BEIJING: With Beijing poised to convene the first high-level Forum on Global Action for Shared Development on Monday, analysts have highlighted the increasingly prominent role China has played in the implementation of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
The conference, expected to bring together high-ranking officials from 27 countries and representatives from over 20 UN agencies, comes a year after President Xi Jinping presided via video over the High-level Dialogue on Global Development, rolling out a host of measures to support global development cooperation.
Zhou Taidong, vice-president of the Center for International Knowledge on Development, said Monday’s high-level conference, the first official forum under the framework of the Global Development Initiative, will be an occasion for China to respond to the development needs of other developing countries. “It will help rally forces from different sectors to take pragmatic action and transform the GDI from a unilateral initiative to multilateral action,” he said.
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is now facing multiple setbacks, he said, with geopolitical conflicts and tensions leading to severe deficits in trust and further aggravation of global development imbalances.
A report released by the UN in April said that a preliminary assessment of roughly 140 targets of the Sustainable Development Goals showed only about 12 percent are on track. Close to half of the targets, though showing progress, are “moderately” or “severely” off track and 30 percent have either seen no movement or regressed below the 2015 baseline. –The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
