TRANSCRIPT OF THE PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF SINGAPORE TO THE UNITED NATIONS, H.E. AMBASSADOR BURHAN GAFOOR’S INTERVENTION AT THE UNITED NATIONS SECRETARY-GENERAL’S BRIEFING ON OUR COMMON AGENDA, 4 OCTOBER 2023

1 Thank you very much Mr President for convening this meeting, and thank you for your inspiring opening remarks. Please allow me to quote something that you said, that is, “We need to work together to produce a commonly woven vision for a more secure, sustainable and peaceful future”, and I endorse this completely. I also thank the Secretary-General for his update on the implementation of the recommendations of Our Common Agenda. Thanks to the Secretary-General and his team, for keeping up the monitoring and implementation of Our Common Agenda, as has been agreed by the General Assembly resolution we adopted. I wanted to make a few quick points.

2 First, it is important to keep in mind that Our Common Agenda arose in the context of the 75^th anniversary Declaration of the United Nations. And it was a way to carry forward and implement that Declaration that our leaders adopted at UN75 a few years ago. Our Common Agenda since then has become fundamentally a conversation about building common ground, convergence, building trust, and in some cases, rebuilding trust. I think we have come quite a long distance in the last few years, because the conversation has not been an easy one, but it was a conversation we needed to have. And we have come some distance. But we have a lot more distance to go till 2030 and beyond.

3 I wanted to say to colleagues today, that we, Singapore, and I, in particular, am very hopeful and optimistic about what we can do here at the United Nations. I think we can make progress, we can deliver results, because we have been able to adopt significant agreements. The SDG Political Declaration is one such agreement, the BBNJ agreement that was adopted in very difficult circumstances, shows that countries can come together for a common cause. And that is what gives us in Singapore, as well as many other small countries, optimism. For small countries, the United Nations is not another meeting or another arena, it is the central venue to secure our peace and prosperity and even our very existence. So I want to say that the stakes are high for all of us, but we are optimistic, and we pledge to work together with all our friends around this room to make further steps.

4 Second, we have a series of significant milestone conferences ahead of us. The Summit of the Future has been referenced many times, and it is going to be a very important milestone. We need to build on the SDG Political Declaration outcomes and take another step. We have always believed that the Summit of the Future and the SDG Summit are flipsides of the same coin, so now we are going to the other side, and it is a continuation of the implementation and acceleration of the SDGs. We are also looking at issues that we need to look at from a future-perspective. There are also other milestone conferences, the SIDS Conference in May in Antigua and Barbuda, the LDC Conference in Rwanda in June, all of these are opportunities that we cannot miss, and we have to deliver ambition, we have to deliver results, because our people expect it of us. So lets work together. But this will also require that we turn the page of some of the difficult conversations that we have had. Because it is my hope that we will have a conversation that brings us forward, and in an inclusive way. There are difficult challenges, no doubt, but let us address them, let us be inclusive, let us take a step forward. So we need to get into a positive cycle of mutually reinforcing trust and progress, and not a negative spiral of the glass being half empty and views that things are not good enough. Let us make a conscious effort to switch gears mentally, and to make that positive cycle happen.

5 The last thing that I want to say is that with regard to the outcomes this year, we certainly think that the Pact of the Future is an incredible opportunity for all of us, to not only reshape and transform the multilateral system, but also give a boost to the implementation of the SDGs. The Global Digital Compact is another incredible opportunity that will allow a lot of smaller countries and developing countries to turbocharge their development. Because the digital gap affects smaller countries differently from big countries. The inequities are felt differently in smaller countries than in larger countries. So it is really important that we look at every opportunity that we can give everyone, and not leave anyone behind. We have to keep an eye on the smallest and the most vulnerable, in our communities, in our countries and also internationally.

6 Thank you Secretary-General for your various initiatives, including the appointment of the High-level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism, as well as the High-level Advisory Body on Artificial Intelligence, which we welcome – the time is due for that. Let me join the representative of the EU in saying that we should thank the country that has refurbished the chairs in this chamber. It is important that we express our appreciation to Sweden, but the transformation of the multilateral system needs to go beyond upholstery changes. So let us work together to make concrete changes and deliver results.

7 Thank you.

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