Statement
By
Dr the Most Honourable Andrew Holness ON, PC, MP, DLP
At the
Plenary Session of the UN’s Summit of the Future
On
September 22, 2024
—————————————————————————————–
Mr President,
Jamaica welcomes the convening of the Summit of the Future.
We commend the Co-Facilitators of the Pact of the Future, the Declaration on Future Generations and the Global Digital Compact for their hard work. This Summit and the Pact, together embody renewed hope for advancing a common vision on leveraging multilateralism to create a dynamic framework within which our future generations will thrive.
Jamaica is proud to have contributed to this historic process, particularly as Co-Facilitator for the Declaration on Future Generations.
Mr President,
The Pact aptly reaffirms the importance of achieving the SDGs. The SDG Summit in 2023 exposed the lack of progress towards SDG implementation, including the reality that Small Island Developing States are particularly off track to meet them. With many still recovering from the pandemic, at the heart of this challenge, and one that must be addressed with urgency, is the glaring SDG financing gap amounting to USD2.5 to USD4 trillion dollars annually.
As the Pact affirms,
We must redouble our efforts to address global poverty, income inequality and food insecurity;
We have an obligation to limit global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels; and
We must deliver a future that fosters peaceful societies, and achieves
- debt sustainability,
- resilience to climate shocks,
- infrastructural development,
- high quality health and education systems,
- full respect for human rights, empowerment of women and girls AND
- an enabling environment that makes international trade and the economy work for sustainable development.
I am moved to point out that these are all areas of priorities in Jamaica’s National Development Plan- Vision 2030.
Mr President,
We are facing unprecedented challenges to international peace and security, mainly driven by geo-political motivations, but increasingly by transnational organized crime networks. These challenges strike at the very heart of the UN Charter.
The Pact provides a realistic framework within which we can all coexist in peace and harmony, within and among countries, and transfer the nature of such co-existence to our future generations. It is therefore well aligned with and supportive of the Secretary General’s Agenda for Peace.
We welcome the focus of the Pact on the importance of science, innovation, and technological advancement, including digitalisation. Admittedly, new technologies, such as artificial intelligence and robotics, create new challenges to security and some livelihoods. However, they also create important opportunities, especially for young people; and hold great potential to empower generations, to transform economies and to solve complex challenges. So great is the potential in fact, that we must emphasize the importance of international cooperation to address the challenges, and harness the opportunities, especially for the benefit of people in developing countries.
I must make the point that reform is needed in our international systems to better serve the needs of the world today. More particularly, I agree with the Secretary General that “the international financial system is outdated, dysfunctional and unjust”. Furthermore, the UN Security Council needs to be more representative, inclusive and effective in a changing global security landscape.
As a Small Island Developing State, the Pact presents a pathway for turbocharging SDG implementation, addressing the impact of and tackling the key drivers of climate change, and setting the framework for making global governance to be more equitable, just and inclusive.
Co Facilitators, the world is counting on us to use this Summit to foster renewed hope in the future, lay a suitable foundation for the prosperity of our descendants, and undertake bold steps in making these a reality.
We must seize this opportunity!
I thank you!