What I’ll do as President of 74th UNGA — Muhammad-Bande

Nigeria’s Amb. Tijjani Muhammad-Bande on Monday in New York promised to strengthen global partnership against humanity’s problems if elected President of the 74th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).

Muhammad-Bande, who is the country’s Permanent Representative to the UN, made the promise at an informal dialogue with stakeholders on his candidature at the UN headquarters.

He stated that global challenges such as climate change, terrorism, pandemics, poverty, insecurity, hunger, among others, could only be addressed through collaboration among nations.

This, he said, underscores the need for UN member states to rekindle their faith in the organisation, which he described as the most substantive body that could provide the needed solutions.

The Nigerian envoy, who is the sole candidate in the race, pledged that his presidency would deepen actions instituted by his predecessors, while initiating new ones to solve the problems.

He also said his leadership of the UNGA would focus on maintaining global peace and security, which forms the UN’s first and second Charter, through conflict prevention.

On climate change, Muhammad-Bande lauded the commitment of 100 billion dollars by UN member states to start climate action by 2013.

He, therefore, called on all to match words with action, and “do all we can to see it happen’’.

On the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Nigerian envoy said the world was “not on time’’ on implementation, blaming the situation on national realities.

Muhammad-Bande said the UN and member states must redouble efforts through partnership in the areas of good governance, shared information, land reforms, among others, to meet the 2030 target.

Zeroing in on SDGs 2 and 3, which dwell on ending poverty and hunger, he described both poverty and hunger as complex afflictions of humanity.

“Poverty is so complex that the poor are denied their rights, they are ignored, and their dignity hampered. They do not eat; they do not go to school.

“The WHO (World Health Organisation reported that 727 million people went hungry in 2015, and the figure rose to 815 million in 2016, because of drought, conflict and others.

“This is terrible for our organisation. We have come to a point where we have to end hunger,’’ he said.

On education, MuhammadBande described illiteracy as another complex affliction of mankind.

He said priorities should be given to vocational and technical education, as well as teacher education, “which is the most fundamental’’. (NAN)