Question: President Xi Jinping has recently proposed a Global Development Initiative for the first time. Can you share more information?

Embassy Spokesperson: On September 21, President Xi Jinping attended the General Debate of the 76th Session of the United Nations General Assembly and made an important speech via video link. He put forward the Global Development Initiative and called on the international community to accelerate the implementation of the 2030 SDGs for more robust, greener and more balanced global development, and foster a global community of development with a shared future. This major initiative has injected new impetus in international development cooperation, created a new cooperation platform for achieving the sustainable development goals, and pointed the way forward for national and global development and international cooperation on development .

Development is the eternal pursuit of human society. At present, the world, the developing countries in particular, is under the combined impacts of the pandemic and world-wide changes, both unseen in a century. Among the challenges are unbalanced global economic recovery, acute problems in food security, mounting challenges of climate change, difficulties in access to vaccines and new obstacles in implementing the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda. At the same time, the burgeoning industrial revolution and the new businesses forms and models brought about by the digital economy and green development as well as COVID-19 have created opportunities of leapfrog development in developing countries.

It is in this context that President Xi Jinping proposed the Global Development Initiative. He calls for the international community to join hands in rising to the challenges and seizing the opportunities.

The Global Development Initiative embraces the core concept of putting the people at the centre of all endeavours. It takes the betterment of people's well-being and realization of their well-rounded development as the starting point and ultimate goal, and aims at meeting the aspirations of all nations for a better life. It focuses on development as the master key to addressing all problems, strives to break the bottlenecks and create more opportunities, and emphasizes addressing imbalances between and within countries.

The Global Development Initiative follows the guideline of practical cooperation, and puts forward the vision and proposal for cooperation in eight key areas, namely poverty alleviation, food security, COVID-19 response and vaccines, development financing, climate change and green development, industrialization, digital economy and connectivity.

The Global Development Initiative advocates the spirit of open and inclusive partnership. It will form synergy with other initiatives including the Belt and Road Initiative, Agenda 2063 of the African Union, and the New Partnership for Africa's Development. It will promote consensus and pool the strengths of multilateral cooperation mechanisms such as the UN, the G20 and BRICS as well as various sub-regional and regional platforms.

The Initiative is an important public good and cooperation platform that China provides to the international community. It is open to the whole world and welcomes the participation of all countries.