Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama has called on the international community to partner with Nigeria to end poverty, fight inequalities and tackle climate change.
Onyeama made the call this at the High-Level Meeting on Financing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, on the sidelines of the ongoing 73rd Session of the General Assembly of the UN in New York, U.S.
He said that financing for development was key to the successful implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) agenda -2030.
He underlined Nigeria’s position on the agenda, saying while each of the 17 SDG was important, their respective implementation required a revitalised global partnership that thrived on a win-win principle.
He called on world governments to increasingly work with other stakeholders to deliver on their national SDG action plans, while businesses must continue to find new ways to pursue the global goals as a strategic business agenda.
However, he expressed concern that the world economy remained vulnerable to financial and economic volatility.
The minister said that the occurrence affects progress in policy agenda across all the action areas of the Addis Ababa Action Agenda and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
“Consequently, it is necessary to address medium-term risks, including the potential effects of rising global interest rates as it leads to a reversal of capital flows and increased debt distress to the disadvantage of developing countries.
In the realization of this fact, he said that Nigeria had chosen economic diversification as its path to sustainable economic prosperity.
According to him, government has undertaken various initiatives to move from an oil-dependent to a multi-sector economy, with attention on the development of the agriculture and mining sectors.
Onyeama explained that the objective was to stabilise the system and attract foreign and domestic investment into the priority sectors of the economy.
He called on the international community to continue to partner with Nigeria to end all forms of poverty, fight inequalities and tackle climate change in a manner that “ensures that no one is left behind’’.
Onyeama noted that to a large extent, the successful implementation of the SDGs 2030 and the African Union Agenda 2063, depended on strengthening of institutional and human capacities in the country.
He said that the success also depended on improving strategic linkages at various levels, and mobilising and financing of the value-chain of a well-structured economic transformation.
