The blueprint for sustainable development over the next 15 years was adopted by the United Nations on Sunday evening.
After a hectic three-day negotiation, the Post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) were adopted by the 193 member states of the United Nations in New York City.
“Now we have the text which will transform the world,” said Foreign Secretary M Shahidul Haque at the foreign ministry.
“My team at headquarters and at the United Nations worked very hard to protect Bangladesh’s interests,” he added. “Bangladesh is ready to implement the global blueprint to eradicate poverty by 2030.”
The new blueprint goals will be effective from January 1 next year, when the Millennium Development Goals will expire.
The SDGs have 17 goals and 169 targets with indicators to be determined by individual states.
The text will be approved at the SDG Summit to be held in New York in September where it is expected over 150 heads of state and government, including Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, will take part.
Hasina will be one of very few people to attend both the MDG Summit in 2000 and the SDG Summit in 2015.
Bangladesh has taken the lead in education, migration, water resources, sea level rise, climate change, shared water resources and disaster risk reduction issues, the foreign secretary said.
“The SDGs are unique in a sense because they were agreed under a transformative negotiation process … a strong United Nations will be needed to implement it,” he said.
“The current UN system is not enough ... We proposed a stronger UN system to properly implement the goals,” he added.
“The new global sustainable development blueprint is far more comprehensive than the MDG was because it incorporates many issues overlooked in the previous development agenda,” he added.
