BRICS sees financing for development as key 2030 Agenda

Financing for development is the key to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the guideline to end poverty by 2030, the BRICS economic grouping told a UN meeting here.

The statement came as Liu Jieyi, the Chinese permanent representative to the UN, on Tuesday took the floor at the UN meeting on the financing for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on behalf of the BRICS members -- Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

This was the first time for the bloc to air its views on important global issues since its establishment in 2006. China has earlier this year assumed the BRICS' presidency for 2017, Xinhua news agency reported.

"Financing for development is the key to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development," Liu said.

"Assured and predicable financial flow is indispensable to the realisation of sustainable development, particularly by developing countries."

The SDGs serve as the blueprint for global development efforts for the years running up to 2030.

Liu urged the the international community to take a strategic and long-term view of financing for development, and to advance international cooperation in this area.

These efforts should be made based on renewed and enhanced global partnership for sustainable development, to "mobilise adequate resources for the realisation of sustainable development by all countries, especially developing ones", he said.

"Economic globalization has suffered setbacks and we have witnessed the rise of inward-looking and protectionist tendencies in some countries' policies and the growth of 'anti-globalization' thinking," he noted.

"International cooperation for development is faced with daunting challenges of declining political will, dwindling resources and fragmentation of efforts. Financing for development is confronted with ever greater difficulties," he said.

Against such a backdrop, Liu said: "BRICS hopes that this meeting will help all parties to foster consensus and stimulate political will so as to mobilize needed resources and take international cooperation in financing for development to a new height, thus providing strong impetus to the global effort to implement the 2030 Agenda."

Developed countries should bear the primary responsibility in financing for development, honour their official development assistance commitments, fulfill the commitments under technology facilitation mechanism, help developing countries with capacity building and offer further debt reduction and market access to them, he said.

South-South cooperation is not a substitute to North-South cooperation, but an expression of solidarity among peoples and countries of the South, based on their shared experiences and objectives, Liu said.

"Financing cooperation should be strengthened within the framework of international development institutions such as the World Bank, and the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB)," Liu said.

"Meanwhile, there is a need to explore innovative financing in a progressive and orderly way with a view to finding meaningful ways of financing for development."

There is a need to improve the global economic governance and create an enabling international environment for development, he said.

--IANS

py/dg