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Madam Assistant Secretary-General, dear Ilze, dear colleagues,

In exactly two months, world leaders will gather in New York for the SDG Summit. We all wish that the Summit accelerates efforts in support of the 2030 Agenda as it is indeed urgently needed. The Secretary-General's rightly pointed out at the occasion of the recent launch of the Special Edition of the Sustainable Development Goals Progress Report that just 12 percent of the Sustainable Development Goal targets are on track, that progress on 50 percent is weak or insufficient and that only 30 percent of all countries will achieve SDG 1 on poverty reduction by 2030.

At the same time, the Human Rights Pillar remains to a large extent the “poor cousin” of the UN System, including in terms of financial resources. The fact that the promotion and protection of human rights is a precondition, an enabler to foster sustainable development and socio-economic progress is not universally accepted, and even contested by those who place the right to development above the respect of human rights.

The European Union is convinced that the lack of a comprehensive human rights-based approach to achieve the SDGs is to a large extent responsible for the current backlog. For this reason, I commend OHCHR and the European Fundamental Rights Agency for taking the initiative, in the framework of the HLPF, of today’s discussion on the use of human rights data and analysis in the context of VNR. The UN human rights system produces a large amount of data and analysis which can be used in the context of VNR: for instance, the Universal Periodic Review, the work done by the Treaty Bodies, and the reports issued by the HRC Special Procedures are invaluable resources for the implementation of SDG 4 (in that context, the EU and GRULAC will present a resolution on Rights of the Child and digital technologies during the forthcoming session of the Third Committee) and SDG 5, among others.

Dear colleagues,

By adopting its first Voluntary Review, to be presented tomorrow, the European Union reaffirms our strong commitment to the full and timely implementation of the 2030 Agenda. We acknowledge that more progress is needed in the EU on many SDGs, in particular on those related to the protection and sustainable use of natural resources. The Fundamental Rights Agency, as an independent body based in Austria, helps the EU to follow a human rights based approach of Agenda 2023 implementation.

We intend to accelerate implementation of Agenda 2030 also through international partnerships, bilaterally, and at regional and multilateral level, using the EU’s Global Gateway. Actually, we actively integrate the SDGs in the projects undertaken through Global Gateway, notably in relation to sustainable infrastructure for energy, transport, and digitalisation, and together with EU Member States as Team Europe we have started to leverage additional funding, including private sector investments in support of the SDGs.

Dear colleagues,

Working on the complementarity of human rights and VNR can only be beneficial for the governance of the whole UN System, helping to reinvigorate multilateralism. I am confident that today’s discussion will help us to make progress in that direction.

Thank you.