UNITED NATIONS: Pakistan Monday emphasized that poverty eradication must remain the overarching objective of the post-2015 development agenda, saying it must be built on a solid foundation.
"The need for a new global development framework for both today's and future generations has never been greater," Ambassador Raja Ali Ejaz, the Pakistani delegate, told the General Assembly's Second Committee, which deals with economic and social matters.
Speaking in debate on "Sustainable Development', Ejaz, a director-general in Pakistan's Foreign Ministry, pointed out that global evidence of depleting natural capital, relentless spike in global inequality and stubborn poverty was mounting.
As far as Pakistan was concerned, he said it has faced numerous economic, political and social challenges during the last two decades. Terrorism, energy shortage, unstable regional political environment, and increasing exogenous shocks from natural disasters had impeded sustained economic gains in a country of more than 170 million people.
The Pakistan envoy said there were reasons to be optimistic despite the work ahead in devising a new development paradigm, citing progress by the open working group on sustainable development goals in shaping the contents of those objectives.
The new framework must avoid excessive focus on any one of the three sustainable development pillars and clearly promote economic growth, he said.
Pakistan looked forward to the nineteenth Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, stressing the need for time-bound mitigation commitments by all parties and reconfiguration of market mechanisms to facilitate the transition to a green economy.
Noting that the Hyogo Framework for Action had catalyzed serious national policy developments, Ejaz urged intensified efforts ahead of the Third World Conference on Disasters Risk Reduction in 2015.
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