{"id":218365,"date":"2022-03-04T09:56:23","date_gmt":"2022-03-04T07:56:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/press\/ending-pandemic-building-resilience-key-to-sustainable-development-un-deputy-chief?lang=en"},"modified":"2022-03-04T09:56:23","modified_gmt":"2022-03-04T07:56:23","slug":"ending-pandemic-building-resilience-key-to-sustainable-development-un-deputy-chief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/ending-pandemic-building-resilience-key-to-sustainable-development-un-deputy-chief\/","title":{"rendered":"Ending pandemic, building resilience, key to sustainable development: UN deputy chief"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"image_wrap\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/files\/thumb\/7f8dc52d80626db\/600\/418\" alt=\"United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG)\" \/><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>Ending the acute phase of the COVID-19 pandemic and building resilience against the next outbreak will be critical to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed said in remarks to a UN conference that opened in Kigali, Rwanda on Thursday.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>The&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.uneca.org\/?q=events\/technology%2C-climate-change-and-natural-resource-management\/eighth-session-of-the-africa\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Africa Regional Forum on Sustainable Development<\/a>&nbsp;is being held to review progress towards implementing the SDGs and the African Union&#039;s (AU) Agenda 2063.<\/p>\n<p>The three-day meeting was convened by the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA).&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Ms. Mohammed outlined five priorities to guide the deliberations, starting with pandemic response.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Vaccination is critical&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Vaccinating 70 per cent of the world by July this year remains our primary objective,&rdquo;&nbsp;she said.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;We must also build stronger and more resilient health systems by investing in primary health care and health surveillance systems, as well as greater production of vaccines, diagnostics and treatments.&rdquo;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Increase climate investment&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Turning next to the climate crisis, the UN deputy chief called for scaling up investments to protect people and ecosystems at the frontlines of this global emergency. &nbsp; &nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>She said developed countries must urgently deliver on their commitment to double adaptation finance to at least $40 billion a year by 2025, a pledge made at the COP26 UN climate change conference in Glasgow last year. &nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>At the same time, regional and multilateral development banks must scale up their renewable energy and resilient infrastructure portfolios, as well mobilize more private finance.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Energy, food systems, connectivity&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Her third point focused on the need to &ldquo;supercharge&rdquo; just transitions in energy, food systems and digital connectivity.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;We need a just energy transition that allows Africa to access clean and affordable energy while protecting livelihoods,&rdquo;&nbsp;said Ms. Mohammed. &nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>She cited a partnership to support South Africa, which was launched at COP26, which has set a valuable precedent for international collaboration.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Ms. Mohammed said that sustainable and resilient food systems guarantee access to healthy diets and nutrition, while restoring and protecting nature. &nbsp;Meanwhile, affordable connectivity and digital skills are needed to create more job opportunities for young people.\u202f&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Support education recovery&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>For her fourth point, the Deputy-Secretary-General underlined the need for education to recover from the pandemic.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;In developing countries especially, the pandemic risks causing a generational catastrophe,&rdquo;&nbsp;she warned.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In September, the UN Secretary-General is convening a Summit on Transforming Education.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Ms. Mohammed said the event will renew commitment to education as a pre-eminent public good, in addition to mobilizing action and solutions.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Accelerate gender equality&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Her final priority area addressed the need to accelerate gender equality and economic transformation.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Over 70 per cent of people across Africa &ndash; the majority of them women &ndash; continue to earn their livelihoods in the informal economy, which is an afterthought in economic strategies and metrics,&rdquo;&nbsp;she said.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Therefore, robust and decent job creation must be matched by the achievement of universal social protection, according to Ms. Mohammed.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Last September, the UN and the International Labour Organization (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ilo.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">ILO<\/a>)&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ilo.org\/global\/about-the-ilo\/newsroom\/news\/WCMS_821167\/lang--en\/index.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">launched<\/a>&nbsp;the Global Accelerator for Jobs and Social Protection, which she said is central to these efforts. &nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The Accelerator aims to create 400 million new jobs in the care, green, and digital sectors, and expand protection to half of the global population by 2030.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><i>Distributed by APO Group on behalf of United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG).<\/i><\/p>\n<div class=\"well well-sm\"><b>Media files<\/b><br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/files\/large\/6307a8e4ce87eda\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/files\/large\/6307a8e4ce87eda\" alt=\"United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG)\" style=\"max-width:500px\" \/><\/a><br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/files\/download\/6307a8e4ce87eda\">Download logo<\/a><\/div>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/\">Source: Africa Newsroom &#8211; APO<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ending the acute phase of the COVID-19 pandemic and building resilience against the next outbreak will be critical to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed said in remarks to a UN conference that opened in Kigali, Rwanda on Thursday.&nbsp; The&nbsp;Africa Regional Forum on Sustainable Development&nbsp;is being held to review progress towards [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":218366,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4584],"tags":[4585],"class_list":{"0":"post-218365","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-africa-news-2","8":"tag-apo","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/ending-pandemic-building-resilience-key-to-sustainable-development-un-deputy-chief.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}