Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 9 June 2015
903. Deputy Jerry Buttimer asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade his position on a new development agenda that will build on the Millennium Development Goals, which is set to be launched at the Sustainable Development Summit in September 2015; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21915/15]
Amharc ar fhreagraThis year, Ireland is playing a strong role in the work for global agreement in three major international conferences on sustainable development. The Conferences are interlinked. They are on Financing for Development, in Addis Ababa in July, on a new framework for global development at the UN in New York in September and on a new climate change agreement in Paris in December. The aim is to deliver a new and transformative sustainable development agenda for the period up to 2030, with Sustainable Development Goals to succeed the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) after 2015.
Ireland is co-facilitating intergovernmental negotiations at the United Nations to agree the new SDGs which will complete the work of the MDGs on the eradication of extreme poverty and will also place sustainable development at the core. The SDGs will be universal in nature and address development challenges through social, environmental and economic actions in low, middle and high-income countries alike. They will address a wide range of areas including MDG priorities such as food and nutrition, but also broader challenges, including on climate, sustainable production and consumption, trade and global governance structures, and peace and governance.
Ireland’s key priorities for the post-2015 Development Agenda have been the fight to end hunger and under-nutrition, gender equality and women’s empowerment, and good governance and rule of law. These priorities are drawn from Ireland’s Policy for International Development ‘One World, One Future’ and the priorities set out following the Foreign Policy Review in ‘The Global Island’. Ireland’s positions in the UN negotiations and in the relevant EU coordination are agreed through a whole-of-Government coordination process involving all relevant Government Departments. We have advocated for strong goals and targets in each of these key areas, and we have emphasised the need to incorporate human rights in the new development framework, reduce global inequality and protect the role of civil society.
I am confident that the inter-governmental negotiations on the SDGs which are being co-facilitated by Ireland and Kenya will agree an ambitious outcome which will be adopted by a Summit of world leaders in September in New York. Ireland is committed to playing an active and constructive role with our EU and UN partners in reaching agreement on these new, transformative goals.
