ADDIS ABABA, June 19 (Xinhua) -- The UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) on Wednesday urged the need to preserve a strong multilateralism platform together with a sense of global community towards the realization of the targets of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The urgent call was made by ECA's Executive Secretary Vera Songwe, who emphasized the need to strengthen the multilateralism modality by exerting shared commitments and activities if the global community is to achieve the underlining targets of SDGs, which were a collection of 17 global goals set by the United Nations General Assembly in 2015 for the year 2030.
"A few years later, we are seeing that we may not achieve the SDGs if we do not come back to that spirit of multilateralism, the spirit of togetherness and the spirit of social justice," the ECA chief said, as she underscored the need to tackle the growing trend of unilateralism across the globe.
According to the ECA Executive Secretary, Africa and the rest of the developing world are facing the brunt of the growing trend of unilateralism over the past few years, as opposed to the notion of multilateralism and togetherness.
Songwe, who recalled that Africa's overall economy was growing at 6 percent when the global Sustainable Development Goals were adopted back in 2015, said that "today the continent is growing only at 3 percent."
"We need to ensure sustainable growth if we are to meet the SDGs," the ECA chief stressed.
According to the ECA, there have been achievements "on many fronts" across Africa since the adoption of the SDGs, eventually reducing the share of the African population in extreme poverty over the years.
"Most Africans now know what it means to live in areas with access to education and more girls have access to primary education," the ECA said, adding "nevertheless, more needs to be done, given that globally, poverty is still concentrated in Africa."
