Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry participated on Wednesday in the ministerial meeting of the Group of Friends of the Global Development Initiative (GDI), which was held under the chairmanship of the Chinese Foreign Minister on the sidelines of the77th session of the UN General Assembly in New York.
Ambassador Ahmed Abu Zeid, the official spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, explained that Minister Shoukry was keen in his speech to express appreciation to the Chinese side for holding this meeting, which provides a platform for exchanging experiences and expertise in various development fields, including eradicating poverty and hunger and enhancing South-South cooperation, in order to accelerate the implementation of the goals of the United Nations Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development.
In this context, the Foreign Minister stressed Egypt’s conviction of the need to strengthen international partnerships in the field of development and review international cooperation mechanisms in a way that ensures the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals at various social, economic and environmental levels, in light of the many challenges the world is witnessing, such as the global food and energy crises, at the heart of which is the coronavirus pandemic, which undermines efforts to achieve economic growth and development and increases the gap between the countries of the North and the South.
Shoukry stressed Egypt’s keenness, as the next president of the COP27 conference, to include the visions, positions, and aspirations of developing countries in the agenda of the conference in a way that reflects the urgent need to implement climate pledges and turn them into reality in support of international efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.
