It is my pleasure at the outset to express my congratulations to His Excellency Ambassador Dennis Francis on his assumption of the presidency of the General Assembly at its seventy-eighth session and to wish him every success. I should like also to thank his predecessor. His Excellency Mr. Csaba Korosi. for the outstanding manner in which he steered the work of the General Assembly at its previous session. Furthermore. I wish to commend the valuable efforts made by His Excellency the Secretary-General. Mr. Antonio Guterres, to strengthen the role played by the United Nations to achieve its objectives.
Our world today is experiencing various acute interlinked crises whose negative effects are affecting everyone, although to varying degrees. Our fates are interconnected, and we therefore need to accelerate the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030 pursuant to our collective commitment to that end. There is no doubt that the pace and the degree of inclusivity of that implementation have so far been below our expectations due to the diversity of current challenges.
Globally speaking, the progress made so far. in particular in developing countries, is slowing down and experiencing difficulties. That is reflected in the worsening levels of poverty and unemployment, the acute public-health and food crises and inflation, which could lead to economic recession and greater violence, terrorism and destructive armed conflicts, all of that accompanied by environmental degradation of our planet.
However, as grim as that picture is. we remain hopeful about the implementation of the SDGs. which depends on our collective capacity to chart new courses for multilateral cooperation and rectify the imbalance in the development assistance system so as to create more effective mechanisms for providing the funding needed to finance sustainable development.
The seventy-eighth session of the General Assembly is of utmost importance, as it allows us to carry out a midterm review of the implementation of the SDGs and to discuss means to accelerate the process.
We in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania have made the implementation of the SDGs the focus of our development efforts, as reflected in our accelerated growth and prosperity strategy, which is the framework for our public action for development. Thanks to our considerable efforts and despite the unfavourable regional and international circumstances, we were able to improve many SDG-related indicators in my country. We have fought poverty, vulnerability and exclusion. We have created a broad network for social protection so as to strengthen the resilience of our most vulnerable citizens, increase their purchasing power and expand medical and social coverage so as to progressively achieve universal health coverage.
We further undertook structural reforms in order to build a diversified economy that is more resilient and better able to create jobs and add value. We have also strengthened economic, financial and monetary governance in my country by increasing the productivity of sectors such as agriculture, fisheries and animal husbandry so as to achieve food security and self-sufficiency. Thanks to those reforms, economic growth in Mauritania reached 6.4 per cent last year. Access to basic services also improved, and access to health-care services has broadened. The percentage of the population with access to drinking water reached 72.33 per cent and with access to electricity 91.84 per cent in urban areas and 53 per cent on average throughout the country.
The share of renewable energy was 34 per cent in 2020. and we are aiming for 50 per cent by 2030. Energy diversification has broadened in Mauritania thanks to our recently launched programme for the development of green hydrogen energy, which provides us with an alternative and sustainable source of clean energy. That will help us to achieve the objective of an 11 per cent drop in carbon emissions.
The twenty-eighth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, set to take place in the United Arab Emirates, is for us a source of great hope. We call on industrialized States to honour the commitments that they undertook in the area of greenhouse-gas emissions and those that they made during the Paris summit.
Our efforts in the area of energy transition are accompanied by a continued fight against desertification and other forms of climate change, with a view to restoring the balance of our ecosystems. We are doing so in the context of the Great Green Wall initiative and the Permanent Interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel, thereby strengthening the green economy.
We also are investing in our human capital. We have implemented various youth training programmes to make it easier for young people to enter the labour market and to protect them against extremism and fundamentalism. We have also launched programmes aimed at the empowerment of women and at strengthening their participation in the country’s political and public life.
Numerous promising reforms are also under way in the area of education so as to create a republican schooling system that gives all our children a high- quality education and equal opportunities. Furthermore, we are actively working on strengthening the rule of law. good governance, social cohesion and individual and collective freedom. We are ensuring the promotion of human rights and the rights of women and children, and we are fighting both contemporary and old forms of slavery. We have seen positive results in all of those areas, acknowledged by our partners and specialized international bodies.
In all aspects of our public policy, we rely on dialogue and openness with all parties. We undertook an in-depth reform of our judicial system to strengthen the independence of our judiciary and to guarantee the separation of powers. Those reforms have strengthened our rule of law. democratic system and transparency. That would have been impossible without the security and stability that reign throughout the country, despite the fact that the regional and international environments are currently particularly unstable.
Our integrated security strategy was also praised by all stakeholders. We have contributed to the stability and security of the subregion through the Group of Five for the Sahel, which we are currently chairing. We are also contributing to the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic and are hosting more than 100.000 of our Malian brothers who found refuge in Mauritania in the wake of the instability in their country.
Our efforts to achieve regional and international peace and stability are part and parcel of our foreign policy, which is based on good-neighbourliness, mutual respect, constructive cooperation, dialogue, negotiations, adherence to international treaties and support for just causes.
In that regard. I would like to reaffirm the right of the Palestinian people to create an independent State with East Jerusalem as its capital, in keeping with the relevant resolutions of the United Nations and the Arab Peace Initiative. We also support solutions aimed at preserving territorial integrity, stability and security in Libya. Yemen and Syria. We call for the deployment of all possible efforts to effectively and sustainably put an end to the hostilities in the Republic of the Sudan and to reach a comprehensive political solution in that brotherly country. We also stand with the Government of Somalia in its efforts to attain security and stability.
We reiterate our firm position on the conflict in Western Sahara. We support the efforts being made by the United Nations as well as all Security Council resolutions aimed at finding a lasting solution that is acceptable to all. We strongly condemn the phenomenon of Islamophobia, which distorts Islam and sows division and hatred between Muslims and the West in particular.
We would like to express our concern as regards the continued war in Ukraine. We call for a negotiated solution that takes into account the concerns of various parties, with respect for international law and the Charter of the United Nations. We reject all forms of power grab through non-constitutional means, and call on sisterly Sahel countries that experienced military coups to rapidly return to the constitutional order.
We are well aware that a great deal remains to be done in order to attain the SDGs. We in Mauritania need financial resources that are far greater than what we can mobilize domestically. Our situation is similar to that of most developing States and African States in particular. That is why the easing of the debt burden of those countries, heightening the level of investment and upholding the commitments undertaken by partners could have helped us to collectively achieve better results. That is why we call for a resolution to the issue of debt by reforming the development debt system and increasing support for the least developed countries, which are the most vulnerable, through multilateral cooperation, which should be strengthened.
Our Organization is the institutional embodiment of our common destiny and of the need to cooperate and ensure solidarity so as to meet common challenges while upholding our shared values. We therefore need to work together so as to continue reforming the Organization. We must work until its approach to international crises becomes more balanced, fairer and more considerate of the needs of the least developed countries. That would strengthen the trust that everyone should have in the United Nations and in its effectiveness so as to bring about international peace and security and achieve the SDGs.