Minister of State Link comments on his New York talks about sustainable development, Syria and Mali

Michael Georg Link, Minister of State at the Federal Foreign Office, is travelling to New York today (Monday) for talks at the United Nations. His agenda will include attending a session of the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals. The group develops proposals on what global sustainability goals to take the Millennium Development Goals forward after 2015 might look like.

Minister of State Link will also be talking to Hervé Ladsous, UN Under Secretary General for the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, about peace missions in Mali, the Sudan and South Sudan, as well as to Jeffrey Feltman, UN Under Secretary General for Political Affairs, whose remit includes preparing the Geneva II conference on Syria.

Other appointments include a meeting with Angela Kane, the UN Secretary General’s High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, to talk about progress made on destroying Syria’s chemical weapons.

Minister of State Link issued the following statement with reference to his coming round of talks:

> Developing the post 2015 agenda is one of the most important international processes of the decade; the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals is part of that process. It is setting the parameters of sustainable development in all countries.

> During my visit to New York, I hope to see good progress made in the working group and successful discussions on such key cross cutting issues as human rights and good governance, which are fundamental to sustainable development.

Minister of State Link is Germany’s representative on the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals, which was established in Rio in 2012 and is to develop a report with proposals for the UN General Assembly by September 2014. These proposals will feed into the international negotiations on the post 2015 development agenda. In its current session, the Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals will be discussing such topics as human rights, good governance and the Global Partnership for Development.

The United Nations Millennium Development Goals constitute eight objectives formulated in 2001. They cover, for example, eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality and ensuring environmental sustainability. Their complete implementation is to be incorporated into the post 2015 agenda.