• As Buhari tasks world leaders on hunger, disease by 2030

With the bang of a gavel, international leaders approved an ambitious 15-year plan Friday to tackle the world’s biggest problems, from eradicating poverty to preserving the planet to reducing inequality, as Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari reaffirmed his administration’s total commitment to the enthronement of a fully transparent and accountable public revenue management system in Nigeria. . Now comes the tough part: Drumming up support and money to achieve the goals and transform the world.
Pope Francis gave his backing to the new development agenda in an address to the UN General Assembly before the summit to adopt the 17-point plan opened, calling it “an important sign of hope” at a very troubled time in the Middle East and Africa.
When General Assembly President Mogens Lykketoft struck his gavel to approve the development road map, leaders and diplomats from the 193 UN member states stood and applauded loudly.
Then, the summit immediately turned to the real business of the three-day meeting — implementation of the goals, which is expected to cost $3.5 trillion to $5 trillion every year until 2030.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon set the stage, saying the agenda “embodies the aspirations of people everywhere for lives of peace, security and dignity on a healthy planet.”
The goals “are a to-do list for people and planet, and a blueprint for success,” Ban said.
The document, titled “Transforming our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,” not only outlines 17 broad goals but sets 169 specific targets.
The non-binding goals succeed the eight Millennium Development Goals adopted by world leaders 15 years ago. Only one of those has been achieved: halving the number of people living in extreme poverty, due primarily to economic growth in China. At least one other is close — cutting in half the proportion of people without access to clean water — and there are still three months until the goals expire.
The new goals include ensuring “healthy lives” and quality education for all, clean water, sanitation and reliable modern energy, as well as making cities safe, reducing inequality within and among countries, and promoting economic growth and good governance.
Critics say they are too broad, lack accountability and will lead to disenchantment among those most in need of hope.
Supporters say there is no choice but to go big in a world of expanding population, growing inequality, dwindling resources and the existential threat from global warming. They note that while the millennium goals were developed by then secretary-general Kofi Annan and his staff, the new goals are the result of years of negotiations by all 193 member states, which means they should all have a stake in their achievement.
Sweden announced that a group of nine leaders from different regions will work to ensure implementation of the goals. It includes German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the presidents of Brazil, Colombia, Liberia, South Africa, Tanzania and Tunisia and the prime ministers of Sweden and East Timor.
Speaker after speaker pointed to the spread of extremist groups as barriers to development, perhaps none more eloquently than Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousefzai, who was shot in the head by the Taliban in Pakistan in 2012 for campaigning for girls’ education.
Standing in the assembly chamber’s balcony surrounded by 193 young people representing every country, Malala told the leaders: “The future generation is raising their voice.” Each teen held a lantern, which she said symbolized their hope that the new global goals will be achieved.
Millions of children are suffering from “terrorism, displacement and denial of education,” Malala said, noting the heartbreaking photo of 3-year-old Syrian refugee Aylan Kurdi lying drowned on a Turkish sea shore and the tearful parents of girls abducted from their school in northern Nigeria by Boko Haram.
“Promise peace to all children in Pakistan, in India, in Syria and in every corner of the world,” Malala implored the leaders.
“Promise that every child will have the right to safe, free and quality primary and secondary education,” she said. “Education is hope. Education is peace.”
Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi said the international community has to deal with global challenges that hinder development — “especially terrorism” which isn’t confined to Arab nations but has spread worldwide.
In pursuing development, he said, the Egyptian people are facing “the most dangerous extremist terrorist ideology.”
Egypt has been fighting an insurgency by Sinai militants allied to the Islamic State group. At the same time, security forces have cracked down on Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists since the military — then led by el-Sissi — ousted President Mohammed Morsi, a senior Brotherhood figure, in 2013 after massive protests against Morsi’s rule. Hundreds of Islamists have been killed and thousands arrested.
El-Sissi also expressed concern that “the tools” to achieve the goals are insufficient, and stressed that richer nations have a responsibility to help poorer ones.
Afghan leader Abdullah Abdullah, whose country is one of the world’s poorest, urged “political commitment and revitalized partnership” to achieve the goals.
The head of Amnesty International used his speech to make an impassioned critique of mass surveillance, the arms trade, income inequality and human rights abuses.
“You cannot launch these goals and in parallel deny a safe and legal route to refugees, a life with dignity,” Amnesty’s Salil Shetty added.
Merkel told fellow leaders there is no quick solution to the migrant crisis that has seen hundreds of thousands of people fleeing war, poverty and persecution flood into Europe and safe havens closer to home.

As Buhari tasks world leaders on hunger, disease by 2030

Meanwhile, the Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has reaffirmed his administration’s total commitment to the enthronement of a fully transparent and accountable public revenue management system in Nigeria.
Addressing the United Nations Plenary Summit for the Adoption of the Post-2015 Development Agenda yesterday inUN headquarters in New York, President Buhari said that his administration was taking steps to improve and streamline internal generation of revenue, and to plug all loopholes that have led to illicit capital flight from Nigeria while putting mechanisms in place to prevent oil theft and other criminal practices that are detrimental to Nigeria’s economy.
Applauding the adoption of the Post-2015 Global Development Agenda, President Buhari said that he was very pleased that world leaders had reaffirmed their commitment to sustainable development, international peace and security, and the protection of the planet ssying that this is the first time there is a framework that is universal in scope and outlook, with clearly defined goals and targets, and appropriately crafted methods of implementation.
Buhari said, “declaration that we have adopted today testifies to the urgency and the necessity for action by all of us. It is not for want of commitment that previous initiatives have failed or could not be fully realized. What seemed to be lacking in the past were political will and the required global partnership to pursue and implement the programmes to which we committed ourselves.”This Declaration enjoys global consensus. We have agreed to deliver as one and to leave no one behind. This is a promise worth keeping. We have agreed to create viable partnerships and to adopt the means of implementation for the goals and targets of the global sustainable development agenda in all its three dimensions; namely economic, social and environmental.”
“The Post-2015 Development Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) together with the Addis Ababa Action Agenda that we adopted in July 2015, offer us a unique opportunity to address the unfinished business of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).”They also provide the basis for a new set of global development priorities to usher in a peaceful and prosperous world, where no one is left behind, and where the freedom from fear and want, and for everyone to live in dignity, is enthroned,” President Buhari said.
Noting that illiteracy, hunger and diseases are associated evils that go hand in hand with poverty, the President urged the assembled world leaders to do everything possible to eliminate these ills from our midst by 2030 as the Declaration loudly proclaims. “The bottom billion that has neither safety nets nor social protection, need to be rescued from their perpetual state of hopelessness, fear and indignity. This is a task that should have been accomplished decades ago. Now that it has fallen on our shoulders to discharge this responsibility, we should do so with the enthusiasm and commitment that is worthy of the cause.”We must adopt targeted interventions at both policy and practical levels, to address extreme poverty and combat illiteracy, hunger and diseases. We must create viable partnerships that bring together national, regional and global actors with shared objectives to carry this forward.”We must also create the enabling environments for executing this global agenda, by developing the relevant frameworks for working with different types of partners and constituencies that recognize the contributions of civil society, religious and cultural bodies, private sector, academia and most importantly, governments.
“Just as the relative success of the MDGs was underpinned by national ownership, the Post-2015 and the SDGs frameworks must also be guided by national priorities and ownership. Domestic resource mobilization supplemented by improved terms of trade between industrial and developing economies should drive the implementation processes in both streams. The facilitation of remittances by migrant and overseas workers, as well as efficient tax collection are needed as complimentary sources of financing for development,” the President said.