UN General Assembly
2016

We are reminded of those two milestones as we address the theme of this debate: “The Sustainable Development Goals: a universal push to transform our world”. Last year, world leaders marked the seventieth anniversary of the United Nations by adopting the 2030 Agenda, that is, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We committed ourselves to an ambitious and transformative global development programme that seeks to address the triple challenge of this century, which is poverty, unemployment and inequality. To a great extent, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) played a critical role in galvanizing Governments and communities all over the world to put in place programmes and policies aimed at poverty eradication and addressing socioeconomic development, particularly in Africa.