Deputy Secretary-General, Addressing Meeting on Sustainable Mountain Development, Urges Greater Climate Funding, Adaptation Support for Highland Communities

Following is the text of UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed’s video message to the High-Level Meeting on Sustainable Mountain Development, today:

President Zhaparov, Excellencies, Friends and Partners of the mountains, I am pleased to greet this important event.

Hundreds of millions of people around the world live in and depend on mountain ecosystems.  Mountains provide us with freshwater, food and energy.  They support livelihoods and offer humanity tangible cultural and spiritual value.

But today, mountains are severely affected by climate change.  Mountain communities will be hard-hit as climate impacts are compounded by the multidimensional crises we face on food, energy and finance.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We have just witnessed a summer of climate devastation that goes far beyond mountainous areas.  With the twenty-seventh session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP27) taking place in November in Egypt, I call on all participants to advocate for more funding for climate adaptation, building sustainable and resilient food systems and supporting sustainable livelihoods with investments in jobs and social protection.

The International Year of Sustainable Mountain Development is a unique opportunity to catalyse global action and build the resilience of mountain communities and ecosystems to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.  I welcome the leadership of President Zhaparov on this matter and thank the Kyrgyz Government for its proposal of a five-year Plan of Action for the Sustainable Development of Mountainous Territories.

These initiatives can provide much-needed momentum to the international community and ensure that the challenges of mountain countries remain high on our collective agenda.

I encourage all of you today to seize the opportunity provided by this event to innovate and share ideas which will lead to transformative joint action.  You can count on the United Nations system in Kyrgyzstan and beyond to support you in this existential endeavour.

Mountains matter, for people and the planet.  I wish you a fruitful meeting.