Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed highlights the challenges facing the Sahel at a meeting in Niamey, Niger in February 2023
The Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations Amina Mohammed, has advised African leaders to support and invest in environmental and sustainability solutions that have their roots in the continent.
Mohammed, gave the advice at the opening ceremony of the Ninth Session of the Africa Regional Forum on Sustainable Development (ARFSD-9), held in Niamey, Niger Republic, where she tasked African leaders to understand that true African-led solutions that were born in the continent would enable them to meet the challenges of Agenda 2063 and the SDGs.
She also tasked African leaders to ensure that young people play a key role in the digital economy. “When the world leaders, including our 54 African leaders, gather for the SDG Summit next September, it is solutions that are likely arising in Africa that must be supported and must be invested in,” Mohamed said. Africa is faced with incredible complexities in our environment in which we must achieve so much with so little, and urgently, for our people and the environment that we live in.
Mohamed said countries can change course and rise to the challenge through “African-led solutions, born on African soil”, noting that the Continental Free-Trade Agreement has the potential to lift 30 million people out of extreme poverty.
