The Global Goals and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

Speech delivered by Jakob Forssmed at the seminar Convergence on Global Health - Joint action with reference to the new EU Global Health Strategy at Karolinska Institutet, on 9 February 2023. Check against delivery.

On 12 February, Minister for Foreign Affairs Ann Linde presented the 2020 Statement of Foreign Policy in the Riksdag. Check against delivery.

This strategy will underpin Sweden’s cooperation with the UN World Food Programme (WFP) for 2020–2023. The strategy establishes the priorities and forms of collaboration for Sweden’s membership of, and partnership with, the WFP at global, regional and national level.

This strategy will underpin Sweden’s cooperation with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) during the period 2020–2023. The strategy establishes the priorities and forms of collaboration for Sweden’s partnership with UNRWA at global, regional and national level.

This strategy will underpin Sweden’s cooperation with the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria for the period 2019–2023. The strategy determines priorities and forms of cooperation for Sweden’s membership of and partnership with the Global Fund.

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In the final report, the Swedish Delegation for the 2030 Agenda presents its proposals and assessments for Sweden’s continued implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The 2030 Agenda offers us a new opportunity to influence and help improve the health situation for people in Sweden and globally. By acting globally, we create conditions for positive developments in our own country while also contributing to, and taking responsibility for, positive developments in the world at large. The document Sweden’s work on global health seeks to bring together and consolidate existing strategies, priorities and policies with the aim of setting out a clear and common agenda and creating the conditions for more effective communications, increased collaboration and, ultimately, more impactful Swedish action.

In the communication, the Government reports on, for example, its work on the policy for global development (PGD) during the years 2016–2017 within the scope of the 2030 Agenda and its Global Goals. The 17 goals and 169 targets are universal and indivisible and integrate the three dimensions of sustainable development: economic, social and environmental.

The Swedish Government has adopted a new strategy for human rights, democracy and the rule of law that will apply to Swedish development cooperation between 2018 and 2022. The overall objective of the strategy is to contribute to secure, just and inclusive democratic societies that protect and respect the equal rights of all. The strategy will apply in 2018–2022 and covers the funds allocated in the appropriation directions of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) and Folke Bernadotte Academy for each budget year.

15 November, 2017. Check against delivery.

Towards Achieving the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Report on the implementation of the Addis Ababa Action Agenda on financing for development - Compilation of operational examples.

In connection with World Oceans Day on 8 June, Sweden and Fiji will lead a high-level conference at the United Nations. The conference, the biggest UN event Sweden has been involved in arranging since 1972, will take place in New York on 5–9 June 2017 and will focus on saving the world’s oceans.

At the UN Climate Summit in Cancún in 2010, the parties agreed to establish a new climatefund: the Green Climate Fund (GCF). This strategy forms the basis of Sweden’s cooperation with GCF for the remainder of the Fund’s initial resource mobilisation period, 2016–2018.

The Global Environmental Facility (GEF) was established in 1991 with the mandate to contribute to global environmental public goods through financial support to environmental and climate elements in development projects in low- and middle-income countries. This strategy forms the basis of the Government’s cooperation with the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) and the trust funds it administers during 2016–2018.

The world is facing major challenges in the area of climate and the environment. The Paris climate agreement is aimed at keeping the rise in global temperature below 1.5 degrees Celsius, and the countries of the world have also agreed on 17 global goals for sustainable development, to be achieved by 2030. How do we ensure that the measures we take to achieve one goal do not make it more difficult to achieve one of the other goals? This was at the core of the discussions during the seminar Sweden arranged in cooperation with the United States at the UN Environment Assembly, UNEA2, in Nairobi.

This strategy forms the basis of Sweden’s cooperation with the African Development Bank (AfDB) for the period 2016–2018. The strategy will also guide Sweden’s positions in negotiations on the fourteenth replenishment of the African Development Fund (AfDF14), which will be ongoing during most of 2016.