Statement by the Representative of the Republic of Korea
SDGs, Targets, and Indicators Session, Intergovernmental Negotiations on the Post-2015 Development Agenda
21 May 2015, New York
Thank you, Mr. Co-Facilitator.
I would also like to join others in thanking you for the revised targets document as well as thanking the Chair of the UN Statistical Commission for his comprehensive explanation.
Korea supports the UN Statistical Commission’s work on the development of global indicators and welcomes the UN System’s efforts to review the targets with a view to improving them, not reopening them. In the context of follow-up and review we discussed for the last couple of days, I should like to reiterate that “good indicators can only come from good targets” and now add that “good follow-up and review can only come from good indicators and targets.”
We cannot expect to have a robust and solid monitoring and review framework without feasible, suitable, relevant, and disaggregated indicators and clear targets. What we are trying to achieve here, of course, is sustainable development that leaves no one behind.
As expressed in the March session, Korea believes that there is room for improvement in various targets. At the same time, we need to keep up our aspirations by making sure that our tweaking efforts do not lead to a lowered level of ambition than previously agreed. In this regard, Korea would like to make one brief comment on the revised target 15.2. We propose deleting the word “substantially” and adding a specific figure with a phrase of “by 350 million hectares” before the word “globally.” This is based upon the New York Declaration on Forests, adopted in September, 2014, where countries made a collective commitment to restore 150 million hectares degraded landscapes and forestlands by 2020 and an additional 200 million hectares by 2030. We believe that this proposal can contribute to making the target more measurable.
Korea would like to suggest continuing with this exercise in connection with the work of the Statistical Commission and under your leadership so that we can aim for the best possible set of targets. We wish to provide our further suggestions in writing later.
I thank you. /END/
