Cardinal Turkson: Key to 2030 Development Goals is "caring"

Cardinal Turkson: Key to 2030 Development Goals is "caring"

(Vatican Radio) The President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Cardinal Peter Turkson, told the United Nations to realize the 2030 Development Agenda, we are called “to care”, even when dealing with finance. 

The Vatican official was on Thursday speaking at a High-Level Thematic Debate on Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals in New York.

“Ethically irresponsible financial activity produces social inequalities,” – Cardinal Turkson said – “By caring, we are inspired to practice responsible finance and promote value-based investing  in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda.”

Cardinal Turkson called “our conflict-ridden world” the greatest challenge to the realization of the 2030 Agenda.

“For war is the negation of all rights and all development,” he said.

“Thus good governance and all the political instruments for the maintenance of peace and security for all are indispensable for the successful realization of the 2030 Agenda,” Cardinal Turkson concluded.

The full text of Cardinal Turkson's speech is below

Statement of the HOLY SEE by

HIS EMINENCE CARD. PETER K.A. TURKSON

President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace

High-Level Thematic Debate on Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals

New York, 21 April 2016

Mr. President, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I bring you the warm greetings of Pope Francis, and his prayerful wishes for a successful  discussion on the means for achieving the SDGs.  When Pope Francis addressed this Assembly on September 25 last, he referred to the  2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development  as “an important sign of hope”. This hope, he  went on, will come to concrete fruition only if the Agenda is truly, fairly and effectively  realized, and even more importantly, if its framework is sustainable. Thus its realization  calls for all stakeholders to exercise an effective, practical and constant will.

The Holy See believes that the realization of the 2030 Agenda requires more than public  financing;  it  also  requires  financing  and  investment  in  accordance  with  value-based  criteria of private investors, as a necessary complement to public finance. Indeed, it is  necessary  that Non-State  Actors, such as faith-based  groups,  lead  multi-stakeholder engagements in ethical financial activity to eliminate social inequality and to develop an  ambitious new agenda to better “care for our common home”.

In his Encyclical “Laudato Si’”, Pope Francis talks about “care” and “caring”.  For, if one cares, one is connected, one is involved and touched. To care is to allow oneself   to  be affected by another, so much that one’s path and priorities change. With caring, then,  the hard line between self and other softens, blurs, even disappears. So when we cast aside anything precious in the world, we destroy part of ourselves too, beca use we are  completely connected.

To realize the 2030 Development Agenda, we are called “to care”, even when dealing with finance. Ethically irresponsible financial activity produces social inequalities.  By caring, we are inspired to practice responsible finance and promote value-based investing  in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda.

Finally, Mr. President, as Pope Paul VI affirmed in 1967 in his Encyclical “Populorum  Progressio,” development is the new name of peace. Peace is the necessary condition and  environment for any true and lasting development. Accordingly, our conflict-ridden world is probably the greatest challenge to the realization of the 2030 Agenda. Peaceful and caring societies are more fundamental than the availability of financing and funding.

For war is the negation of all rights and all development. Thus good governance and all  the  political  instruments  for the maintenance of peace and  security for all are indispensable for the successful realization of the 2030 Agenda.

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