Goals to achieve universal happiness and sustainability are one thing, but what the world really needs is a new economic and social model to replace capitalism if equality is ever going to be achieved, said Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro Sunday at the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit.
World leaders gathered in New York City for the 70th U.N. summit, where they also unveiled the new Sustainable Development Goals, a new set of goals and targets to eradicate poverty and achieve equality in the world. The SDGs were created to replaced the previous U.N. Millennium Development Goals, which came to an end in 2015. The new SDGs have a new target date of 2030.
“If we want to progress with all of these goals and targets that we have traced out, undoubtedly we have to ask ourselves of another economic and social model,” said Maduro, adding that we need “a different relationship between power in the world for the next 15 years.”
.@NicolasMaduro : Only a profound transformation of economic systems gives viability to the objectives we are proposing #UNGA
— teleSUR English (@telesurenglish)
September 27, 2015
Though the socialist leader said he supports the new SDG initiatives, poverty will never be eradicated as long as institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank continue to control economies around the world, particularly developing economies.
“The IMF and the World Bank have imposed on our countries, they make development impossible and they stand in the way of achieving these desirable goals that we're setting ourselves for 2030. We need a total change of this neoliberal systems that is represented by the IMF and the world bank,” said Maduro.
.@NicolasMaduro: Stop the unjust systems and the imperialist wars so that there may be conditions to advance. #UNGA http://t.co/2TsIAmAjFT
— teleSUR English (@telesurenglish)
September 27, 2015
The key to change, added the president, is to empower the poor.
“If we want to overcome poverty then we have to give power to the people, to the poor,” he said.
Maduro praised the work of former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in leading the Bolivarian revolution, a major movement to increase the sovereignty and independence of Latin American nations.
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Watch Maduro’s full speech below