At the respected and probably oldest chapter in Westchester, NY, at Wainwright House, a historic venue that housed the first Secretary General of the United Nations during the building of headquarters. Oct 22nd, 2017.
In fact, UN Day, celebrated nationwide on October 22nd, 2017, was highlighted in New York’s wealthy and influential Westchester County with the theme “Global Goals, Local Leaders.” The Day was commemorated at Wainwright House in Rye, NY, which is a landmark and was the home, during construction of the United Nations building in Manhattan, of Dag Hammarskjold’s temporary office before moving in to the completed venue. The remarks delivered by Ambassador Henry Mac Donald of Suriname on the Sustainable Development Goals included his announcement of his impending leadership of the World Development Foundation and the focus on his work with the HE FOR SHE movement for gender equality. His words on that beautiful autumn day were “quite inspiring,” as appreciated by the UNA President Ms. Marcia Brewster. The large group gathered was equally impressed and enthused by his formal address . See them here, attached
UN Day Remarks, 2017
Theme: Global Goals – Local Leaders
Venue: New Rochelle, New York
AMB. HENRY MAC DONALD
Sunday October 22, 2017
Dear Friends, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Last October 17 (just a few days ago) was the International Day to eradicate poverty. Every year on this day UN Member states are being reminded/requested to firmly put poverty eradication on their agenda and to take practical steps to get rid of POVERTY all over the world.
The theme of this year was to call upon World Leaders, but mostly those of the developing countries to take action in order to reach the 2030 Agenda of the United Nations.
According to the UNDP report of 2016, approximately 1.5 billion people in 102 developing countries are still living in conditions of poverty.
This is 29% of the global community.
In 47 of the least developed countries of Africa, Asia and in our hemisphere – Haiti – people are still living under extreme forms of poverty.
Furthermore, 900 million people are running the risk to end up poor due to economic instability by civil war, inflation or climate change.
Now, let me inform you about the work of the UN since 2000 and why I firmly believe that by 2030 the world can and will reach the stage of NO POVERTY.
It all began with the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals. The MDGs was an International Development Plan that lasted 15 years (2000 – 2015).
I arrived and started to work as an Ambassador at the UN in August 2007, right in the middle of this intercontinental development plan.
Since I came straight from Washington DC, as a diplomat with experience in the field of human rights, my first focus was to concentrate on the human rights and humanitarian agenda of the United Nations.
This matter quickly became a niche of the Permanent Mission of Suriname.
We even chaired the so called Third Committee in 2010 (The Third Committee is the Committee on Social and Humanitarian Issues. This committee is currently being chaired by Ambassador Einar Gunnarsson from Iceland).
(Later on, I will say more about the longstanding and close cooperation between Iceland and Suriname on the largest and leading human rights violation on earth, during my tenure as a Permanent Representative; I’m referring to the matter of Violence against Women and Girls)
Ladies and Gentlemen, 2010 Was also the time when UN diplomats started to think and strategize about developing a brand-new blue print, what to do after the conclusion of the MDGs.
Let me immediately say that the principal aim of the MDGs was to cut back on global poverty by half.
This goal was reach approximately 6 months before the conclusion of 2015 and my country Suriname was one of the UN member states that celebrated this achievement at the Food and Agricultural Organization in Rome.
(72 countries of the 134 developing nations were able to reach the MDGs threshold in the scheduled time frame of 15 years).
As I just said, 2010 was the year when UN Diplomats started to plan on; What to do Next?
Now we know that the very ambitious SDGs (the Sustainable Development Goals) pursued the Millennium Goals.
I used the term “ambitious” because this new global plan intends to get writ of global poverty completely.
We are now in 2017 and thus two years in the implementation phase of the new development plan. The UN has a brand-new Secretary General, H.E. Antonio Guterres, and all member states are committed to realize the Sustainable Development Goals set by World Leaders in 2015.
This new plan is way more comprehensive than its predecessor.
Compared to the MDGs it has twice more goals for instance.
The Millennium Development Goals was a global development plan with 8 Goals, now we are talking about the Sustainable Development Goals with 17 Goals and 169 targets.
I just set the stage about my passion at the United Nations over the past 10 years and as the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Suriname.
Today, I am delivering my first speech as the President of the World Development Foundation, so allow me to share with you the vision of this young New York Based Non-Governmental Organization.
The World Development Foundation (WDF)
WDF started in 2015 and is pursuing Public Private Partnership for Development based on the Sustainable Development Goals.
WDF is seeking to bring together and supports individual Governments, the United Nations Organization, Civil Society, the Academic Community, Businesses and ordinary people all over the world, in order to be educated and informed about how to support and achieve the global sustainable development efforts.
How do we plan to realize this?
First and foremost, by tying SDG Goal 17 (Partnerships) and 16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions) strongly together.
Let me try to explain to you how this should work:
We particularly studied the comprehensive set of 17 goals and decided to work on all 17, by concentrating on those which are strongly interlinked with all others.
Education (goal 4):
“Education is key for individual and country development”
Gender Equality (goal 5):
“Solving the global gender equality problem will deal with an issue confronting have of the global community.”
Decent Work and Economic Growth (goal 8)
“Quality jobs creation for the global community trough among others sustainable tourism promotion”.
Sustainable Cities and Communities (goal 11)
“Urbanization will be the defining trend over the next several decades, especially in East Asia, South Asia and Sub Sahara Africa, where the bulk of extreme poverty is concentrated”.
Climate Action (goal 13)
“Our climate is being threatened by human induced activities and we need to start listing to the various climate scientist and act accordingly”.
This all should be happening while ensuring healthy lives and promote well-being for all ages.
I thank you kindly for your attention.