James Cleverly – 2023 Speech at the UN High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development
The speech made by James Cleverly, the Foreign Secretary, in New York on 17 July 2023.
In 2015, 193 countries agreed the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals. This was a landmark multilateral achievement, to chart our course towards a fairer, healthier and more prosperous world by 2030.
Yet today at the halfway point, we are on course to miss a staggering 88% of the targets that we set.
This is clearly unacceptable. We cannot continue with business as usual if we are to end poverty, improve health and education, increase prosperity, or slow climate change.
But if we act together, we can still get the SDGs back on track. So what do we need to do?
My top priority is reforming development finance – and targeting it to areas which will accelerate progress, like food security, health, renewable energy, and the empowerment of women and girls.
This is not my idea. It’s what my fellow foreign ministers from developing countries tell me that we need to do. That’s why the UK supports the ambitions of Mia Mottley’s Bridgetown Initiative.
We need Multilateral Development Banks to free up trillions more for developing countries by implementing the G20’s independent review on Capital Adequacy Frameworks.
We need more private sector investment, particularly in clean energy, water and sanitation, and climate-resilient infrastructure.
We need all creditors to offer Climate-Resilient Debt Clauses, to pause loan repayments when disasters strike – as the UK Export Finance is doing in 12 African and Caribbean countries.
And we must ensure developing countries have strong public finances through better tax collection and tackling of illicit financial flows.
Our international financial system needs to become more responsive to shocks – so we can help poorer and smaller countries – especially those at risk of natural disasters – to sustain development gains and to prevent roll backs.
We cannot stop floods, we cannot stop droughts, we cannot stop hurricanes. But we can stop the economic crises and debt spirals that they cause.
I recognise that the UK doesn’t have all the answers. But we are committed to working with all our partners to urgently accelerate progress towards the SDGs over the next 7 years.
All of us need to recommit to the Sustainable Development Goals at the upcoming Summit at UNGA in September. Because we will need political will and partnership to forge bigger, better, fairer international financial systems which meets today’s development needs.
And we can translate our joint political ambitions into concrete reforms through the G20, World Bank, IMF and at COP28.
It is time for us to go further and faster. Let us seize the opportunity.
Thank you.
