Friday, 31 July 2015
National Council for Sustainable Development Holds Meeting
Chaired by Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan, the National Council for Sustainable Development met today in the Office of Government.
Before addressing the issues on the agenda, Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan noted that this year the UN is summing up performance in the Millennium Development Goals. In his words, by nationalizing the Millennium Development Goals, Armenia actively engaged in their implementation and recorded significant progress.
“The Rio + 20 Summit on Sustainable Development was held in 2012, which adopted a final document referred to as “The future that we want,” laying the foundation for sustainable development goals (SDG) and preparing the basis of a new comprehensive document. As the outcome of lengthy talks, the Post-2015 Development Agenda provides the sustainable development objectives, ways and means to implement them: 17 goals and 169 targets altogether,” Hovik Abrahamyan said, adding that after summing up its performance of the Millennium Development Goals along with other UN-member States, Armenia will proceed with the implementation of a more ambitious and comprehensive program of sustainable development. The Prime Minister said Armenia is ready to nationalize the goals and embark upon their implementation after the scheduled adoption in the month of September.
“The Council will have a large ground of work in terms of adapting the Post-2015 Development Agenda to Armenia’s local needs” he said. Highlighting the importance of interaction between the Government, NGOs and civil society, Hovik Abrahamyan noted that the current problems can only be solved through joint efforts and close cooperation. The Premier said Government and civil society should cooperate in a spirit of tolerance and solidarity to ensure sustainable development in our country. “We need to come together in order to discuss the problems and try to solve them. It is the only constitutional way of finding a solution,” the Prime Minister emphasized.
The meeting discussed and took note of the process of implementation of the commitments adopted at Rio + 20 Summit.
The Prime Minister instructed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to coordinate the preparations for Armenia’s progress report of the Millennium Development Goals ahead of the UN Summit in September 2015.
At the same time, Hovik Abrahamyan instructed the Government Staff to submit a draft Prime Minister’s decision on amendments to decree No. 1147N of December 9, 2013 regarding the reorganization and renaming of the Rio + 20 interdepartmental working group in order to harmonize its tasks with the Post-2015 Development Agenda.
The next item on the agenda was the presentation of the “UN development agenda: Post 2015 process.” Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandyan reported that the Agenda will be launched at the New York Summit scheduled for this September. Informal consultations on the formation of the agenda are being held at the United Nations. The negotiations are mostly conducted by UN- member countries involving large groups and civil society.
It was reported that there have been many proposals concerning the agenda, which should be streamlined by the UN Secretary General, who will have to submit a comprehensive report by the time the high-level intergovernmental meeting is held in September as a basis for negotiations.
The meeting re-elected President of the Association for Sustainable Human Development NGO Karine Danielyan to the post of Secretary of the National Council for Sustainable Development.
Prime Minister Abrahamyan congratulated Mrs. Danielyan on re-election and wished her productive work.
