President Iohannis: Romania will boost its efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030

AGERPRES special correspondent Irinela Visan reports: Romania will boost its efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, stated on Wednesday President Klaus Iohannis, who attended the 74th session of the UN General Assembly. "Romania will boost its efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, with the desire to ensure that both current and future generations can live in a sustainable world," said the President, at the forum "Accelerating the Implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development," the "Partnership for Sustainable Development" panel. He presented the main actions taken by Romania in this respect, bringing to mind that our country translated the principles behind the Sustainable Development Goals into priorities, objectives and embedded them in a Reviewed National Strategy for Sustainable Development, adopted in 2018. "In order to ensure the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals in every domain, the creation of sustainable development units is under way in relevant ministries," showed Klaus Iohannis. He added that in order to benefit from the input of the civil society, a Coalition for Sustainable Development to include the most active representatives is also being set up. For monitoring the progress of implementation of the 2030 Agenda, a new set of sustainable development indicators are considered by the Romanian National Institute for Statistics. In order to stimulate the business engagement for the Sustainable Development Goals, Romanian authorities initiated partnerships with the business community, he mentioned. "Efforts are on the way for launching a Sustainability Code in partnership with representatives of private sector, dedicated to mainstreaming environmental and social policies in the economic activity," he said. The President also brought to mind that Romania ran the Presidency of the Council of the European Union in the first semester of this year under the motto 'Cohesion, a common European value.' "This Presidency was therefore a chance for us to underline the key role of cohesion for achieving the objective of closing economic, social and territorial gaps among the Member States, regions and citizens of the European Union," he stated. The President further highlighted that Romania has been very active in promoting partnerships for sustainable development at regional level. "The UN Economic Commission for Europe and the OECD supported us in creating a platform for sharing regional experience and fostering meaningful partnerships among countries belonging to the EU, Eastern Europe, Western Balkans and Central Asia, during the Regional Conference on the 2030 Agenda: Partnerships for sustainable development hosted in April 2019 in Bucharest. On that occasion, the participating countries endorsed the Bucharest Declaration, acknowledging the need to accelerate actions in implementing the 2030 Agenda and encouraging the creation of more robust partnerships, to overcome the current challenges in achieving the 2030 Agenda," Iohannis stated. AGERPRES (RO - editor: Antonia Nita; EN - author: Cristina Zaharia, editor: Rodica State)