RMI - UN Joint Steering Committee

Secretary Anjanette Kattil, co-chair of the Joint Steering Committee  

Honourable Secretaries for the RMI government  

Government Colleagues  

UN Colleagues  

Iakwe ! 

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is my pleasure to welcome you to the RMI-UN Joint Steering Committee (JSC). A meeting during which we will discuss the successes, address the challenges, and review the necessary plans and next steps to sustainably move forward. 

I am honoured to be co-chairing this RM-UN JSC meeting with Secretary Anjanette Kattil. 

With all departments and UN entities working in RMI being represented, this JSC platform provides a space for open dialogue on UN’s support to RMI. This should be a constructive space through which, over the next years, we hope to strengthen our collaboration across all areas. It will also be a space through which we will promote innovative and cross-sectoral approaches and explore new partnerships in facilitating development results for the people of RMI.  

This is the Second JSC for RMI. The first JSC meeting held in November 2022 facilitated the technical inputs from the JSC members to support the development of a Country Implementation Plan. It is fitting that the objective of this meeting is to endorse and sign the first Country Implementation Plan (CIP) for RMI, which provides a comprehensive view of UN’s programmatic area of work in RMI.   

In 2022, the Government of RMI endorsed the fourth UN Strategic Plan for the Pacific also referred to as the UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework 2023-2027. This UN Cooperation Framework outlines UN’s intentions of supporting 14 countries and territories in the Pacific in four key areas identified in the global 2030 Agenda. These are: Planet, People, Prosperity and Peace. The order with Planet starting first is deliberate as three of the fourteen countries and territories within the Pacific are at risk of disappearing under the waves within the lifetimes of our children. Two of these are Micronesian countries, namely Kiribati and the RMI.   

The CIP noted earlier outlines the operationalisation of this overarching UN Framework at the country level, and thus creates a de facto scaffolding which frames the RMI-UN collaboration going forward. The CIP also distinguished itself from past joint UN action plans.   

The CIP should be viewed as a living document, one that will be reviewed and updated on an annual basis, or as required. Its summary of the UN’s programme of work in RMI provides us with a foundation for intensifying and expanding our collaboration on integrated, cross-sectoral development initiatives aimed at leap-frogging RMI forward towards attaining the SDGs and implementing the 2030 Agenda.   

The timing of this meeting and the endorsement of the CIP is most timely, as we explore how the UN can support RMI in leveraging transformational international initiatives such as the SDG Summit, the Educational Transformation and the Food System Stocktaking Moment. The upcoming SDG Summit in September 2023 and the Summit of the Future in 2024 are also quite critical in catching up on the 2030 Agenda. Importantly, these events will strengthen partnerships for tangible and sustainable development gains for all people in RMI.  

I am pleased to note that RMI is carrying forward it’s exemplary work on Food Systems that was started in 2021, by participating in the Food Systems Stocktaking Moment. The UN system in RMI stands ready to support RMI’s preparations for and its participation in the event in Rome in July. As such, I look forward to exploring how we can exploit the latest technologies and innovation to realise this critical agenda.   

As you are aware, we have arrived of the mid-point of the implementation of the 2030 Agenda. In September this year the second SDG Summit will be held in New York to review the progress made globally towards attaining the SDGS. In preparation for the Summit, a draft version of the special edition of the report of the Secretary-General entitled “Progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals: Towards a Rescue Plan for People and Planet” has been released. This focus on the “Planet-People nexus” provides RMI, and the Pacific, with an important opportunity to highlight the disproportionately catastrophic impact of the triple planetary crisis (climate, biodiversity and pollution) on the people of RMI as well Micronesia as a whole. The unique geography of RMI and the Micronesia region in general, with its landscape of isolated low-lying outer islands and atolls, embodies what is arguably the most fundamental of 2030 Agenda tenets, namely the importance of “Leaving no one behind”.  The very concept of a rescue plan, reminding the world that global development and peace can only be obtained through the promotion of dignity and well-being of all, provides RMI with a platform to build strong coalitions and partnerships to achieve its national development ambitions. The UN system stands with RMI on this journey towards reimagining its future.  

With these lofty goals in mind, let us turn to today’s agenda towards establishing the foundations for a joint way forward.  

Thank you and Kommol Tata!