UNGA’s 80th Session to Focus on Reviving Global Cooperation, Reform

(MENAFN) The upcoming 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) will tackle critical global priorities, including advancing the UN80 reform agenda, steering the selection of the next UN secretary-general, and reinvigorating progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), UNGA President Annalena Baerbock announced Wednesday.

Speaking at a press briefing ahead of next week’s High-level Week, Baerbock highlighted the session’s theme, “Better together,” emphasizing the urgent need for unity amid worldwide challenges. “No single nation, regardless of its size, might or wealth, can confront the challenges that we face all alone,” she said. “We have to work together. Better together,” she added.

Baerbock recalled the founding of the United Nations amid “a moment of deep fracture, perhaps one of the darkest in human history,” underscoring that the UN Charter remains “the north star that guides our work and reminds us of what we want to accomplish together.”

As the world faces crises in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, and Haiti, alongside ongoing threats like climate change, inequality, and rapid technological shifts, Baerbock called for reflection and renewal. “Our task is to ensure that the UN stands strong for the next 80 years,” she declared.

She stressed the need to focus on key processes this year: advancing the UN80 reform agenda to boost the UN’s effectiveness, guiding the selection of “the face and voice of this Organization” — the next secretary-general, implementing the Pact for the Future, and reigniting momentum on the SDGs.

Next week’s General Debate will provide a vital platform for diplomacy and dialogue to address global divisions, with additional High-level Week events offering critical forums for cooperation, Baerbock noted.

Among the scheduled gatherings are an 80th-anniversary conference for the United Nations, a summit on the peaceful resolution of the Palestine question and the two-state solution, and commemorative meetings marking 30 years since both the Fourth World Conference on Women and the World Programme of Action for Youth.

Reflecting on the UN’s mixed legacy, Baerbock said: “Eight decades of progress and setbacks, of achievement and failure, of renewal and resolve, have brought us here.”

“Now we need the will, and the ambition, to turn promise into action, commitments into progress, and hope into reality,” she concluded.

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