Baku-APA. As the General Assembly starts its 68th session Tuesday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for intensified efforts to lay the groundwork for global sustainable development in the years following the end of the current development cycle in 2015, APA reports quoting local media.
"The sense of expectation is clear. We are on the eve of very important work," Ban told the 193-member body at the opening ceremony of the annual session.
The year of 2015 is the deadline for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the eight anti-poverty targets agreed by world leaders at a UN summit in 2000 that set specific goals on poverty alleviation, education, gender equality, child and maternal health, environmental stability, HIV/AIDS reduction, and a global partnership for development.
"We will intensify our efforts to define a post-2015 development agenda, including with a single set of goals for sustainable development that we hope will address the complex challenges of this new era and capture the imagination of the people of the world, as the MDGs did," he said, adding that attention would also be focused on speeding achievement of the MDGs in the last 1,000 days to the deadline.
While urging business, civil society and the philanthropic community to come together to showcase success of MDGs, Ban said the world body will focus on a number of urgent peace and security challenges.
According to the UN chief, the Middle East diplomatic Quartet -- comprised of the UN, the European Union, Russia and the United States -- will also meet for the first time in more than a year to support the resumed Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
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