United Nations Almaty Centre Can Contribute to Accelerating Progress in direction of 2030 Agenda in Central Asia, Afghanistan, Says Secretary-General

Following are UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ remarks on the United Nations Centre for Sustainable Development Goals for Central Asia and Afghanistan, in Almaty as we speak:

It is a profound honour to affix you as we speak. 

We have simply signed the host nation settlement for the United Nations Regional Centre for the Sustainable Development Goals for Central Asia and Afghanistan.  The Centre represents the opening of a brand new chapter — for the area and for our collective journey in direction of the Sustainable Development Goals. 

It symbolizes the brand new period of cooperation in Central Asia — grounded in shared priorities and options.  And it holds nice potential for exhibiting how the robust bonds among the many area’s leaders can translate into deeper financial integration, for the advantage of all individuals.

This is extra important than ever.

And I commend Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev for his imaginative and prescient and his management in serving to to form this new Central Asia that can change into an increasing number of a elementary energy in our world order.

I thank Member States for supporting this initiative.  And I salute the individuals of Kazakhstan for his or her heat welcome.

Almaty is a becoming dwelling for this Centre.  This is a metropolis of historical past, resilience and imaginative and prescient.  And Kazakhstan is a perfect and beneficiant host.  This nation has lengthy served as a bridge between East and West, custom and innovation.

The Centre has been mandated by the General Assembly, and I look ahead to its operationalization — with phrases of reference being finalized and management appointments to comply with. 

Soon, it can function a hub for regional collaboration, a laboratory for concepts and a launchpad for motion. 

It will deliver collectively Governments, UN nation groups, civil society, academia, the personal sector, regional organizations and monetary establishments — to develop coordinated, country-led efforts and sort out among the most urgent challenges of our time — from local weather change and water shortage to youth unemployment, gender inequality and digital exclusion.

Working along with our resident coordinators and nation groups, it can contribute to accelerating progress in direction of the 2030 Agenda in Central Asia and Afghanistan — pushed by the spirit of solidarity and shared duty that defines the United Nations.

We are solely 5 years away from 2030 — however removed from our vacation spot.

The world is going through complicated and interlinked challenges that threaten sustainable improvement.  Poverty is stalling.  Hunger and malnutrition are plaguing societies.  Inequalities are deepening.  Conflicts proceed to tear communities aside.  And the local weather disaster is accelerating. 

In Central Asia, local weather change is already draining water provides, melting glaciers and fuelling pure disasters.  The shrinking of the Aral Sea is a stark reminder of the area’s environmental vulnerability.

Rising commerce tensions and world uncertainty compound these dangers.  The area’s landlocked geography presents further boundaries — to commerce, connectivity, financing and entry to world markets.  That is why I’m particularly happy to be right here on the eve of the Third United Nations Conference on Landlocked Developing Countries in Turkmenistan.

This Centre can change into an important pioneer in implementing the Programme of Action for Landlocked Developing Countries.  Today, we should say that Kazakhstan is now not a landlocked nation.

Kazakhstan is a centre within the world commerce system.  A centre within the world logistics, transportation and the telecommunication system with its corridors on roads, railways, fibre optics, and remodeling this nation in actually a bridge from East and West, North and South. 

And the Centre will help be sure that the aspirations of landlocked nations are usually not constrained by geography — however can empower by cooperation and regional options. 

It will construct on the area’s best asset — its individuals.  Young individuals, girls, entrepreneurs and civil society — these are the true engines of progress, driving the innovation and resilience wanted to go away nobody behind.

The Centre will assist data-driven coverage, spark innovation and amplify the voices of these too typically unheard.  And nowhere is that cooperation extra pressing than in our assist to Afghanistan.

The individuals of Afghanistan proceed to face immense hardship — from entrenched poverty and mass displacement to earthquakes, local weather shocks and a fragile humanitarian panorama.

They deserve peace, stability and a greater future.  And I’m very grateful for the cooperation Kazakhstan has been growing in current instances.

And this Centre will work with companions throughout the area and the worldwide neighborhood to assist Afghanistan’s path to sustainable improvement — with full respect for human rights, together with the rights of girls and ladies, and with a give attention to financial self-sufficiency, peace, and dignity. 

This Centre carries the promise of partnership and progress.  The United Nations stands able to assist you on this mission.

But enable me earlier than ending to say one thing that comes from my coronary heart.  I’m an ideal admirer of Kazakhstan.

Kazakhstan is for me a logo of knowledge, a bridge builder and a messenger for peace.  A platform for individuals of various ethnic and non secular teams to come back collectively and discover a frequent future.

I’ll always remember that Kazakhstan renounced its nuclear weapons and have become, primarily based on their angle, a logo of peace and disarmament that’s needed as we speak greater than ever.  And Kazakhstan has all the time been a voice of motive in a world the place sadly motive is having many difficulties to say itself.

On the opposite hand, we’re witnessing a renewed Central Asia.  I come to Central Asia since 18 years in the past, and I keep in mind the way it was, and I see how it’s, and it’s largely because of the management, the imaginative and prescient and the knowledge of leaders like President Tokayev, that it was doable to remodel a bunch of nations which have most likely extra issues and difficulties, that there’s an efficient cooperation to cohesive Central Asia that’s changing into a particularly essential Centre in as we speak’s world and in as we speak’s world financial system.

And so, to come back to Kazakhstan, to come back to Almaty, shouldn’t be solely as a result of there’s a Centre to inaugurate.  It’s as a result of I really feel, as Secretary-General, that I need to pay tribute to what Kazakhstan represents in our troubled world as we speak as a voice of knowledge and motive, as a logo of peace and cooperation.