Mahama to attend 69th Session of UN General Assembly

Ghana will be participating in the forthcoming annual general debate of the 69th Session of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in New York. President John Mahama, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Ms Hanna Tetteh, and other ministers will make up the Ghanaian delegation to take part in the discussions.

The session, which opened yesterday, September 16, 2014 with the theme ‘Delivering on and Implementing a Transformative post-2015 Development Agenda,’ will be characterised by an initial week of deliberation, after which a number of high-profile events will follow, including the annual general debate of the Assembly.

The debate, scheduled to take place from September 24 to October 1, 2014, will provide equal opportunity for all 193 Member States of the UN to demonstrate their commitment to multilateralism and solidarity for the building of consensus in the quest for effective solutions to the numerous challenges facing respective Member States and the international community as a whole.

At a media briefing in Accra, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Ms Hanna Tetteh congratulated the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Uganda, Mr Sam Kutesa, for election as the president of the 69th Assembly.

Ms Tetteh said Ghana, aside the annual general debate, will join other member states on September 22, 2014 on a special session to discuss and assess progress made over the past 20 years in implementing the Programme of Action for social and economic advancement, which was agreed on at the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994.

Ms Tetteh said Ghana will also be looking at boosting its potentials with the South-South Energy Initiative, which will take place on September 23, 2014.

“The initiative is primarily intended to support other states by enhancing access to energy and ensuring a well-equitable and sustainable development to facilitate corporation amongst ourselves, among emerging and more developed oil and gas producing economies of the global south,” Ms Tetteh said.

She said the Ghanaian delegation will take advantage of President Mahama’s position as the current head of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to revive the proposal to restructure the ECOWAS before ECOWAS’ meeting scheduled for December 2014.

On her part, the UN Resident Co-ordinator, a.i. Ms Susan Namondo Ngongi said the 69th Session will consider the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and “a transformative development that builds on the Millennium Declaration and focuses on eradicating poverty and hunger and promoting sustained and inclusive economic growth as its overarching objective.”

According to Ms Ngongi, over the past two years, the world, led by the UN, has been fervently discussing the agenda all countries should follow after 2015, the last year for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

“Ghana has been a very vocal contributor to these global discussions and engaged its own people through different channels so that they can express what they expect from a world beyond 2015,” Ms Ngongi noted.

She said the MDGs have made a huge impact in the lives of millions of people by cutting in half the world’s extreme poverty rate, increasing girls’ school enrolment and reducing infant mortality rate.

“Remaining gaps on poverty, hunger, maternal health, gender equality, water, sanitation and other MDG targets mean the task of making the world a better place for all is not over,” Ms Ngongi added.