Resident Coordinator’s Remarks at the New Year Gathering hosted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Thailand

Permanent Secretary Khun Sarun Charoensuwan, Khun Eksiri, UN colleagues and friends.  

Let me wish you all a Happy New Year!

We are entering the Year of the Rabbit, which is believed to usher in an era of peace and prosperity — goals that both the MFA and the UN share. 

Khun Sarun, I would like to congratulate you on your appointment. You have taken over during a period of challenging global and regional dynamics even as we are at the midpoint to the 2030 Agenda.

The UN family is looking forward to working with you and your team to accelerate Thailand’s progress on the SDGs.

With your support in 2023 we can rival or even better our results from last year while contributing to a strong positioning of Thailand globally.

The country showed great leadership in hosting the APEC Summit, taking the bio-circular-green agenda center stage internationally, which was crucial for the Bangkok Goals.

This prominent stance is enabling Thailand to strengthen its role in bringing inclusive development solutions to the wider world by sharing its lessons learned domestically to other upper-middle-income countries worldwide.

I would like to take this opportunity to highlight some of our joint contributions to the SDGs from 2022.

As you are aware, our partnership through the UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework prioritizes three key areas in support of the SDGs.

These include supporting the growth of a green and low-carbon economy; speeding up the digital transformation for capacity development to empower individuals and their communities; and addressing inequalities to make sure no one is left behind.

More than a third of our annual budget of $85 million in support of the Cooperation Framework is co-financed by the Government and the private sector for crosscutting initiatives closely aligned with the country’s development agenda.

Last year we also took a big step forward towards localizing the SDGs by securing the commitments of all the 77 Governors nationwide.

At the same time, we deepened our partnership with the Global Compact Network in Thailand on climate action and biodiversity restoration.

GCNT members agreed to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 while ensuring their operations support “no net loss” in the biological diversity of genetics, species, and ecosystems in line with the BCG.

The Executive Director of Global Compact will be in Bangkok next month and we will leverage her visit to take our collaboration to the next stage.

At COP27 the Government made its own ambitious target on climate action by increasing the country’s GHG reductions to 30% below a business-as-usual scenario. I am heartened by this as Thailand’s emissions in 2030 will be lower than in 2020.

We also continued changing lives for the better nationwide.

The UN’s partnership is contributing to upskilling 164,000 migrant workers for the labor market; decreasing high rates of informality through targeted social protection measures and reaching the nearly 700,000 children out of school to develop their skills and knowledge.  

We can build on this momentum to continue reducing inequalities for a just transition in 2023. This requires a rights-based approach to empower everyone to contribute to the national development agenda.

As a result, scaling up our engagement with young people and leveraging the Thai spirit of volunteerism will be key to creating locally owned and sustained long-term solutions.

As a step in that direction, and in partnership with MFA, we will be opening up the UN complex to school students as part of Wan Dek to familiarize them with the SDGs and our partnership with the Government to accelerate progress on these goals.

Going forward, various international summits this year will provide Thailand with great opportunities to connect the dots on food security, education, health, and other global concerns.

The lessons learned can be highlighted at the SDG Summit in New York in September, which will bring heads of state together to take stock and work on ways to advance development goals.

This can be a big moment for Thailand to showcase its progress on the SDGs and leverage its insights to move the needle on South-South Triangular Cooperation for region-wide benefits.

In closing, I would like to thank you for your commitment to multilateralism and working with the UN family to deliver on the ongoing UN reforms in country.

I thank you.