UNSG's Special Advisor on Post-2015 visit Ireland
22/1/15
UN Secretary General's Special Advisor on Post-2015, Amina Mohammed, visited Ireland last week.
UN Secretary General’s Special Advisor on Post-2015 visits Ireland
The UN Secretary General’s Special Advisor on Post-2015, Amina Mohammed, visited Ireland last week, where she spoke to a gathering of Ireland’s overseas Ambassadors about the upcoming Sustainable Development Goals, and met with President Higgins, Minister Charlie Flanagan, parliamentarian, and key civil society figures.
Ms Mohammed, together with the UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy for Climate Change, Mary Robinson, and Ireland’s Ambassador to the UN in New York, David Donoghue took part in a panel discussion on the post-2015 process in Dublin Castle.
The event provided a unique opportunity for all Irish ambassadors, officials from various government departments and representatives of civil society to hear about key events during 2015 – a year which Mrs Robinson characterised as akin to 1945 in terms of its global significance. These include negotiations on the Post-2015 Sustainable Development Agenda, Financing for Development, and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Ms Mohammed strongly emphasised that these processes are vital opportunities that must be seized in 2015, and called for the relevant outcomes to be coherent with and supportive of eachother.
"2015 is a historic year of opportunity that will set our world on a path to a healthier, equitable and sustaniable futute"
The UN officially began the final phase of negotiations to agree new Sustainable Develoment Goals on the 19th January. The Goals will succeed the UN Millennium Development Goals – a set of eight goals agreed in 2000 to eradicate poverty and hunger, and improve education, health, maternal mortality and address other key development challenges. Ireland’s Ambassador to the UN, David Donoghue, together with his Kenyan counterpart has been appointed as co-facilitators for these intergovernmental negotiations.
During her visit, Ms Mohammed met with President Higgins, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Charlie Flanagan, a number of parliamentarians, and representatives from Civil Society. She also spent time with youth groups, who conveyed the expectations of Ireland’s young people from the post 2015 Agenda, and took part in the Irish Aid sponsored ‘Development Matters’ series at the Institute of International and European Affairs (IIEA).
During the visit, Ms Mohammed underlined the importance of 2015 for all:
“2015 is a historic year of opportunity that will set our world on a path to a healthier, equitable and sustainable future.”