Video Message
Your Excellencies, Co-Chairs of the STI Forum,
Excellencies,
Distinguished Delegates,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am pleased to address this ministerial session of the 2023 multi-stakeholder Forum on Science, Technology and Innovation for the SDGs.
Allow me to begin by commending the co-chairs of the Forum for their visionary leadership. I also thank the ECOSOC President, for her steadfast guidance and support.
As you may know, people, planet and prosperity are at the heart of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
But according to the Secretary-General’s SDG progress report launched last week, the Agenda threatens to become a broken promise.
On our current path we would miss the mark.
575 million people would still be living in extreme poverty in 2030.
Some 84 million children would be out of school.
300 million children or young people who attend school would leave unable to read and write.
And renewables would remain a mere fraction of our energy supplies in 2030.
Unless we make a radical shift in our commitment to social, economic and environmental transformation in the seven years ahead, we will fail the future.
Secretary-General Guterres has asked world leaders to rally behind a rescue plan for people and planet, driven by bold and transformative policies at all levels - from community planning, to national budgets, to the international financial architecture. The potential for science, technology, and innovation to drive transformative change is immense.
Leveraging the untapped potential of STI for advancing the SDGs will require building capacities and bridging divides. This means improving digital and data capacities at all levels of society to drive innovations for the future.
We must break institutional and other barriers, including access to financing for institutional development. And we need to bolster technology transfer. The multi-stakeholder Technology Facilitation Mechanism – or TFM – serves as a catalyst for this purpose.
Leveraging STI will also require strengthening the science-policy-society interface, both to generate trust in science and to communicate critical knowledge to decision-makers.
The preparation and application of the Global Sustainable Development Report is a good example of how we can shape that interface at the global level. The work of the 10-member Group of High-level Representatives that inform the preparations of this Forum is another example of how this can be achieved.
Tomorrow, you will hear from the Independent Group of Scientists appointed by the Secretary-General to write the GSDR. This science-based assessment of the SDGs will serve as a contribution to the SDG Summit to provide guidance on entry points for well-integrated accelerated actions to achieve the SDGs.
I expect that your engagement with the scientists will in turn inspire the contributions of this Forum to the Summit and its outcomes.
Leveraging STI will also require investing in research and development, and improving digital and data capacities at all levels of society to drive innovations.
Innovating for the future and, making good use of existing knowledge and technology, is likewise critical.
I look forward to hearing about the national experiences that will be presented over the next two days in this regard, and to continuing our collective efforts to strengthen coordination related to science, technology and innovation.
Excellencies,
You have already gotten off to an admirable start with the very first STI in Africa Day held yesterday.
The event brought together African scientists, diaspora, youth and others, to assess and adapt STI-based solutions to the continent’s transformative agenda. Several initiatives were launched that hold promise for advancing Africa’s STI4SDGs priorities.
I hope that the discussions today and tomorrow will be inspired by these exchanges, and drive the identification of concrete solutions for leveraging STI for development where such advancements will do the most good. The future of the world depends on it.
I thank you.