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At UN debate, African leaders say global sustainability agenda must reflect local realities

29 September 2014 – With a new sustainable development agenda as the focus of this year's annual General Assembly debate, African leaders today called on the United Nations to take into consideration the continent's specific realities and challenges.

The Prime Minister of Sao Tome and Principe, Gabriel Arcanjo Ferreira da Costa, as the first speakers of the high-level debate's second week, outlined six pillars on which African has anchored its sustainable development.

These pillars "emanate from the aspirations of our African nations, and all partners of the African continent must take them into account… in their affirmation of the dignity of our people," he said.

The pillars include structural economic transformation and inclusive growth; science, technology, and innovation; people-centred development; environmental sustainability, natural resource management and disaster management; peace and security; and finance and partnerships.

In his address, Mr. Costa also highlighted Sao Tome and Principe's location in the Gulf of Guinea, a region that is "strongly affected by piracy, terrorism, drug trafficking, and other illicit acts committed at sea."

As part of efforts to counter these phenomena, the Prime Minister welcomed the establishment of the Inter-regional Coordination Center (CIC) which will soon be operational.

He urged the international community to "continue with us on this arduous path toward ensuring our collective security."

The Prime Minister is one of an expected 196 speakers to take the floor since last Wednesday to address the UN body on the theme of the debate, "Delivering on and Implementing a Transformative Post-2015 Development Agenda" as well as urgent crises ranging from the ongoing conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Ukraine and South Sudan.

Also today, the Vice-President of Angola, Manuel Vicente, told the General Assembly that "Africa has ceased to represent that image of desolation that it did in the beginning of the millennium."

He noted that the average growth on the continent is five per cent per year and that several countries have improved their human development indicators.

The Vice-President urged the international community to also consider the negative impact of regional insecurity on development and people's wellbeing in parts of the continent.

Angola, which holds the rotating presidency of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region, aims to attain "stability, political and institutional development, internal and border security, as well as good governance and human rights."

Among other issues, Mr. Vicente highlighted the need to reform the Security Council to make it more in line with the current international context and reflect "an equitable geographical representation."

In the Kingdom of Swaziland, food security remains a critical challenge. Prime Minister Barnabas Sibusiso Dlamini, in his address to the UN body, reiterated a call for the provision of adequate financial resources, transfer of environmentally-sound technologies and technical assistance to development countries.

He said Africa had abundant resources, but needs to add value to products to maximize food production initiatives.

Also addressing the Assembly, Phandu T. C. Skelemani, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Botswana, said that as the curtain was being drawn on the MDG era, it is important reflect on and draw lessons from the successes and failures in their implementation. "The global community, most notably in the developing world, has faced significant challenges in fully realising the MDGs."

Indeed, he continued, this has resulted in many developing countries failing to deliver tangible development to their citizens as cogently set out in the MDGs, despite their best efforts and intentions. "Whilst Botswana has made impressive gains in the implementation of the MDGs, it was not without enormous challenges, Chief amongst which were resource and capacity constraints," he said.

And while Botswana would continue to press ahead with efforts towards achievement of the MDGs by 2015, as the international community began to consider a successor sustainability agenda, his country would note the issues of "major strategic importance", including, among others, climate change, the concerns of landlocked developing countries, as well as issues of peace and security and the advancement of human rights.

Specifically on climate change, Mr. Slelemani said Botswana knows only too well the devastating effects of the phenomenon, which continue to cause extreme temperatures, changes to patterns of rainfall, land degradation, desertification and persistent droughts. IN this regard, we believe addressing them should be a primary consideration in the current deliberations on the post-2015 sustainable development agenda."

As a middle income, landlocked developing country with peculiar vulnerabilities, Botswana also strongly hopes for a comprehensive account of these issues in the post-2015 development agenda. Welcoming the 10 year review of the Almaty Programme of Action to be held in November in Vienna, Austria, he said he hopes that during that meeting, special attention will be given to countries with ever increasing elephant populations whose numbers do not only pose a serious animal-human conflict but also devastates the very environment the elephants depend on for survival. Botswana has the largest elephant population in Africa.