UN summit in 2015 named key milestone for shaping new development agenda

MINSK, 26 September (BelTA) – The key phase in shaping the new United Nations global development agenda will be the UN summit in 2015, Foreign Minister of Belarus Vladimir Makei said at the high-level meeting of the UN General Assembly to follow up efforts made towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals on 25 September, BelTA learnt from the Foreign Ministry of Belarus.

The head of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry called upon the participants of the meeting to start working on the new and bold post-2015 United Nations development agenda. Noting that the key milestone on this road will be the UN summit in 2015, Vladimir Makei took note of the need for adopting serious and realistic sustainable development commitments at the summit.

Eight large-scale goals (Millennium Development Goals) approved by world leaders in 2000 made up the first in the world’s history global program for development and improvement of living standards of the population of the planet. All countries and international development organizations pledged that by the year 2015 they would eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, secure universal primary education, promote gender equality, reduce child mortality rates, improve maternal health, combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, ensure environmental sustainability and promote a global partnership for development.

Thanks to coherent national efforts Belarus fulfilled ahead of the schedule some of the MDGs, i.e. eradication of poverty and hunger, achievement of universal primary education, reduction of maternity and child mortality, promotion of gender equality. An indicator of overall national success in recent years is the fact that Belarus belongs to the group of countries with high human development level, ahead of all CIS member states.

In his speech the Foreign Minister of Belarus also named economic cooperation a priority for the CIS countries. Shared competitive advantages of the CIS in areas such as energy, transport, agrarian sector, mining and processing of natural resources allowed the CIS states in general to overcome successfully the consequences of the global financial and economic crisis.