Statement by the Foreign Minister of Belarus S.Aleinik at the high-level meeting on Global Development Initiative Cooperation Outcomes (New York, September 19, 2023)

Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen! 

Let me thank China for organizing this important event on the Global Development Initiative.

I would also like to extend appreciation to the distinguished speakers for their very interesting and informative presentations, which gave all of us much food for thought.

At a time of the current global turbulence that threatens to sideline the 2030 Agenda, China is demonstrating an exceptional global leadership by providing support to countries in need to help them implement the Agenda in full and on time.

It’s a great vision of a great power.

That is how we in Belarus view China’s Global Development Initiative launched by China’s Chairman Xi Jinping two years ago.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that China has on a number of occasions pleasantly surprised the world with its stories of successful development. 

Indeed, it was overwhelmingly due to China’s success in lifting 800 million people out of poverty in the last decade that the world was able to reach the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. 

Likewise, it was due to the campaign launched by China’s leadership in 2013 that the country totally eliminated absolute poverty in just 8 years – by 2021. 

We have no doubt whatsoever that China’s initiatives, like the Belt and Road Initiative and the Global Development Initiative, will be as successful as its domestic development campaigns.

Belarus has welcomed the launch of the Global Development Initiative in 2021 and is keen to benefit from it. We have at once joined the Group of Friends of the Initiative and have been closely following how the Initiative was evolving.

Earlier this year we have joined the Network of the Global Development Promotion Center, a vital component of the Initiative that serves as a platform for its implementation. 

As a follow up to the Ministerial Meeting of the Group of Friends of the GDI, that was held in September 2022 in New York, we began working with our Chinese partners on some specific thematic projects, which will undoubtedly help advance our national efforts in achieving the SDGs.

We are confident that GDI will facilitate the creation of multipolar world and will help to eliminate illegal unilateral coercive measures which are creating serious obstacles to ensure eradication of poverty, ensure food security and affecting many other areas of SDGs 

Thank you.