The European Union and its Member States stand firmly behind the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which guide our actions both internally and externally.

The world nowadays requires more solidarity and cooperation to meet the commitments of the Sustainable Development Goals, including in particular poverty eradication in the context of the twin transition – green and digital.

Fostering the sustainable economic, social and environmental development of developing countries, with the primary aim of eradicating poverty is a founding principle of our international cooperation enshrined in the Treaty on European Union.

We are committed to investing in affordable, universal health coverage; universal social protection; food and nutrition security, universally accessible quality education and training, including digital skills training; decent job creation, especially for young people, women and persons with disabilities.

At home, the European Pillar of Social Rights Action Plan aims at providing equal opportunities for all, fair working conditions and social protection to fight against poverty and inequalities. The EU and its Member States are committed to reducing the number of people at risk of poverty or social exclusion in the EU by at least 15 million by 2030 out of which at least 5 million should be children. Moreover, all EU Member States have set their own national targets to reduce poverty.

Despite the unprecedented worldwide expansion of mainly short-term social protection interventions during the pandemic, still more than 4 billion people around the world remain entirely unprotected. The EU continues supporting partner countries in comprehensive, sustainable and shock responsive social protection systems. We are supporting the Universal Social Protection 2023, building digitally enhanced interoperable and globally agreed standards in social protection (to start in 2024) prominently featured in the Global Accelerator on Jobs and Social Protection for Just Transitions.

We are determined to promote ambitious international partnerships and are committed to jointly finding multilateral solutions to global challenges with Least Developed Countries and other partners.

The EU and its Member States, as the biggest global ODA provider are committed to collectively meeting the target of 0.20% of gross national income to LDCs by 2030.

We stand ready to cooperate with all partners to eradicate all forms of poverty, including extreme poverty, worldwide, in particular through our Global Gateway Initiative.

Thank you.