Building resilience and tackling the adverse impact of climate change should be an urgent priority for all, world leaders stressed today, as the General Assembly high-level debate concluded the third day of its deliberations, with speakers emphasizing that no meaningful climate action or development can take place in conditions of financial distress.
World leaders adopted a political declaration today calling for stronger international collaboration and coordination at the highest political levels to better prevent, prepare for and respond to pandemics, as the General Assembly held its first ever high-level meeting on the subject.
The world should not pretend that Africa’s present day economic and social conditions are not connected with historical injustices, world leaders stressed today as the General Assembly high-level debate continued, with speakers underscoring the need to bridge the gap between developed and developing countries.
The Political Declaration adopted yesterday leaves world leaders with “a to-do list” to turn words into action to attain the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the United Nations chief said today at the close of the SDG Summit, proposing key measures, including reform of the global financial system and increased availability of liquidity to countries in debt distress.
The international community “seems incapable of coming together” to respond to a slew of growing global challenges and rising geopolitical tensions, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres warned the General Assembly today as its annual high-level debate commenced, which also featured world leaders underlining the importance of multilateralism — and of the United Nations — for cooperation in a fragmenting world.
Following is UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ address to the opening of the seventy-eighth session of the General Assembly, in New York today:
Following the Russian Federation’s 30 August veto of a draft resolution that would have renewed certain Security Council measures against those obstructing peace in Mali, speakers in the General Assembly considered its implications amidst the demanded withdrawal of United Nations presence from a country still in crisis.
The General Assembly today adopted its work programme for the seventy-eighth session, deciding to include a range of new items on its agenda, including the “Agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas beyond National Jurisdiction” — a historic maritime biodiversity treaty adopted on 19 June by the Intergovernmental Conference on Marine Biodiversity of Areas beyond National Jurisdiction.
The General Assembly concluded its seventy-seventh session today, with outgoing President Csaba Kőrösi (Hungary) urging Member States’ international cooperation, despite geopolitical conflicts, to forge future-proof integrated solutions to global challenges and uphold their promises to the world’s 8 billion people.
