NUR-SULTAN – Kazakh Minister of Foreign Affairs Mukhtar Tileuberdi recently reaffirmed Kazakhstan’s support of global efforts to develop South-South cooperation at the Sept. 26 United Nations (UN) High-level video conference on Poverty Eradication and South-South Cooperation (SSC), the ministry’s press service reported.
Kazakh Foreign Minister Mukhtar Tileuberdi (C). Photo credit: mfa.kz.
The conference is also part of the 75th session of the UN General Assembly. The heads of foreign ministries of the UN member states and the UN Deputy Secretaries General participated at the conference.
Kazakhstan has allocated more than $500 million over the past 20 years as official development assistance (ODA) and humanitarian assistance to strengthen the economic potential of Central Asia and Afghanistan. To systematize this work, the foreign ministry plans to create a separate national agency to bolster the KazAID program.
The participants stressed that the pandemic significantly increased the number of people living below the poverty line. The southern countries can lose the progress gained in recent years towards achieving the goals of the 2030 Global Agenda for Sustainable Development.
The Kazakh minister spoke about the innovative proposals brought forward by President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev as part of a potential solution. Tokayev decreed that debts be written off, the debt burden reduced in exchange for increasing investments in the healthcare sector, as well as introducing regional development projects. The President also voiced these ideas at the UN Forum on Financing for Development in May.
The SSC is a forum dedicated to technical cooperation among developing countries in the Global South. The cooperation seeks to achieve sustainable development goals. The member states, international organizations, academics, civil society, and the private sector collaborate in a single SSC space to exchange knowledge, skills, and successful initiatives in areas such as agricultural development, human rights, urbanization, health, climate change, among other fields.
