President of the General Assembly, Distinguished Heads of State and Government, Secretary-General, Excellencies, A chairde, friends, One hundred years ago, on Monday September 10th, 1923 - a year after our independence - Ireland was admitted to the League of Nations. It was an early signal of what would become our unwavering commitment to multilateralism. One hundred years on, we are facing a moment of exceptional crisis. The threat of famine and food insecurity persists. Increased conflict, insecurity, and violence, affects the most vulnerable people on this planet. The devastating effect of climate change is contributing to increasing numbers of humanitarian crises, with record numbers of people in need of humanitarian assistance. We are experiencing serious gender inequality, with more than 130 million girls out of school and less than 20% of the world’s landowners are women. We have
seen the stalling – and, in some cases, the reversal – of progress towards the 17 Sustainable Development Goals we collectively agreed to implement. The Goals represent a high point for international cooperation and the promise of a world that we can securely pass on to the next generation. Ireland is deeply proud of the role we have played. In 2015, with Kenya, we led the negotiations that created the Sustainable Development Goals. And this year – at the half-way point – we worked with Qatar to bring about the SDG Summit’s Political Declaration; the Declaration that we unanimously approved in this Hall earlier this week. President, Delegates, It is beyond time for us to demonstrate that the Sustainable Development Goals are more than a set of aspirations. It is time for all of us - to turn our collective commitments into reality. In July, Ireland presented our second Voluntary National