Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi has emphasised the importance that Egypt attaches to promoting efforts aimed at achieving development, especially the sustainable development goals that the international community has agreed upon and accepted as a comprehensive framework for the realisation of prosperity and well-being for peoples the world over.
The president’s remarks came during his videoconferenced speech to the 76th United Nations General Assembly’s ‘SDG Moment 2021’ session which was held in New York on Monday.
In his speech, the President said that Egypt’s success in achieving the sustainable development goals is now becoming more and more important than ever, especially under the delicate international circumstance that requires countries to face very difficult global challenges amid the coronavirus pandemic
“This comes in addition to the challenges related to achieving sustainable development, raising growth rates, eradicating poverty and creating job opportunities as well as the complex political situations in many regions of the world, climate change and its negative effects on water availability, food security and the threat posed by the coronavirus pandemic on economic, health and social conditions,” the President said.
He added that all these global challenges have become the daily order that we must deal with in a comprehensive and sustainable manner so as to preserve the development gains achieved over the past decades.
The events that the world has experienced over the past two years President Sisi said, have demonstrated the imperative to deal with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its goals according to a comprehensive perspective that takes into account the intersection between the various economic and social fields addressed by these goals and seeks to make the most of the opportunities for cooperation offered by the sustainable development agenda.
The President also said that Egypt has been keen from an early time to localize the sustainable development goals and integrate them into its development policies and programs at all levels, an effort that resulted in the adoption of the “Egypt Vision 2030” as a comprehensive framework for the state’s efforts in this field.
President Sisi also said that Egypt has realized from the beginning that the goal of any effort made by the state to achieve development is the citizen.
“Hence, it has designed its development policies and programmes with the interest of the Egyptian citizen at the core, responding to people’s aspirations for dignified living, decent housing, and appropriate work.”
The President added that this vision has been crystallized in the “Dignified Life” initiative, which is considered one of the most ambitious and comprehensive development programmes as it seeks to achieve comprehensive development, including in the Egyptian countryside where the majority of the country’s population lives.
