Summit remarks · 22 September 2024
A year ago, I stood before this Assembly urging bold reforms of the UN system to tackle the rapidly evolving and increasingly complex global challenges. Today, that call is even more urgent. The planet is heating up, our climate is in crisis, oceans are rising, deserts are spreading, and conflict is engulfing the world. Millions are displaced, poor, and without access to basic services.
Unfortunately, Our multilateral system has proven inadequate in addressing crises such as climate change, inequality, and debt, and it continues to falter in providing any, let alone timely, solutions. Without immediate action, humanity will face an unprecedented global crisis.
Today, we have no choice but to reject outdated systems and reimagine a framework of international cooperation that works for all 8 billion people. This means redesigning the international financial system, strengthening partnerships for common security, bridging the digital divide, and investing in human capacity, especially empowering women and youth. The window to achieve this is, however, fast closing.
The Secretary-General's 2024 SDG report paints a dire picture: only 17% of SDG targets are on track, largely due to unmet financial commitments. Developing countries, particularly in Africa and the Global South, are facing severe funding shortages, and the gap is widening.
At the 2023 UN SDGs Summit, we highlighted the urgent need to overhaul the global financial system. As we approach the Fourth Financing for Development Forum in 2025, Imaginative solutions for debt relief and development financing are essential to close the SDG gap.
We must address the historical injustice of Africa’s lack of permanent representation on the UN Security Council as a matter of justice in the ongoing UN reforms. Additionally, regionled peace operations, sustainably funded by UN-assessed contributions, are critical in addressing today’s complex security challenges.
In Kenya, we aim to increase forest cover to 30% by planting 15 billion trees, an effort largely led by our youth. Two weeks ago, I launched ClimateWorX, a program to employ 200,000 young Kenyans in sustainable public works focused on ecological restoration and infrastructure.
But we must recognise that the pace of technological advancement, particularly with AI, is widening the global digital divide. Africa holds critical resources for the tech revolution yet receives disproportionately low benefits.
A year ago, I stood before the Assembly to declare Kenya's commitment to contribute to an international security support mission to Haiti. Yesterday, I was in Port-au-Prince to witness the significant progress made by Kenya’s Africa-led mission, even with the constraint of limited resources. What looked like a mission impossible is now a present and real possibility for peace in Haiti.
I hosted the inaugural Africa Climate Summit, whose seminal outcome, the Nairobi Declaration, formed the basis of a common African position in multilateral engagements at the COP and other fora.
At the World Bank’s IDA21 Replenishment Summit in Nairobi in April this year, the 17th AFDB replenishment and IMF’s SDR re-channelling, we, together with other leaders, championed for a significant enhancement of the concessional window of affordable financing available for developing countries to provide critical public services, undertake investments in economic transformation and implement ambitious climate action.
On the basis of the progress we have achieved under our current inadequate multilateral institutional framework, I am optimistic about what we can achieve under a radically reconfigured multilateral institutional framework. This is why reforms are an urgent necessity that we cannot delay, derail or deny.
The Pact of the Future has been developed through intense negotiations and sustained discourse between members. I take this opportunity to commend the co-facilitators for their leadership. Now is the time to translate our commitments from words to bold action that gives every person from everywhere the chance to live and work in a safe, peaceful, secure world of sustainable and inclusive opportunities. I Thank you.