<h6><strong>The Diplomat</strong></h6> <h4><strong>Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares warned this Wednesday, on the tenth anniversary of the 2030 Agenda, of the need to “pick up the pace” to meet the Sustainable Development Goals on time.</strong></h4> Albares made these remarks during the event ‘10th Anniversary of the 2030 Agenda: Roadmap for Peace, Human Rights and Sustainable Development’, held at the headquarters of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation in Marqués de Salamanca (Madrid). “If climate change, pandemics, economic or energy crises, threats to human rights, discrimination, and violence know no borders, neither should the fight against all these threats,” the minister stated in his opening address. Albares also called for the involvement of all actors in this objective, through alliances between international organizations, states, the private sector, civil society, citizens, and young people, and warned of the urgency of advancing towards the Sustainable Development Goals with only five years remaining until the 2030 Agenda. In the minister's view, this period must accelerate the achievement of very specific objectives at a crucial moment for the multilateral system, for the planet's climate, political, and social stability, and for millions of lives whose quality will depend on the decisions made now. Therefore, he warned, "it is time to pick up the pace and fulfill our commitments, to increase, not cut, the resources allocated to development cooperation." The minister recalled, in this regard, that the Spanish Government has strengthened the framework for international cooperation and sustainable development policies through the Cooperation Law approved in 2023, "which makes into a legal mandate what for years was a social demand: to dedicate 0.7% of Gross National Income to Official Development Assistance." The event revolved around two roundtables that reaffirmed the value of the 2030 Agenda as a shared roadmap for a wide range of stakeholders and the international community as a whole. The first roundtable included Susana Mabel Malcorra, president of GWL Voices; Ana Peláez Narváez, member of the CEDAW Committee and commissioner for Solidarity and International Cooperation at ONCE (Spanish National Organization of the Blind); and Sara Villodre, vice president of the Spanish Youth Council. The second panel featured insights from Magdalena Sepúlveda, director of the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD); Penélope Berlamas, vice president of the NGO Coordinator; and Kattya Cascante, president of the Spanish Network for Development Studies (REEDES).
