Mumtaz Hussain
UNITED NATIONS: Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Pakistan, speaking at the Annual Meeting of Foreign Ministers of the Group of 77 and China on the sidelines of the 80th UN General Assembly, called for urgent and united action to address the widening global development crisis, climate challenges, and systemic inequities in the international financial system.
Expressing appreciation for Iraq’s leadership of the Group, the Deputy Prime Minister highlighted the alarming expansion of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) financing gap — from $2.5 trillion in 2019 to more than $4 trillion today — with climate finance needs pushing the figure even higher.
He noted that over 100 countries were in debt distress, inequalities were deepening, climate disasters multiplying, and geopolitical tensions disrupting the global economy, while the digital divide risked becoming “the defining fault line of this century.”
The Foreign Minister stressed that the Compromiso de Sevilla adopted at FfD4 must be fully implemented, including measures to revitalize the UN Development Cooperation Forum, scale up multilateral development bank lending, establish a Borrowers’ Forum, and launch an intergovernmental process to reform the debt architecture.
He emphasized the importance of ensuring a strong presence of the Global South in the newly established UN Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence and the Dialogue on AI Governance, so as to bridge the digital divide, build capacity, and safeguard collective interests.
He welcomed the start of negotiations on a UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation, describing it as an opportunity to curb illicit financial flows, ensure fair taxation of multinational corporations, and unlock domestic resources for development.
On climate change, he reaffirmed that equity and the principle of Common But Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR) must remain central, urging developed countries to deliver on their commitment of $300 billion annually in predictable, grant-based finance.
Referring to Pakistan’s repeated experience of catastrophic floods despite contributing less than one percent of global emissions, he said this “stark injustice remains unaddressed.”
On the UN80 reform initiative, the Deputy Prime Minister stressed that sustainable development must remain at the core, with relevant mandates protected and strengthened.
Efficiency, he said, should not come at the expense of programmes vital to development, and the process must remain transparent, inclusive, and member-driven.
Concluding his remarks, he assured the Group that Pakistan would remain a steadfast partner in advancing the collective interests of the Global South, both within the United Nations and beyond.
