Siddharth Chatterjee Speaks @ 9th China and Globalization Forum
October 08 , 2023
Caption: UN Resident Coordinator in China Siddharth Chatterjee at the 9th China & Globalization Forum
Remarks by Siddharth Chatterjee, UN Resident Coordinator in China
His Excellency Mr. Wu Hongbo, Special Representative of the Chinese Government on European Affairs, and the former Under-Secretary-General for the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. A man who actually sat in the engine room when the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were being defined and framed.
Mr. Andreas Schaal, it is a pleasure meeting you.
Dr. Henry Huiyao Wang and Ms. Mabel Lu Miao, my congratulations on 15 years of the Center for China and Globalization (CCG).
CCG’s progress, in many ways, is a microcosm of China’s own progress. It is an echo and a mirror of what China has achieved since 1979, when the per capita GDP was a mere US$ 180.
My colleagues from the UN family,
Excellencies,
Ambassadors,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
With CCG, just a few days ago, we had a roundtable discussion ahead of the SDG Summit, which the UN Secretary-General concluded yesterday. Today, we will start the Climate Ambition Summit. In that discussion with my UN colleagues, the ambassadors and the academia present at the CCG seminar, we took stock of where we are with the SDGs in China, the challenges China is experiencing, and where the opportunities for making rapid progress are. It was an engaging discussion. A lot of what we discussed will perhaps inform a lot of the outcomes of our discussions which will take place tomorrow.
Ladies and gentlemen, the SDGs have to be rescued. We are in dire straits. That is the reality. There is no embellishment that we can give to it at this moment.
For the first time in the world since World War II, we are experiencing a diversity of interlocking crises. We have a health crisis, which has upended economies which rival the Great Depression of the 1930s. We have a climate crisis, which has proven to be an existential threat to human development and humanity. We have over 25 conflicts, including the war in Ukraine. And we have rising levels of inequality across the world.
These collective interlocking crises are completely derailing the progress that we expected to make with the SDGs. In many ways, I sense the frustration in Ambassador Wu Hongbo’s voice. After all, he was part of the group that sat to frame the SDGs through tremendous amounts of discussions.
But ladies and gentlemen, the SDGs still remain.
Let us take stock of where China is on the SDGs. As I mentioned, in 1979, this was a country whose per capita GDP was US$ 180. Today they are close to US$ 12500. In four decades, that is one generation, they lifted over 750 million out of abject poverty. With 9 % of the world’s arable land, they are feeding one-fifth of the world’s population. Over 60 % of their women are in the labour force. A statistic of interest to you: there are 240 women that are billionaires in the world. 120 are Chinese.
But China, like any other country, is not immune to shocks. As a microscopic virus such as the COVID-19 pandemic shows, it upended economies globally. The climate crisis is impacting public health. It is impacting food security globally. There is a need for collective action in order to be able to overcome these hurdles and obstacles.
Today, as we speak, we reached a grim milestone of over 100 million people who have been displaced by conflicts, by climate crisis, by extreme poverty, by instability.
When Member States come up with initiatives, such as the Global Development Initiative, it has to be welcomed. Any Member State that comes up with an initiative that helps to advance, accelerate and provide momentum to the SDGs is absolutely critical.
I take this opportunity to commend the Government of China for having come forth with an initiative, come forth with the South-South Collaboration, and put money on the table to back it. We feel that the heart of any initiative must be about achieving the aspiration of SDGs. If you recall, when the SDGs were being framed, the first five goals were the unfinished business that came over from the Millennium Development Goals: to end poverty, end hunger, achieve universal health coverage, achieve better education, and achieve gender equality. These five goals remain germane to any discussion that we could have as we advance on the SDGs.
But the UN system, the multilateral system has to change. We were born in 1945, after World War II, in San Francisco. China was one of the signatories to the establishment of the UN system. The UN Secretary-General, Mr. António Guterres, has undertaken one of the boldest reforms of the UN system, of the development system, of the political and security system. Those reforms are necessary because unless the UN is dynamic, we will not progress in the direction of the needs of Member States. The choice is to be dynamic or be a dinosaur.
Our international financial institutions are broken. They are not in lockstep with the new reality. They need to be reformed to be able to address the needs and aspirations of Member States, of the 54 African countries, whose population will be 2.5 billion by 2050, whose economy will perhaps sustain the global economy, because we will be seeing there a rising demographic dividend.
As the UN Secretary-General has stated, “We are at a critical juncture in whether we achieve the ambition of the 2030 Agenda. We need the sustainable development goal summit to send a clear message from world leaders through a strong political declaration to deliver transformative actions and increased national commitments to the SDGs.”
In the political declaration agreed at the SDG Summit today, world leaders have committed to taking continuous, fundamental, transformative, and urgent actions at all levels by all stakeholders to overcome the crises and obstacles facing our world. We recognize the urgent need to take actions necessary to reverse declines and accelerate progress to achieve the 2030 Agenda and implement the SDGs.
As my friend Andreas just mentioned, he was talking about a stone in the water. Let me conclude with a verse: “A tiny pebble gently tossed into a placid stream with gentle splash. It sinks from sight and not again is seen. But outward from that gentle splash circling ripples and who knows on what far distant show the circling impulses.”
Thank you.
From United Nations China, 2023-9-15
