Paris, June 2024. Within the framework of the informal interactive exchange held by the members of the UNESCO Executive Board with the Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations, Amina Mohammed, the Ambassador of Cuba María del Carmen Herrera Caseiro reaffirmed the priority of the Sustainable Development Goals in the context of the Summit of the Future, which will take place next September in New York.
The meeting, organized by the President of the Board, was a space for debate on the implementation of the SDGs and the possibilities of accelerating their fulfillment in the context of the upcoming major UN Summits, in particular the Summit of the Future.
In her intervention, the Permanent Representative of Cuba to UNESCO recalled that with just over 5 years to go until 2030, the world was still very far from getting closer to meeting the SDGs and their goals, included in the 2030 Agenda for the sustainable development, and recognized the opportunities offered by upcoming high-level events convened by the United Nations, especially the Summit of the Future, to give renewed impetus to the achievement of the SDGs.
In this context, she emphasized the need to agree on concrete actions to overcome the challenges to the realization of the SDGs, derived from the prevalence of an obsolete, unjust and undemocratic international order. In this sense, she highlighted the urgency of a profound reform of the international financial architecture; the need to mobilize resources to support the national efforts of the countries of the South; the central role of Official Development Assistance, the promotion of investments and the importance of guaranteeing equitable access to financing, technologies and capacity building.
She also emphasized the urgency of seeking solutions to the debt problem, which decapitalizes developing countries, that have to allocate high percentages of their income to paying debt service.
Most especially, the Cuban diplomat denounced the application of unilateral coercive measures as the main obstacle to compliance with the SDGs in the countries against which they are imposed. She referred to the case of her country, which has suffered an economic, commercial and financial blockade for more than 60 years, the negative consequences of which are aggravated by the country's unjust permanence on the arbitrary list of states that supposedly sponsor terrorism.
On the other hand, the representative of the Island highlighted the importance of taking into account the work, contributions and expertise of the agencies and institutions of the United Nations system, highlighting the contributions and progress of UNESCO on the issues under its mandate.
She concluded by pointing out the importance of addressing the issue of the crisis in Gaza. “It is not possible to debate a Pact for the Future, when we are witnessing a genocide in the present,” she said.