Statement by Turkey
Intergovernmental Negotiations of Post 2015 Development Agenda
(22 June 2015, New York)
Declaration
Distinguished Co-facilitators,
Let me first of all thank you for preparing “Zero Draft” of the outcome document for the Summit in September.
We see value in having a preamble in our new agenda with a view to better communicate it to the people outside of this room. However today we have heard some interventions describing the current preamble as a selective summary of 17 Goals. In this framework, we believe that the references to 6 “elements” proposed by the UNSG and peace is a good basis for framing the goals and targets concisely, thus making our agenda easy to communicate to the public.
I also want to share some observations on the Declaration component.
We welcome that poverty eradication, the need to complete the unfinished business of MDGs and the call for special attention to the most vulnerable countries were higlighted in the Declaration. It also rightfully underlines that the new Agenda in its scope goes far beyond MDGs and refer to three pillars of sustainable development. We want to propose to add the notion of “human centered development “ into the Declaration.
In February session many delegations expressed their wish to see a concise Declaration which is easy to communicate to our people. In your discussion paper distributed in February you have also stated that “to be effective, the Declaration should not exceed three pages". We believe that a long Declaration runs the risk of diluting -even loosing - the messages we want to give to our people. Therefore it could be shortened and made more focused. To this end, some paragraphs can be combined. For instance para 5 and 6 can be combined into a shorter one that highlights inclusive and interactive nature of the process.
On the other hand in paras 18-29 there is an extensive explanation of Goals. We believe that 17 Goals and 169 targets speak for themselves and we do not need to repeat or explain them in detail in the Declaration.
With the wording we use in the Declaration, we should reflect our strong commitment to realize our Agenda. We should not weaken the confidence of people by using conditional sentences. If we don’t believe in our Agenda, how can we make our people and stakeholders believe in it?
In parallel to this, “Our commitment and principles” section should also be strengthened with some wording reflecting strong political ownership and commitment of leaders to realize our Agenda. The principles and notions stated in para 19 can also be moved to this section under para 11.
On another note, we believe that we should review the use of terminology in para 12 which cites "growing migration challenge" as a threat to reverse the development progress. We also should recognize the positive contribution of migrants for economic growth and sustainable development.
The Declaration should contain a strong message on HOW to reach these Goals by 2030, if we want to be convincing in the eyes of people. In that respect we believe that “Implementation” part of the Declaration should be further strengthened.
Even though para 33 recognizes the central role of STI, and para 30 mentions the transfer of environmentally sound technology, we need to strengthen these issues in the implementation section.
Thank you.
