2 October 2013
Minister Saint Lucia: post-MDGs period must be driven by shared goals
Wilfred P. Elrington, foreign minister of Belize, noted on goal 8 of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on global partnership for development in his speech to the UN General Assembly that ‘the rich countries have not even been able to bring themselves to honour their commitment to contribute even the 0.7 per cent of their gross domestic product as official domestic assistance to poor countries.’
He said that in addition, resources being provided by the international and other financial institutions and by private donors ‘fall far short’ of what is needed by poor countries to attain the MDGs. Therefore ‘careful analysis must be undertaken to ascertain why it was that our rich development partners failed to live up to their obligations under the partnership to provide the promised development aid and expertise to poor development partners’ and ‘new mechanisms must be devised to ensure that the post-2015 development agenda does not suffer a similar fate’ according to Elrington.
Alva Romanus Baptiste, minister for external affairs of Saint Lucia stated that the post-MDGs period ‘must be driven by common aspirations, shared goals and a unified vision of a secure and serene world’.
Source: General Assembly of the United Nations | General Debate of the 68th Session | Belize | H.E. Mr. Wilfred Elrington, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade | 30 September 2013
Source: General Assembly of the United Nations | General Debate of the 68th Session | Saint Lucia | H.E. Mr. Alva Romanus Baptiste, Minister of External Affairs | 30 September 2013