopted a
legislative package called "A New social model", which establishes modernized regulations of
industrial relations, social security and the pension system. Specific attention in the Government's
Action Plan is dedicated to measures aimed at the preservation of the country's eco-systems as they
play a significant role in the quality of life and prosperity of our citizens.
With a view to shaping sustainable development policy after 2020, the Lithuanian
Government is going to update the National Progress Strategy "Lithuania 2030", which is our main
long-term strategic document, by incorporating the sustainable development goals and principles
into it.
Mr. President,
As the world's population continues to grow, the needs for resources such as water, land,
food, energy and the decisions addressing pollution, climate change and energy efficiency become
the top priority.
Lithuania is committed to implement the Paris Agreement and to take long-term actions to
reduce greenhouse gas emissions, thus ensuring that increase in the global average temperature is
well below 2°C.
Climate change mitigation policy in Lithuania is based on sustainable development of
energy from renewable sources and energy efficiency. Energy production from renewables accounts
for more than half of the whole electricity and heat production in Lithuania. We rapidly expand our
park of wind turbines, establish solar panels and construct new small-scale biomass power plants
to generate heat. Implementation of the Programme on old multi-apartment buildings'
modernization enables us to increase energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse emissions, at the
same time creates additional jobs and contributes to our economy.
While implementing Goal Five Lithuania ensures gender equality in all aspects of life and
so contributes to more economic growth and higher standards of living. For example, women
entrepreneurs account for 60 per cent of businesses in rural areas of Lithuania, thus, actively
contributing to prosperity and well-being of local communities.
Mr. President,
Developing necessary monitoring is essential in implementation of SDGs. Lithuania has
already started sustainable development data collection and analysis in this regard. More than 50
percent of sustainable development indicators have already been made publicly available m
Lithuania.
Seeking to contribute to the effective and coherent implementation of Agenda 2030 in
partner countries, last year for the first time Lithuania adopted the Inter-Governmental
Development Cooperation Action Plan for the period 2017-2019. This Action Plan encourages
public authorities to focus on development cooperation activities and emphasizes Lithuania's
commitment to increase the official development assistance. The Action Plan stresses the
importance of all 17 SDGs; however, Lithuania believes that global fight against poverty, hunger,
illiteracy, epidemics, woman and child exploitation, environmental pollution and climate change
will be effective if consistently combined with the efforts to ensure peace inside countries and
societies, democracy, rule of law, good governance, women empowerment, quality education.
Along with other SDGs Lithuania prioritizes SDG on global partnerships since Lithuania believes
that only by our joint efforts we will be able to fulfil the ambition of the Agenda 2030.
Mr. President,
Wishing success to Member States that present their Voluntary National Reviews of the
Agenda 2030 this year, Lithuania commits to doing so at the High Level Political Forum on
Sustainable Development in 2018.
Thank you.
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