UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed has expressed optimism that there is still hope for Nigeria and other developing countries to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.

The UN General Assembly set the goals in 2015.

Fielding questions on the possibility of achieving the SDGs, Ms Mohammed stressed the goals were achievable. She said with sustained investments and political will, developing countries could achieve the SDGs despite high debt profiles, mass illiteracy, poor health infrastructure, COVID-19 and poor performance in child rights.

The deputy secretary-general acknowledged that a multiplicity of crises had put developing countries at a disadvantage in achieving the SDGs compared with strides made by developed countries.

“There is still hope of achieving the goals. Every day, we work on different scenarios and opportunities for investments and to ride on the back of climate actions and energy transition,” she noted. “We are looking at the involvement of the private sector and we have seen good signs at COP 26, where unmanaged fund was committed to sustainable investment planning.”

According to her, attention is on multilateralism to get different ways to get financing to achieve the goals.

However, the deputy secretary-general expressed dissatisfaction at the level of institutional and corporate support for the SDGs in developing countries.

(NAN)