2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: Ban Ki-moon hails 'historic turning point for our world'

UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon has hailed an agreement made by 193 Member States to eradicate extreme poverty, saying it is a "historic turning point for our world". Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development will be formally adopted by world leaders in September at the Sustainable Development Summit at the UN Headquarters in New York.

The agenda includes 17 sustainable development goals that aim to eradicate extreme poverty, promote prosperity and protect the environment – all within the next 15 years. Ban Ki-moon said: "I welcome the agreement achieved today by Member States on the outcome document of the United Nations Summit to adopt the post-2015 development agenda to be held in New York from 25 to 27 September 2015.

"Transforming our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development encompasses a universal, transformative and integrated agenda that heralds an historic turning point for our world. This agreement results from a truly open, inclusive and transparent process.

"This is the People's Agenda, a plan of action for ending poverty in all its dimensions, irreversibly, everywhere, and leaving no one behind. It seeks to ensure peace and prosperity, and forge partnerships with people and planet at the core. The integrated, interlinked and indivisible 17 sustainable development goals are the people's goals and demonstrate the scale, universality and ambition of this new agenda."

The agreement marked the end of two years of negotiations and the September conference is expected to see over 150 world leaders in attendance. The agenda builds on the Millennium Development Goals that aimed to help people escape poverty.

In the latest agreement, nations will address the root causes of poverty. It looks to tackle the systematic barriers preventing sustainable development, such as inequality, inadequate infrastructure and unsustainable consumption and production patterns.

"We are resolved to free the human race within this generation from the tyranny of poverty and want and to heal and secure our planet for the present and for future generations," the report said. "We are determined to take the bold and transformative steps which are urgently needed to shift the world onto a sustainable and resilient path. As we embark on this collective journey, we pledge that no one will be left behind."

It is hoped the agenda will also provide a boost for the COP21 climate change negotiations set to take place in Paris in December.

Ban Ki-moon continued: "The agenda will be adopted at the United Nations Summit in September in New York. Building on the successful outcome of the Third International Conference on Financing for Development in Addis Ababa, the summit will chart a new era of sustainable development in which poverty will be eradicated, prosperity shared and the core drivers of climate change tackled. Critically, the summit will also contribute to achieve a meaningful agreement in the COP21 in Paris in December.

"I look forward to joining heads of states and government, civil society, faith and business leaders, and peoples around the world for the adoption of this new agenda in the historic summit in New York."