Honour commitment to development, leaders urged
THE president of Guinea-Bissau says there is an important link between the AU 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Addis Ababa Action Agenda on financing for development.
Addressing the UN General Assembly General Debate in New York on Wednesday, Jose Mario Vaz called on world leaders to honour the commitments they made in the two global agreements.
“My country is strongly committed to do our part in implementing them,” said Vaz. “We are proud that our National Development Plan is in line with many goals of the 2030 Agenda and of our political will to gradually adjust the plan to fully accommodate the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.”
Also welcoming the Paris Agreement on climate change and calling for its effective implementation, Vaz said the phenomenon posed a major threat to Guinea-Bissau.
He emphasised that global challenges, in particular terrorism, also manifested at the sub-regional level and expressed his country’s solidarity with others in the world that were victims of such barbaric acts which disregarded the values of humanity. The Guinea-Bissau leader said just before he left for the UN an agreement had been reached between the prime minister, the president of the National Popular Assembly and the two main political parties to overcome parliamentary obstructions.
He thanked the heads of state of Guinea and Sierra Leone as well as those of the Economic Community of West African Statesmember countries for their efforts in arriving at the solution.
He pointed out that since his assumption of the leadership of Guinea-Bissau, there had been no confrontations involving the military or paramilitary forces, no one had been killed for political reasons, and no human rights violations had been reported.
Vaz also urged the UN to support his country in its efforts for national reconciliation, in implementing security sector reform, and for participation of the its armed forces in UN peacekeeping missions.
In her address, Vice-President of Gambia Isatou Njie Saidy also referred to the grave challenges posed by global terrorism and called for collective action among all countries to defeat the dangerous threat to world peace, security and stability.
“We are gravely concerned that certain rogue politicians and nefarious intellectuals are using the ‘terrorist card’ to revive and propagate the notion of a class of civilisation in which Islam is at war with the West,” she said. – ANA