The adoption of the 2030 Agenda by the world community in 2015 has been a historic moment and marks a milestone of multilateralism. Today, at its midterm, implementation is lagging far behind.

Needless to mention that the current multiple crises are a big challenge. Especially conflicts and wars in many regions of the world pose an unacceptable burden for the 2030 Agenda. In this context I urge Russia to immediately end its illegal war of aggression against Ukraine.

Furthermore structural barriers in our economic systems and an ongoing deterioration of our global environmental commons challenge us to fulfill the promises of the 2030 Agenda. In particular the aim to reach those furthest behind: Inequalities aggravate crises for all of us and crises aggravate inequalities. This is also the clear message of the Global Sustainable Development Report. Germany therefore considers the reduction of inequalities as a crucial lever for living up to the vision that we all agreed on in 2015.

Germany is ready. We promote multi-stakeholder approaches to combine all relevant perspectives for transformative changes. Examples are our new feminist foreign and development policies, making gender equality a pillar of all our initiatives. With our “Biodiversity Accelerator Partnership” we join forces with our partners to swiftly implement the Global Biodiversity Framework.

And as the world’s second largest donor of ODA, we continue to support our partners in developing inclusive and just structures for sustainable development.

We are a strong and reliable partner in substantiating the financial endowment of multilateral environmental governance. Germany launched the Global Shield against Climate Risks and plans to pledge up to 2 billion euros to replenish the Green Climate Fund this autumn. Overall, our contribution to international climate finance is planned to rise to 6 billion euros by 2025. In parallel, we will increase international biodiversity finance to up to 1.5 billion euro per year by 2025.

I encourage our international partners to contribute ambitiously as well. Together with our partners, Germany initiated the World Bank reform process as a step to unlock the MDB’s full potential to support us in achieving the SDGs.

We cannot and we will not stop now. We must place the reduction of inequalities in all their dimensions and an end to environmental degradation at the forefront of our action. The promise to leave no one behind should guide accelerated action for the second half of implementation.

This is my key message for the HLPF 2023, and this must be our joint aim for the SDG-Summit.