NEW YORK: Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdullah Ali Al-Yahya underlined Monday the need for synergy to overcome cross-border challenges impeding the implementation of the UN sustainable development goals (SDGs). “The cross-border challenges facing the entire world need more concerted regional and international efforts to confront them,” Minister Al-Yahya said in his speech at the general debate session of the UN High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development at the UN Headquarters in New York City. He praised the efforts made over the past year to meet development aspirations.

Kuwait’s top diplomat, however, lamented that the UN Secretary-General report on the progress made towards achieving the seventeen UN sustainable goals reflected the bitterness of the international economic reality. He noted that the report has indicated that the SDGs implementation rate did not exceed 17 percent. It also estimated that more than 23 million people live in severe poverty and more than 100 million people face famine and malnutrition, and the majority of the victims are from the least developed regions, the minister regretted.

“This challenge also requires careful action from the United Nations,” he stressed, adding that the developed countries have to transfer their expertise to the least developed countries to help build their capabilities to face the cross-border challenges. Al-Yahya highlighted Kuwait’s initiative since its independence in 1961 by establishing the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development with the aim of helping the least developed countries achieve greater economic and development progress.

Since its inception, the Kuwait Fund has provided loans to more than 100 countries to finance various development projects, he said. “The decision to establish the KFAED was only a translation of the principled and firm belief of the State of Kuwait in supporting developing and least developed countries in order to achieve sustainable development goals and to finance development projects that contribute to achieving the sustainable development goals and serving humanity and the world at large,” he concluded. — KUNA