15th meeting - 2018 High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (2018 HLPF)

Thank you to the ECOSOC presidency, member states, and all facilitators for providing major groups and other stakeholders with a space to speak throughout the past week. I am speaking on behalf of the UN Major Group for Children and Youth.

Despite your efforts, we have continued to see a lack of age, gender, region, ethnicity, and ability balance in the selection of panelists.

This be-lies your commitments to leaving no-one behind, and we urge member states to reverse this trend.

World Hunger and CO2 emission on the rise again. Progress on reducing poverty and inequalities remains vastly unequal. The progress in 2030 Agenda is too slow and off track. There is little time for exceptionalism and “Le congrès danse beaucoup”.

The breaking of silence yesterday demonstrated that UN-centred multilateralism is at stake. Foreign and colonial occupations are real: everyday we are witnessing the inhumane actions against Palestinian people in occupied territories. Existing trade regimes continue to marginalize the poor, women, youth, and indigenous people. Planetary boundaries and Mother Earth’s natural regenerative capacity cannot be compromised if we are to leave a habitable planet for our children. Right to development, embedded in the Agenda 21, remains to be true for all.

This week and the process on the ministerial declaration have proven the dire need for change. HLPF is mandated to give guidance and recommendations. This has not been the case. Despite these negative aspects, GA resolution sixty seven two ninety continues to be one of the best modalities for MGoS, engaging critical segments of society. And yet its implementation has not been adequate. We urge member states to take an inclusive approach, allowing major groups and other stakeholders to 1. Attend all meetings, 2. Access to all documents, 3. Intervene in informal-informals, and 4. Make a recommendation.

We urge you to continue to meet ever more ambitious sustainable development targets, bearing in mind that when anyone is left behind, we are all left behind.

Watch the discussion here.