Opening of the Thematic Debate on the Role of Partnerships
1
Remarks
by
H.E. Mr. John W. Ashe
President of the 68th Session of the United Nations
General Assembly
GENERAL ASSEMBLY and ECOSOC
JOINT THEMATIC DEBATE/FORUM ON PARTNERSHIPS
“The role of partnerships in the implementation of the
Post-2015 Development Agenda”
New York
9 April 2014
Please check against delivery
2
Excellencies,
Secretary-General,
President of ECOSOC,
Ms. Alessandra Cabral dos Santos Nilo,
Mr. Tony Elumelu,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is my pleasure to welcome you all to this historic event in which two main bodies of the United Nations have joined forces with all of you in a shared effort to discuss the role of partnerships, which will no doubt be a key contributor to the new development framework that we are all working towards. Let me therefore begin by telling you how much I appreciate your participation in this event, and I look forward to your creative and meaningful contributions.
As we embark on a collective exercise that will culminate in the adoption a new global development agenda, we know that the task of achieving a shared post-2015 development agenda is a difficult one but is also an urgent one for millions who face hunger, malnutrition, ill-health, discrimination and oppression. It is a difficult task. But great and difficult tasks become much less daunting and can deliver more effective results when they are addressed in a concerted, coherent and collaborative manner.
Excellencies,
Since the adoption of the Millennium Development Goals in 2000, we have seen dramatic global changes and national and regional transformations, which have led to unprecedented and increasingly complex socio-economic and environmental challenges. Meeting these and any successor development goals – and managing global changes, including the pressures from climate change, resource depletion, population growth, and increasing urbanization - will require vision, clarity of thought and creativity.
The challenges facing our assembly of nations and our global family are grave, numerous and common to all nations and all people. These challenges cover social, economic and environmental considerations and span the gamut of the sustainable development spectrum.
3
The depth and breadth of contagion of the recent financial crisis and resultant socio-economic impacts clearly demonstrated our interconnectedness, and in that regard have reinforced the fact that, in order to best respond to these challenges, we need to strengthen the global partnership for sustainable development.
Distinguished Guests,
It is not through isolated and disconnected actions but through the pooling of our efforts, ideas and resources that we can achieve the greater good – it is through partnering and partnerships for action that we can achieve the future that we all want. It is the reaching out to all stakeholders amongst the governmental and nongovernmental communities, whether in academia, business, or civil society and the building of new relationships by which we are most likely to be successful in devising and implementing new solutions to these challenges.
Unlike the Millennium Development Goals, our new agenda will be a more shared and universal one, recognising and respecting the common but differentiated responsibilities of all nations. A strengthened global partnership should therefore be based on mutual respect and trust, the fulfilment of previously agreed commitments and a renewed accountability framework, including means of implementation. In this context, national efforts should be supported, first and foremost, by an enabling international environment. In this regard, let us remember that our efforts toward accelerating the achievement of the MDGs were hampered by the global financial and economic crisis that erupted in 2008; the lack of progress on the Doha Development Agenda; and the volatility of food and energy prices, amongst other structural factors. We must therefore strive to create the appropriate international climate – the best possible enabling environment – that will allow us to work towards a more robust and inclusive development agenda.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Within the framework of the new development agenda, the fulfilment of existing commitments in terms of both official development assistance and financing for development, as stated in the Monterrey Consensus and the Doha Declaration, will be pivotal. However, our sense of partnership must expand and include public and private, local, regional and national, domestic and international resources that come in the form of
4
innovation, technology, research, human capacity, and cross-sectoral partnerships. Much emphasis has been placed on the building of new partnerships at the international level. These are undoubtedly important but there is much to commend the partnerships that can be forged at the national and regional levels where a lot of work needs to take place and new capacity must be built.
The UN is in a unique position to forge these innovative partnerships, bringing together stakeholders from all around the world and all corners of society: government, private sector, civil society, and the academic and scientific communities and in using its agencies at the national and regional levels to support the development policy and programmatic efforts of governments. Such creative partnerships can assist in building bridges across the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development to implement a truly holistic approach.
If sustainable development is to be entrenched in the way we live, do business and engage in recreation, then all sectors and institutions of societies must be mobilised around the central themes of development and an understanding of the integration of its three pillars. This can be achieved through the broad and constructive engagement of new partnerships which offer myriad developmental benefits. From strengthening the fabric of society to creating productive relationships among different sectors; from harnessing and sharing different skills to enabling replication and scaling up of successful projects; from building trust to ensuring enhanced accountability, from the conceptualisation of new ideas to the innovation of new technologies and approaches.
Excellencies,
The themes selected for the panel discussions are both important to me personally and based on outreach my team conducted with the multi-stakeholder community. Let me take a moment to introduce some of the key issues that will come up over the next two days.
Today’s discussions will primarily focus on three issues. The first is examining the role partnerships have played in realizing the MDGs. Grounded in a commitment to enhance engagement of the private sector, non-governmental organizations and civil society, the MDGs ushered in a range of new partnership models, including new and innovative sources
5
of financing as an adjunct to official development assistance and trade, new uses of technology, and new ways of building capacity and engaging with low-income communities to increase access to basic services. This panel will discuss how to leverage these innovative approaches in the final push to achieve the MDGs, as well as for effective delivery of the post-2015 development agenda.
In the next session, we will discuss what role the private sector, philanthropy, and civil society can play in leveraging new and additional funding, creating decent employment, and harnessing technology, innovation and research in the post-2015 development agenda. At the same time, we must focus on how to create enabling environments and tools for accountability which include incentives for stronger engagement and involvement by business, foundations and other actors to ensure the success of the new Development Agenda in the post-2015 era.
Today’s final panel will explore how to ensure that stakeholders, including governments, stand by their commitments to inclusive and sustainable development. We will discuss how to enhance transparency, credibility and legitimacy, as well as ensure the architecture of accountability frameworks is flexible enough to accommodate the diverse nature of partnerships and partners. The session will also address gender, human rights and peacebuilding issues.
Tomorrow as the saying goes is NEW day – one in which we will examine two specific sectoral issues in-depth. The opening session will look at how public-private partnerships can harness science, technology, financing and capacity building to tackle food and nutritional insecurity. We will also look at examples of multi-stakeholder partnerships in these areas, such as the Zero Hunger Challenge and Scaling up Nutrition Movement as well as the Global Partnership for Oceans.
The second panel will look at infrastructure as a core component of sustainable development and, for most countries, as a key enabler for generating economic growth and achieving development goals. Here, we will explore how partnerships can play an important role in helping to address the challenges and limitations of building and maintaining sustainable infrastructure, and how to ensure infrastructure becomes an integral part of sustainable development in developing countries.
6
Excellencies,
We are now in a critical and sensitive phase of preparations for the post-2015 development agenda. The Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals and the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts on Sustainable Development Financing are gathering their findings for presentation at the start of the 69th session of the Assembly. Dialogues on possible options for a technology facilitation mechanism will begin soon. It is therefore important that Member States begin envisioning the structures and capacities that will be needed to implement the post-2015 development agenda. These will be needed at the national, regional and international levels if we are to minimise gaps in implementation.
The sessions around the discussion on partnerships in which you will be engaged are designed to provide opportunities for fresh and creative thinking about what new models of partnership might look like and how they can bring us closer to realizing our two main goals: a world without extreme poverty and a thriving, sustainable planet.
We are fortunate to have a wide range of participants in this debate coming from across sectors. It is my hope that we do hear equally from everyone and that you will engage with each other meaningfully in the truest sense of the word partnership.
I trust that our work here will provide valuable inputs into the ongoing post-2015 process and wish you great success in your deliberations. Ultimately sustainable development, the building of our common future, the shaping of the future we want and the crafting on a new global development agenda can only be realised if we recognise and acknowledge our common challenges and build partnerships for common solutions.
Thank you.
***
Remarks
by
H.E. Mr. John W. Ashe
President of the 68th Session of the United Nations
General Assembly
GENERAL ASSEMBLY and ECOSOC
JOINT THEMATIC DEBATE/FORUM ON PARTNERSHIPS
“The role of partnerships in the implementation of the
Post-2015 Development Agenda”
New York
9 April 2014
Please check against delivery
2
Excellencies,
Secretary-General,
President of ECOSOC,
Ms. Alessandra Cabral dos Santos Nilo,
Mr. Tony Elumelu,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is my pleasure to welcome you all to this historic event in which two main bodies of the United Nations have joined forces with all of you in a shared effort to discuss the role of partnerships, which will no doubt be a key contributor to the new development framework that we are all working towards. Let me therefore begin by telling you how much I appreciate your participation in this event, and I look forward to your creative and meaningful contributions.
As we embark on a collective exercise that will culminate in the adoption a new global development agenda, we know that the task of achieving a shared post-2015 development agenda is a difficult one but is also an urgent one for millions who face hunger, malnutrition, ill-health, discrimination and oppression. It is a difficult task. But great and difficult tasks become much less daunting and can deliver more effective results when they are addressed in a concerted, coherent and collaborative manner.
Excellencies,
Since the adoption of the Millennium Development Goals in 2000, we have seen dramatic global changes and national and regional transformations, which have led to unprecedented and increasingly complex socio-economic and environmental challenges. Meeting these and any successor development goals – and managing global changes, including the pressures from climate change, resource depletion, population growth, and increasing urbanization - will require vision, clarity of thought and creativity.
The challenges facing our assembly of nations and our global family are grave, numerous and common to all nations and all people. These challenges cover social, economic and environmental considerations and span the gamut of the sustainable development spectrum.
3
The depth and breadth of contagion of the recent financial crisis and resultant socio-economic impacts clearly demonstrated our interconnectedness, and in that regard have reinforced the fact that, in order to best respond to these challenges, we need to strengthen the global partnership for sustainable development.
Distinguished Guests,
It is not through isolated and disconnected actions but through the pooling of our efforts, ideas and resources that we can achieve the greater good – it is through partnering and partnerships for action that we can achieve the future that we all want. It is the reaching out to all stakeholders amongst the governmental and nongovernmental communities, whether in academia, business, or civil society and the building of new relationships by which we are most likely to be successful in devising and implementing new solutions to these challenges.
Unlike the Millennium Development Goals, our new agenda will be a more shared and universal one, recognising and respecting the common but differentiated responsibilities of all nations. A strengthened global partnership should therefore be based on mutual respect and trust, the fulfilment of previously agreed commitments and a renewed accountability framework, including means of implementation. In this context, national efforts should be supported, first and foremost, by an enabling international environment. In this regard, let us remember that our efforts toward accelerating the achievement of the MDGs were hampered by the global financial and economic crisis that erupted in 2008; the lack of progress on the Doha Development Agenda; and the volatility of food and energy prices, amongst other structural factors. We must therefore strive to create the appropriate international climate – the best possible enabling environment – that will allow us to work towards a more robust and inclusive development agenda.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Within the framework of the new development agenda, the fulfilment of existing commitments in terms of both official development assistance and financing for development, as stated in the Monterrey Consensus and the Doha Declaration, will be pivotal. However, our sense of partnership must expand and include public and private, local, regional and national, domestic and international resources that come in the form of
4
innovation, technology, research, human capacity, and cross-sectoral partnerships. Much emphasis has been placed on the building of new partnerships at the international level. These are undoubtedly important but there is much to commend the partnerships that can be forged at the national and regional levels where a lot of work needs to take place and new capacity must be built.
The UN is in a unique position to forge these innovative partnerships, bringing together stakeholders from all around the world and all corners of society: government, private sector, civil society, and the academic and scientific communities and in using its agencies at the national and regional levels to support the development policy and programmatic efforts of governments. Such creative partnerships can assist in building bridges across the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development to implement a truly holistic approach.
If sustainable development is to be entrenched in the way we live, do business and engage in recreation, then all sectors and institutions of societies must be mobilised around the central themes of development and an understanding of the integration of its three pillars. This can be achieved through the broad and constructive engagement of new partnerships which offer myriad developmental benefits. From strengthening the fabric of society to creating productive relationships among different sectors; from harnessing and sharing different skills to enabling replication and scaling up of successful projects; from building trust to ensuring enhanced accountability, from the conceptualisation of new ideas to the innovation of new technologies and approaches.
Excellencies,
The themes selected for the panel discussions are both important to me personally and based on outreach my team conducted with the multi-stakeholder community. Let me take a moment to introduce some of the key issues that will come up over the next two days.
Today’s discussions will primarily focus on three issues. The first is examining the role partnerships have played in realizing the MDGs. Grounded in a commitment to enhance engagement of the private sector, non-governmental organizations and civil society, the MDGs ushered in a range of new partnership models, including new and innovative sources
5
of financing as an adjunct to official development assistance and trade, new uses of technology, and new ways of building capacity and engaging with low-income communities to increase access to basic services. This panel will discuss how to leverage these innovative approaches in the final push to achieve the MDGs, as well as for effective delivery of the post-2015 development agenda.
In the next session, we will discuss what role the private sector, philanthropy, and civil society can play in leveraging new and additional funding, creating decent employment, and harnessing technology, innovation and research in the post-2015 development agenda. At the same time, we must focus on how to create enabling environments and tools for accountability which include incentives for stronger engagement and involvement by business, foundations and other actors to ensure the success of the new Development Agenda in the post-2015 era.
Today’s final panel will explore how to ensure that stakeholders, including governments, stand by their commitments to inclusive and sustainable development. We will discuss how to enhance transparency, credibility and legitimacy, as well as ensure the architecture of accountability frameworks is flexible enough to accommodate the diverse nature of partnerships and partners. The session will also address gender, human rights and peacebuilding issues.
Tomorrow as the saying goes is NEW day – one in which we will examine two specific sectoral issues in-depth. The opening session will look at how public-private partnerships can harness science, technology, financing and capacity building to tackle food and nutritional insecurity. We will also look at examples of multi-stakeholder partnerships in these areas, such as the Zero Hunger Challenge and Scaling up Nutrition Movement as well as the Global Partnership for Oceans.
The second panel will look at infrastructure as a core component of sustainable development and, for most countries, as a key enabler for generating economic growth and achieving development goals. Here, we will explore how partnerships can play an important role in helping to address the challenges and limitations of building and maintaining sustainable infrastructure, and how to ensure infrastructure becomes an integral part of sustainable development in developing countries.
6
Excellencies,
We are now in a critical and sensitive phase of preparations for the post-2015 development agenda. The Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals and the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts on Sustainable Development Financing are gathering their findings for presentation at the start of the 69th session of the Assembly. Dialogues on possible options for a technology facilitation mechanism will begin soon. It is therefore important that Member States begin envisioning the structures and capacities that will be needed to implement the post-2015 development agenda. These will be needed at the national, regional and international levels if we are to minimise gaps in implementation.
The sessions around the discussion on partnerships in which you will be engaged are designed to provide opportunities for fresh and creative thinking about what new models of partnership might look like and how they can bring us closer to realizing our two main goals: a world without extreme poverty and a thriving, sustainable planet.
We are fortunate to have a wide range of participants in this debate coming from across sectors. It is my hope that we do hear equally from everyone and that you will engage with each other meaningfully in the truest sense of the word partnership.
I trust that our work here will provide valuable inputs into the ongoing post-2015 process and wish you great success in your deliberations. Ultimately sustainable development, the building of our common future, the shaping of the future we want and the crafting on a new global development agenda can only be realised if we recognise and acknowledge our common challenges and build partnerships for common solutions.
Thank you.
***