UN policy guidelines crucial to ending poverty – Ban Ki-Moon

The United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon says the body’s social development policy guidance would be critical to global efforts to end poverty by 2030.

Lamenting the poverty situation globally, he said the world has become a place where “inequality was still too high and too few economies had attained sustainable growth.”

He said economies must be put at the service of people, through effective integrated social policies.

“Your work will be crucial for ensuring that the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals truly leave no one behind,” Ban Ki-moon said, as he opened week two of the Commission’s 54th session.

He pledged the United Nations’ support to help countries achieve the set goals and work closely with civil society to give life to a shared vision.

The UN Secretary-General recently submitted his report to the General Assembly on the milestones towards the follow-up to the 2030 Agenda, which among other things, reflected on how the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development could instill coherence in the work of all intergovernmental platforms in the system and derive political guidance from their conclusions.

Representatives of Governments, non-governmental organizations and United Nations agencies offered prescriptions in two separate debates, for creating a more just, inclusive and equal societies.

Speakers concluded discussions of the priority theme, “rethinking and strengthening social development in the contemporary world.”

They outlined national ways to create jobs, improve education and health-care systems and also to harmonize domestic laws with international standards.

In the second debate, speakers continued discussions under the theme “review of relevant United Nations plans and programmes of action pertaining to the situation of social groups.”

Representatives of United Nations agencies outlined the successes and challenges in improving social indicators.

The Chief of the Social Integration Section in the Social Development Division of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), said that together with the International Labour Organization (ILO), it had drafted the first-of-its-kind of regional situational report, titled“Switched On: Youth at the Heart of Sustainable Development in Asia and the Pacific,” to examine the 2030 Agenda from a youth perspective.

Ban Ki-Moon said the Commission’s work affected 1.2 billion young people, more than 900 million older persons and one billion persons with disabilities around the world.

“Your work will be crucial in ensuring that the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals truly leave no one behind,” he declared.

By: Magdalene Teiko Larnyoh/citifmonline.com/Ghana