PM Modi expected to address high-level UN summit on sustainable development on 25 Sept

United Nations: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to address a high-level summit on sustainable development hosted by the UN on 25 September when the new and ambitious post-2015 development agenda will be adopted.

The United Nations summit for the adoption of the post-2015 development agenda will be held from 25 to 27 September at the United Nations and will be convened as a high-level plenary meeting of the General Assembly.

Slated to be one of the largest ever gatherings at the UN, more than 150 world leaders are expected to attend the Sustainable Development Summit to formally adopt the outcome document of the new agenda.

Modi is expected to address the gathering on 25 September after which he will head to the West Coast to visit San Francisco, sources told PTI.

The 70th session of the General Assembly will open on 15 September.

The annual high-level General Debate will begin on 28 September and will run through 6 October.

Since Modi is likely to return to India around 28 September, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj is expected to represent the country at the General Debate.

According to the first provisional list of speakers for the General Debate, released by the UN, India will be represented by its “Minister” who is scheduled to address the gathering of Heads of State and Foreign Ministers in the morning of 1 October.

Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is expected to address the UNGA on 30 September, according to the UN provisional list.

It remains to be seen if Modi and Sharif would meet on the sidelines of the Sustainable Development Summit, depending on when Pakistan Premier arrives in New York.

However, since the speakers’ list released is still provisional, the country representatives and the date and time when they address the debate could change in the weeks ahead.

Modi is expected to travel to San Francisco after his address to the Sustainable Development Summit on 25 September, becoming the fourth Indian Premier to visit US’ West Coast.

He had given his maiden address to the UN General Assembly last year and had then travelled to Washington to meed US President Barack Obama.

As is the tradition, Brazil will open the General Debate on the morning of 28 September, followed by an address by US President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The 193 Member States of the United Nations reached agreement on 2 August on the outcome document that will constitute the new sustainable development agenda that will be adopted this September by world leaders at the at the Sustainable Development Summit.

Concluding a negotiating process that has spanned more than two years and has featured the unprecedented participation of civil society, countries agreed to the ambitious agenda that features 17 new sustainable development goals that aim to end poverty, promote prosperity and people’s well-being while protecting the environment by 2030.

Welcoming the agreement, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said it “encompasses a universal, transformative and integrated agenda that heralds an historic turning point for our world”.

This is the people’s agenda, a plan of action for ending poverty in all its dimensions, irreversibly, everywhere and leaving no one behind.

It seeks to ensure peace and prosperity and forge partnerships with people and planet at the core.

The integrated, interlinked and indivisible 7 sustainable development goals are the people’s goals and demonstrate the scale, universality and ambition of this new agenda."

The September Summit, where the new agenda will be adopted, “will chart a new era of sustainable development in which poverty will be eradicated, prosperity shared and the core drivers of climate change tackled”, he said.

The new agenda builds on the success of the Millennium Development Goals, which helped more than 700 million people escape poverty.

The eight Millennium Development Goals, adopted in 2000, aimed at an array of issues that included slashing poverty, hunger, disease, gender inequality, and access to water and sanitation by 2015.

Ban said the new agenda will also contribute to achieve a meaningful agreement in the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP21) in Paris in December.

PTI