President Yudhoyono is one of the three heads of states who are appointed by the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to lead the UN high panel to design post-2015 new development agenda.
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono hopes the new development agenda that will replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015 will be an effective tool to measure progress to eradicate poverty.

"And the agenda will help countries in the world formulate a policy road map for achieving targets contained in the new development agenda," he said here Tuesday.

President Yudhoyono is one of the three heads of states who are appointed by the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to lead the UN high panel to design post-2015 new development agenda.

"I hope that the completion of the Post-2015 Development Agenda report will help countries with a sense of readiness and purpose in defining and implementing their national development agenda in 2015," he said.

According to President Yudhoyono it is a necessity given the time frame to achieve the MDGs will expire in two years` time.

On that occasion, the President acknowledged the important role of MDGs in reducing global poverty in 13 years.

He explained that since it was agreed in 2000, the MDGs have helped achieve fastest poverty reduction in human history.

"The number of poor people living below the international poverty line by earning 1.25 Dollars a day has decreased by half a billion," he said.

Child mortality also has dropped 30 percent, or about three million children have been rescued each year compared to that in 2000, the president added..

"Those achievements were driven by the combination of economic growth, better policies and global commitments towards the MDGs," he said.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, British Prime Minister David Cameron and President of Liberia Ellen Johnson Sirleaf are the three heads of government leading the UN panel for Post-2015 development agenda.

The panel officially handed its report to the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on May 30, 2013 at UN headquarters in New York.(*)

Editor: Heru Purwanto
Copyright © ANTARA 2013