by Xinhua writers Shi Xiaomeng
BEIJING, Nov. 15 (Xinhua) -- China's support for multilateralism is "incredibly" important for the United Nations at current times, said Michael Moller, director-general of the UN Office at Geneva (UNOG), here on Wednesday.
In an interview with Xinhua, Moller said "China is supporting us in all kinds of ways," and cooperation between China and the UNOG is "friendly," "practical" and "useful."
"It's very important to have a permanent member state of the size of China to be a champion of multilateralism in a world where the UN is a little bit under attack, just like multilateralism is," he said.
"Time and time again, China sets a good example," said Moller, noting that China is the largest troop contributor to UN peacekeeping operations among the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and China has lifted millions of people out of extreme poverty.
China is actually "walking the talk" when it pledges to support the United Nations, he commented.
Moller recalled that Chinese President Xi Jinping went to Geneva last year and made a speech in which "he very clearly spoke about the support of China for multilateralism for the United Nations."
Speaking of Xi's vision of building a community with shared future for mankind, Moller said: "It gives a lot of hope and a lot of positive energy in the sense that it encourages us to go in the same direction and to push even harder on in that direction."
The vision is exactly what the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are all about -- leaving no one behind; everything is interconnected and everybody has a responsibility to make it happen, he added.
The SDGs are a set of UN-facilitated global goals adopted by 193 UN member states in a bid to eliminate poverty, combat climate change and promote common prosperity.
On SDG implementation, Moller said: "The UN is already playing and will strengthen this role as a facilitator, as a provider of expertise and knowledge and human capital with experience."
The SDGs have really become a global roadmap, said Moller, noting that it is important to capture the best practices in the process of implementation and share them across the world.
Moller established an SDG lab within the UNOG in a bid to transfer expertise and knowledge into policy, practice and action to support SDG implementation.
"It's an innovation place where you come up with new ideas, new conversations," he said, adding that the lab aims to make things work out in a more effective way for SDG implementation.
On SDG financing, Moller is quite optimistic as private financing is very much looking for sustainable projects to fund.
Climate change is the most "urgent" and "dangerous" problem that the world needs to deal with, said Moller. "We need to have a much bigger, much greater international solidarity and multilateral approach to it."
While acknowledging that multilateralism and globalization are under pressure, Moller called on every one to be part of the solutions to world challenges since "our planet cannot afford a walking away from a collective management of its affairs."
"It's too easy to say that globalization is disappearing. It simply is not possible," he said. "Globalization, you can call it many different names, but the fact is that it's here and it's here to stay."
