Speech

The UK’s commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals is unwavering: UK statement at HLPF 2024

Statement by UK Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Barbara Woodward at the High-Level Political Forum 2024.

The UK’s commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals is unwavering.

My government has set out a central mission to tackle global poverty, instability and the climate and nature crisis. And to deliver this in genuine partnership with our friends in the Global South, driven by respect. Local leadership supports lasting, long-term impact and more inclusive progress, that leaves no one behind.

The SDGs under review this year are at the heart of the UK’s domestic and international agenda. Mitigating climate change and biodiversity loss. Delivering economic transformation, green growth and jobs to lift people out of poverty. Preventing and ending conflicts that steal the promise of development. Delivering humanitarian assistance to those who need it most. Unlocking more climate and development finance, and mobilising private sector to help deliver the SDGs and provide investment. Supporting faster Global Financial System reform.

Tackling unsustainable debt and illicit finance, which prevent countries from investing in their development. And empowering women and girls, the key to progress across all SDGs. We thank Brazil for their efforts through the G20 to refocus minds on hunger and poverty at this critical moment. All of this requires greater multilateral action and partnerships, to get the SDGs back on track.

We have many opportunities to do so over the coming months, including at the Summit of the Future, the third Land Locked Developing Country’s forum, the fourth Financing for Development Conference. The upcoming Quadrennial Comprehensive Policy Review must also ensure the UN system is best positioned to deliver the 2030 Agenda. Following the SDG Summit last year, we have the momentum. We must now focus on accelerating SDG progress – drawing on the synergies between climate and development, multistakeholder partnerships, and targeting interventions to the countries and people furthest behind.

Thank you.

Updates to this page

Published 17 July 2024