President attends General debate at 68th session of UNGA

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ The President of Mongolia Ts.Elbegdorj and accompanying him delegation were welcome together with other state and government heads by the UN Secretary-General. After this, the 68th session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) started the General debate. Yesterday evening, the leader of Mongolia met with the US President Barack Obama and his spouse Ms Michelle Obama, then was invited to the dinner hosted by Mr Obama in honor of the Heads of States and Governments who are taking in the 68th session. During the reception, given by the UN Head on Tuesday, Mr Elbegdorj exchanged views on the core themes of the session with Mr John Willian Ashe, the UNGA session President; Mr Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary-General, and with other prominent figures and heads of states. Then Mr Elbegdorj participated in a round table meeting of the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development. The UN Secretary-General stressed:"Our collective goal is very clear. Our collective goal is to undertake a collective intergovernmental effort to provide political leadership and guidance for sustainable development, ensure and monitor the implementation of the sustainable development commitments, improve the synergy of the three core principles of sustainable development, attend the emerging and new challenges to sustainable development and develop an agenda for robust actions". The round table brought together Presidents of 84 countries, PMs of 41 countries, Vice Presidents of 11 countries and 65 FMs. Mr Elbegdorj said,"Sustainable Development Goals (the SDGs) should be action-oriented, concise and easy to communicate, limited in number, aspirational, global in nature and universally applicable to all countries, while taking into account the differing national realities, capacities and levels of development, and respecting national policies and priorities. We do hope that the Open Working Group of the General Assembly on Sustainable Development Goals will produce tangible outcome. On the other hand, sustainable development means an inclusive rapid economic growth, not a growth at any cost or just short-term spurts in growth, but sustained, long-term, inclusive growth that creates jobs and provides decent employment and decent wages". This High-Level Political Forum was established pursuant to the Provisions 84 and 86 of "The Future We Want", the final document adopted at Rio+20 Sustainable Development Conference. It was decided to hold the Forum's first Roundtable at the start of the 68th UNGA. Accordingly, an open and all-inclusive discussion was organized at the 67th UNGA to define the structure and organization of the Forum, with a resolution to establish the forum 67/203 adopted. The discussion, supported by the UN Member States and UN system organizations, began in January and concluded in June 2013, and the UNGA adopted the resolution on July 9th, 2013.