President Vahagn Khachaturyan delivered a speech at the Hamburg Sustainability Conference

President of the Republic Vahagn Khachaturyan delivered a speech at the Hamburg Sustainability Conference.

The goal of the Conference is «À better future for all on a healthy planet.» Are we reaching our goals fast enough and have we met all requirements for it, - alas not.

When I looked through the program, I deliberately picked up the Panel, entitled Peace Building for Securing Sustainable Development.

Regretfully, peace-building and peace-making are pressing issues, not only for my country and my region, but also beyond - and the current situation in the Middle East is a vivid example.

One should admit that currently we are facing the highest number of violent conflicts since the Second World War and the people’s sense of safety and security is at a lowest level ever.

Thus, people are unable to exercise their talents and full potential to contribute to a society, since there are risk of a new war or conflict.

Having said that, we agree that the challenges we face can be addressed only through stronger international cooperation.

From that perspective, I would like to welcome the recent adoption of the “Pact for the Future” by the United Nations, led by Germany and Namibia, aimed at strengthening international cooperation and promoting sustainable development.

Peacemaking and peacekeeping have helped to end wars, prevent conflicts and tensions from escalating into full-blown violence. In this context, let me bring my country’s example.

Deployment along the Armenian-Azerbaijani boarder of an unarmed civilian monitoring mission of the European Union, played a critical role in eventually downgrading boarder incidents for last two years.

As it is stressed in the Pact, we hope for a world that is safe, peaceful, just, equal, and sustainable, a world in which well-being, security, dignity are assured for all.

Financing for development, green transition and sustainability should be at the heart of our efforts in addressing those challenges, with focus on developing countries and countries in special situations.

We need to reform the international financial architecture to enable effective financing for development, which will take into account the specific needs of the middle-income countries.

We are also trying to initiate new and innovative approaches for helping the developing countries to meet their needs. One of such initiatives is the “Debt for Climate Swap” mechanism, which we propose to use within climate finance context, as a useful tool to relieve the debt of developing countries in return to their climate change mitigation efforts.

The 2030 Agenda stands clear there is no sustainable development without peace and no peace without sustainable development.

Driven by this very philosophy and strong commitment to peace, the Government of Armenia is taking actions to bring peace and prosperity to the region. The Government of Armenia introduced the “Crossroad of Peace” initiative to unlock the economic potential of the region and strengthen economic and cultural ties, thus contributing to the political dialogue and achievement of a comprehensive peace for the benefit of all peoples in our region.

We hope that our efforts will be reciprocated by all interested countries, both in our region and beyond, to achieve a lasting peace and turning our efforts towards sustainable development and green growth.

In conclusion, I would like to once again thank the Government of Germany for its invitation to this important new initiative and wish every success to its deliberations.