Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Bui Thanh Son has called on nations to transform commitments into concrete actions, pool resources for sustainable development, tackle the debt crisis, and amplify the Global South’s role in reshaping the international financial architecture.
He was addressing the First Biennial Summit for a Sustainable, Inclusive and Resilient Global Economy: Implementing Commitments on Financing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in New York on September 24, as part of the Vietnamese delegation’s trip to attend the High-Level General Debate of the 80th Session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA 80).
Vietnam has effectively leveraged international financial aid, particularly official development assistance (ODA) and concessional loans, to drive poverty reduction, infrastructure development, education and health care, Son said, noting tangible improvements in living standards.
Drawing on the Government’s experience in refining its legal framework, advancing reforms and removing bottlenecks to attract quality ODA and meet current financing needs for institutional, infrastructure and human resources breakthroughs and the SDGs, Son called for placing people at the centre of all policies and strategies so that no one is left behind, prioritising development finance for new growth drivers such as sci-tech, innovation, green transition and digital transformation to prevent technological gaps from becoming a new barrier to sustainable development; and adopting a comprehensive approach at global and regional levels to accelerate reforms of global financial governance toward greater transparency, fairness and inclusiveness, while encouraging the active involvement of regional institutions, especially those led by the Global South.
Delegates underscored the need to pool resources, particularly for low-income countries, while highlighting the crucial role of infrastructure and education in creating jobs for young people and the importance of transparent policies and legal frameworks for implementation.
To achieve development financing goals, they called for reforms of international financial institutions, stronger engagement of the private sector, enhanced capacity of multilateral development banks and improvements in debt-relief procedures.
The European Union pledged to raise 300 billion EUR (352.3 billion USD) by 2027 under its Global Gateway initiative to support economic, digital and green connectivity worldwide.
The summit drew high-ranking officials from UN member states, including eight presidents, three vice presidents, five prime ministers, three deputy prime ministers and more than 60 ministers, as well as heads of international organisations./.
(VNA)
