In light of the 21st century’s pressing concerns, the United Nations General Assembly hosted its first ever Sustainability Week, a week-long series of high-level meetings on debt, tourism, transport, infrastructure, and energy from 15 to 19 April 2024. The sustainability imperative underscores the urgent need to recalibrate our global society to exist harmoniously within the planet’s ecological boundaries.
The interconnected crises plaguing our times – geopolitical tensions, pandemic repercussions, climate change, global food insecurity and the suffocating debt burden in developing nations – have dramatically brought into focus the unsustainability of our habits and lifestyles. The challenges we face are not siloed, but rather like of a network of dominoes, the collapse of one precipitating a chain reaction that undermines global stability and accentuates global disunity.
As President of the United Nations General Assembly, I have dedicated my tenure to the pursuit of measures to address and indeed overcome these challenges with a strategic focus on peace, prosperity, progress, and sustainability.
As an international community, we must collectively address the fact that with only six years left to 2030, rapid progress must be made to deliver the Sustainable Development Goals on time. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development remains an abiding commitment of the United Nations, underpinning its determination to usher in a brighter more secure tomorrow, for both people and planet. Sustainability Week was therefore designed as a clarion call for concerted action; to mobilize Member States, UN bodies, the global public and all stakeholders, including the private sector, at individual and organisational levels, to adopt sustainable practices that respect planetary limits and preserve our environmental assets for generations to come.
“Why now?”, you may ask. The urgency is twofold. First, the existential threats posed by climate change, especially sea-level rise as well as environmental degradation, demand immediate, coordinated action to avert irreversible damage. Second, the socioeconomic rifts widened by the pandemic and other external shocks have laid bare the fragility of progress made and highlighted the need, therefore, to adopt methods and systems more capable of withstanding such externally driven events. Considering the nature and scope of the global problems confronting us, it is essential that we make sustainability the anchor of our business model in the twenty-first century. This will require the support and active participation of everyone; individuals, households, communities, civic and local authorities, state and national authorities and, of course, global society.
Sustainability means adopting environmentally responsible, risk-informed habits and lifestyles as well as patterns of production and consumption that minimize the social and environmental costs of our existence on this planet. While promoting low-carbon green growth, such choices will, in addition, promote inclusion, longevity and stability.
External economic shocks disproportionately impact vulnerable countries and populations, hindering investment in industries, sectors and services essential to fostering a sustainable future. This developmental scenario characterizes the LDC, LLDC and SIDS – the most vulnerable countries – many of which, entrapped in a heavy burden of debt, are unable to finance the reforms necessary to support sustainable development.

Without financial support, their prospects for achieving the SDGs are and will remain dim. By integrating environmental protection, social equity, and economic resilience, thereby ensuring that progress is not only enduring but also inclusive, the transition to sustainability heralds a paradigm shift in development.
It is the premise of the SDGs that States themselves take ownership of their own reform processes and as such, mobilize the resources needed to implement them. With so many of the poorest and most vulnerable countries unable to raise capital on global markets on affordable terms, they are, for all practical purposes, doomed to chronic under-development. Consequently, effectively addressing this problem requires urgent reform of the international financial system to ensure that it works for all members of the international community – not just the few. International financial institutions simply must do more to better support and encourage sustainable development in the Global South.
This includes supporting the transition from hydrocarbons to sustainable forms of energy. This transition is not merely environmental but a foundational shift towards global equality. Access to clean, affordable energy is the linchpin for advancing all other SDGs, from improving health and education to reducing inequalities and spurring economic growth. It embodies the transition to a low-carbon economy, essential for mitigating climate change impacts and fostering a sustainable future.
Similarly, the critical importance of resilient infrastructure, tourism, and transport underscores the multifaceted nature of sustainability. Thoughtful infrastructure planning not only enhances our capacity to mitigate and respond to environmental crises but also reimagines tourism as a catalyst for local economies and ecosystems. Moreover, restructuring financial systems to align with sustainable development goals ensures they support, rather than hinder, our collective efforts towards a more sustainable future. Central to this is recognizing connectivity as a linchpin that enables sustainable transport, enhances access to essential services, and fosters economic connectivity between remote areas and urban centers – a perspective shaped by my firsthand experiences during my official travel.
Beyond supercharging implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, my aim was for Sustainability Week to serve as a vital precursor to and to build momentum ahead of the Summit of the Future in September at UN Headquarters, and other key conferences, thus setting the stage for global leaders to commit to actionable sustainability goals. Sustainability Week delivered key outcomes, including:
- The General Assembly’s endorsement of the Statistical Framework for Measuring the Sustainability of Tourism.
- The substantive contribution to the Implementation Plan for the UN Decade on Sustainable Transport
- The launch of my Call to Action: Further Acceleration of the Implementation of SDG 7 towards 2030 and Beyond.
- The successful initiation of the #ChooseSustainability campaign, promoting sustainable practices globally and inviting all stakeholders to join in and help turn the tide of unsustainability.
The overarching ambition of the transition should be to move away from extractive and exploitative models of consumption to a regenerative and circular economy that preserves our planet’s rich bounty for future generations and ensures equity and access for all. In essence, Sustainability Week embodied the UN’s role in galvanising the global community towards a fairer, just and sustainable future. It showcased the fact that the sustainability transition offers a comprehensive framework for systemic, inclusive change in the twenty-first century. We have an ideal opportunity, now, to redefine progress, not by the metrics of growth alone but by our ability to consume and produce while living harmoniously within the earth’s ecological limits – an opportunity that is open to all through the #ChooseSustainability campaign. By joining, you can participate in collectively driving the transition towards a sustainable future.
The conversations and actions that emerged from this Week offer firm ground on which to chart a new course ahead, one where sustainability is not just an aspiration but the foundation, indeed the anchor, of all development strategies in the twenty-first century.