China has made a remarkable contribution as the international community has worked together on sustainable development issues and achieved huge success, saving millions of people from extreme poverty and hunger, through the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, said Wu Hongbo, UN under-secretary-general for economic and social affairs.

Millennium Development Goals are the measurable targets established in 2000 to reduce extreme poverty by 2015.

Wu said the upcoming UN General Assembly will adopt the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals as the replacement for the MDGs, which expire this month.

Sustainable development has become a top issue for the UN in the fields of economic and social affairs. Wu added that all sides agreed that in order to achieve sustainable development, nations should pursue economic development and social progress, while keeping a close watch on environmental protection.

Progress toward MDGs has brought great improvements to people's livelihood and well-being, Wu told China Daily in an exclusive interview. Developed and developing countries alike have worked hand-in-hand to reduce extreme poverty.

Wu said that while the UN had achieved progress on some of the millennium goals, such as eradicating extreme poverty and hunger and achieving universal primary education, there were regrettable shortcomings in other areas.

"The international community has still got work to do toward promoting gender equality and improving maternal health," said Wu. "So, when UN members discussed the new SDGs, we all agreed that the coming post-2015 SDGs should include the unachieved goals of the MDGs."

Wu said the new Sustainable Development Goals numbered 17 and included 169 targets and 304 indicators to show compliance. The first SDG is to "end poverty in all its forms everywhere", which, according to Wu, could be seen as an extension of the unfinished MDGs.

Wu said that one difference between the old goals and the new ones was that the latter will pay more attention to financing in order to attract more enterprises and personal contributions.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said that sustainable energy connects economic growth, social equality and a healthy environment.

Last year, the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs and the China Energy Fund Committee, a Hong Kong-based NGO, established a competition as part of the sustain-able energy initiative.

We Care Solar, a California-based, non-profit devoted to making solar energy affordable, accessible and reliable in developing countries, won the competition and was awarded a $1 million grant on Sept 14.

Wu said the UN has realized the importance of financing in the energy sector, as it is not enough to push sustainable development only with public funds.

He said several challenges remained, such as the lack of reliable data, noting that some countries have no population census.

"It would be hard to finish the task when we don't even know how many local people we need to save from extreme poverty. Therefore, we have encouraged member countries to strengthen their ability to collect reliable data, which is a tough challenge itself."

Wu said China had made remarkable contributions to sustainable development over the past 15 years. "When speaking of the first proposed goal in the MDGs, to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, we can see that the number of people saved in China was 75 percent of the total target population," said Wu.

renqi@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 09/28/2015 page2)