2023 CIFTIS - International Forum on South-South Cooperation and Trade in Services

His Excellency Mr. Li Fei, Vice Minister of Commerce,

Her Excellency Ms. Yan Ying, Vice Chair, Beijing Municipal Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, 

Excellencies,

UN colleagues,

Ladies and Gentlemen, 

Excellency Li Fei, your remarks were compelling and insightful. Inclusive development must be at the heart of progress. We must ensure the principles of sustainable development and leave no one behind. 

Countries around the world, especially developing countries, are faced with multiple challenges, including the long-term economic and social impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, increasing conflicts and violence and the triple crises of climate change, pollution and biodiversity. The international financial architecture is failing to respond to the needs of our times. Amid tightening fiscal and monetary conditions, the debt burden of the least developed countries continues to climb. Global progress on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is at risk.

As expressed in The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2023, “At the midpoint on our way to 2030, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are in deep trouble”. 

For this reason, the United Nations is convening the SDG Summit and the Climate Ambition Summit in New York this September. These summits will respond to the impact of multiple and interlocking crises facing the world and hope to reignite hope, optimism, and enthusiasm for the 2030 Agenda. UN Secretary-General Mr. António Guterres has urged for this SDG Summit to be “a moment of unity to provide a renewed impetus and accelerated actions for reaching the SDGs”. We eagerly await its outcomes.

Indeed, we are reminded ahead of this month’s International Day for South-South Cooperation, that partnerships, including those through the framework of South-South and triangular cooperation, are instrumental to achieving the SDGs. Capacity building under the framework of South-South Cooperation can be a valuable approach to stimulate exchanges between developing countries and share best practices on economic and social development. 

The 2030 Agenda recognizes that capacity-building forms part of the means of implementation for the SDGs. Each SDG contains targets relating to means of implementation, including capacity-building. 

Moreover, SDG 17 – Partnerships for the Goals – which covers means of implementation and the global partnership for sustainable development, contains target 17.9, which aims to “enhance international support for implementing effective and targeted capacity-building in developing countries to support national plans to implement all the Sustainable Development Goals, including through North-South, South-South and triangular cooperation”. 

Ladies and gentlemen, 

Capacity building is the process of developing and strengthening the skills, instincts, abilities, processes and resources that organizations and communities need to survive, adapt, and thrive in a fast-changing world. It is about the transfer of technology and knowledge in our digital world. 

That is why UN Deputy Secretary-General and Chair of the UN Sustainable Development Group, Ms. Amina J. Mohammed, conducted an official visit to China, from 25 to 30 June 2023 at the invitation of the Government of China. She focused her discussions and engagements with senior government officials, stakeholders and partners that the UN in China works with in areas such as sustainable finance and climate change.

The Deputy Secretary-General visited Kubuqi in Inner Mongolia, where she met with partners, including the Elion Resources Group, which has undertaken significant afforestation efforts and has turned the desert into a centre of solar and wind power, with enormous investments combined with efforts to enhance agri-business and improve livelihoods including for the herders and their children, who now have access to regular schooling. 

The UN has commended China for its efforts to reduce desertification and sandstorms, and improve people’s livelihoods and well-being. 

We stand ready to support China in sharing its experiences in developing affordable and clean energy at scale with other countries through South-South cooperation – in capacity building for partner countries, including governments, research institutions and the private sector, on how to best capitalize on China’s experience, in response to their country contexts and demands. 

Also here in China, the African Ambassadors’ Group in China, the Government of China and the UN, along with partners from the private sector, academia and foundations, are engaged in the development of the Transformative Partnerships Initiative (TPI) aimed at supporting the implementation of outcomes made under the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation. 

The TPI, with a focus on promoting agricultural development and food security in Africa, starting with countries in the Horn of Africa, has made steady and concrete progress as we move from discussions to project design and implementation. 

The Deputy Secretary-General has encouraged China to scale up its best practices in tackling the triple crises of climate change, pollution and biodiversity, and the sharing of its experiences through South-South cooperation. These should also be priorities for the TPI moving forward. I invite all of you to join us on this journey ahead. 

There is good reason to be encouraged by recent developments. The signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the China International Development Cooperation Agency (CIDCA) and the China Development Bank in July 2023, outlines enhanced collaboration in the eight priority areas of the Global Development Initiative (GDI). 

This agreement has the potential to enhance synergies with CIDCA’s project bank, innovate modalities for investment, expand collaboration on financing, and enhance the capacity of developing countries to implement the 2030 Agenda.

We are also pleased to see that China will soon launch a special fund of US$10 billion to implement the GDI, as announced recently by President Xi Jinping.  

Capacity building is an important component of China’s international development cooperation efforts, and the UN stands ready to scale up our collaboration, with best-of-class expertise, to ensure alignment between the SDGs and the priority areas of the GDI, and that South-South cooperation on capacity building is demand-driven. 

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The UN will evolve with the times and remain unchanged in our commitment to provide the best-of-class technical expertise, in support of South-South cooperation, in response to the needs of our Member States. 

Thank you.