Kazakhstan ready to contribute to global development

President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev has taken part in the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit on post-2015 agenda and Sustainable Development Goals, Tengrinews reports citing the presidential press-service.

The UN Sustainable Development Summit was held on September 25 to 27 in New York and convened as a high-level plenary meeting of the General Assembly.

In his speech, President Nazarbayev said that Kazakhstan had made a significant progress in realization of the eight Millennium Development Goals. The MDGs established objectives for eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, and drove progress in such important areas as income and poverty, child mortality, and access to clean water. After the summit, the MDGs are to be replaced by 17 new Global Goals that will guide the policymaking and funding in the next 15 years.

Nazarbayev said that Kazakhstan had strengthened the foundations of statehood and created the conditions for the development of civil society. In addition, the country's GDP had grown 19-fold since its Independence, and the per capita income had reached 13 thousand dollars.

The Kazakh President also mentioned the health indicators achieved in Kazakhstan: life expectancy of Kazakhstanis had exceed 71 years, poverty had decreased 11 times - from 34 to 3 percent, rate of infant and maternal mortality had decreased by 65 percent, significant progress had been made in the fight against AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.

The President emphasized that the goals and targets of the new UN document coincided with Kazakhstan’s priorities and objectives. "Our response to the contemporary challenges is our Kazakhstan-2050 Strategy and its aim is to bring Kazakhstan into the top 30 most developed countries of the world. We are implementing the Plan of the Nation - Five Institutional Reforms. It is aimed at the modernization of the state apparatus, improving the work of civil and legal institutions, further industrialization of the economy. It is important for the countries of Eurasia to economically revive the Silk Road at the contemporary level. This will benefit many countries, shortening the transit routes from Asia-Pacific region to Europe. We are building infrastructure, railways and highways connecting the Pacific Ocean with Europe and the Middle East,” Nursultan Nazarbayev said.

In this context, Nazarbayev emphasized the importance of uniting around the idea of the ​​Great Eurasia, which will bring together in a single integration project of the 21st century the Eurasian Economic Union, the Silk Road Economic Belt and the European Union.

In addition, Nazarbayev touched upon the issues of uneven progress in different parts of the world. "The negative trend is exacerbated by the conflicts in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. The current migration crisis is caused not only by the war, but also by the imbalances of development. In the 21st century, successful states will be distinguished by their ability to generate innovative ideas, not by their weapon arsenal. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, in 2014 the combined military spending of all the nations exceeded $1.7 trillion, or about 2.3 percent of the global GDP,” maintained Nazarbayev. In this connection, the President of Kazakhstan once again put forward a proposal for each state to transfer one percent of its defense budget to the UN Sustainable Development Goals Fund.

Finally, Nazarbayev stressed that current events are a good opportunity to ally for the common future. "The best thing we can do – is to keep the hopes of humanity from break on the reef of modern threats and challenges. Kazakhstan is ready to contribute its efforts and resources to the cause of global development,” Nazarbayev said.

By Indira Urazova, editing by Tatyana Kuzmina