The veteran diplomat from Trinidad and Tobago mirrored on his time period as President of the 78th Session of the UN Basic Meeting which ended 10 September 2024.
Talking on the eve of the top of his mandate, Mr. Francis described his yr on the helm of the UN’s essential policy-making physique as “an honour of a lifetime”.
“This has been a very eventful session,” he mentioned.
Sustainable growth focus
The Basic Meeting includes all 193 UN Member States, and the veteran diplomat from Trinidad and Tobago made ‘Peace, Prosperity, Progress and Sustainability’ the watchwords for his presidency.
It started with the adoption of a landmark political declaration on the SDG Summit final September, which the Basic Meeting endorsed in its first official motion of the 78th session, “bringing urgency to our efforts to fulfil the SDGs”, he mentioned.
Separate Excessive-Degree Conferences on three health-related points – pandemic prevention, preparedness and response; boosting common well being protection, and stamping out tuberculosis – additionally ended with political declarations.
“The Excessive-Degree Dialogue on Financing for Improvement, in the meantime, led to a powerful consensus on the necessity to reform the worldwide monetary structure – with a view to matching our Sustainable Improvement ambitions for 2030 with the required assets for implementation,” he added.
Inaugural Sustainability Week
The Basic Meeting additionally commemorated the seventy fifth anniversary of the Common Declaration of Human Rights in December with a casual plenary assembly and award ceremony for recipients of the UN Human Rights Prize.
Mr. Francis convened the Meeting’s first-ever Sustainability Week, held in April, centered on points comparable to tourism, transport, infrastructure and vitality, whereas a flagship occasion on debt sustainability highlighted the issues of nations in particular conditions.
The Week was dedicated to constructing momentum for the Fourth Worldwide Convention on Small Island Growing States, held in Could in Antigua and Barbuda, and the Summit of the Future, which begins subsequent week in New York, and to catapulting world efforts to realize sustainable growth.
“All through, we have been reminded of the central accountability to construct sustainable peace, the lynchpin of success on another pillar of the UN’s work,” mentioned Mr. Francis.
