Doha: With the increase in geopolitical risks, security tensions, and climate change, it is expected that a number of important and diverse economic issues will be included on the agenda of the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA 79), as the world has suffered from a broad financial and economic recession in recent years due to various circumstances and influences.
The global economic crises have been exacerbated by many factors and causes, especially the repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Russian-Ukrainian war that has been ongoing since February 2022, the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, as well as natural factors linked to climate changes that have affected large parts of the world, all of which have cast a shadow over the activity of global trade and economic movement in general.
This comes in light of the efforts to achieve the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Plan, which was adopted in 2015 and focuses on 17 main sustainable development goals and 169 sub-goals, covering a wide range of global issues and working to address them, such as poverty, hunger, health, education, gender equality, clean water, sustainable energy, economic growth, reducing inequality, environmental protection, peace, justice, and strong institutions.
In remarks to Qatar News Agency, economist Fawaz Al Hajri said that there is no doubt that the State of Qatar, under the leadership of HH the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani and his constant participation in the work of the UNGA, has a positive and developmental role in driving the wheel of development, progress, and success for all of humanity.
Al Hajri believes that through the UNGA meetings, the State of Qatar can contribute significantly to creating development opportunities that enable peoples to achieve stability through its financial and in-kind contributions, such as its support for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) and other UN agencies, as well as supporting many technical programs that support production and energy exports to the world, investing in clean energy, supporting environmentally friendly policies, developing its sovereign fund, and diversifying various sources of income.
Fawaz Al Hajri anticipates that the most important issues expected to be raised during the UNGA will be those related to the development of humanity through supporting development projects and supporting innovation in various sciences such as medicine and technology, which contributes to the development of peoples, achieving justice and equality, raising the standard of living for all humanity, and eliminating poverty and unemployment. He pointed out that the key economic challenges and issues facing the United Nations and the international community are eliminating poverty and unemployment, harnessing available economic resources to provide a decent life for all peoples, and benefiting from technological development to increase productivity and well-being.
For his part, Associate Professor of investment risk analysis at Al al-Bayt University, Jordan, Dr. Omar Gharaibeh told QNA that the United Nations data indicate that what has been achieved from the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Plan is some progress in terms of goals, although it is clear but little, such as the decline in poverty rates in some areas, for example, Bangladesh from 40 percent to 20 percent and Ethiopia from 45 percent to 23 percent, increasing access to basic education such as Vietnam by 100 percent and Malawi by 90 percent, and improving access to clean water such as Uganda and Nepal from 56 percent to about 79 percent.
In the same context, the existence of challenges has slowed the achievement of many goals and hindered progress in some other areas, including eradicating extreme poverty, achieving gender equality, and addressing climate change. Global crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic and increasing geopolitical risks have led to disparities in implementation to achieve the goals from one region to another.
Gharaibeh believes that the challenges associated with financing and partnerships to obtain sufficient resources are among the reasons hindering some projects. Therefore, in light of these challenges facing progress in achieving the sustainable development goals by 2030, there is still a great need for coordinated and renewed efforts.
He said that the most important global economic sectors that had a broad and rapid impact on the global economy were the impact on supply chains, especially those related to semiconductors and electronic chips, with the repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic, and this increased with the presence of geopolitical risks and trade tensions between China and the United States of America through economic sanctions and increased customs tariffs imposed by countries on other countries’ exports or imports of goods and services.
He added that supply chains linked to geopolitical risks were not limited to the United States and China, but supply chains were affected by geopolitical risks between Russia and Ukraine, causing major disruptions to global energy prices as a result of reduced supplies from Russia, in addition to rising global food prices, as Russia and Ukraine are among the world’s largest grain exporters.
Source: Qatar News Agency
