78th Session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA 78)
New York, NY (August 29,2023) — The 78th session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA 78) will open on Tuesday, 5 September 2023. The first day of the high-level General Debate will be Tuesday, 19 September 2023.
In a letter dated 29 June 2023, UNGA 78 President-elect Dennis Francis informed Member States that the theme of the General Assembly’s 78th session will be ‘Rebuilding trust and reigniting global solidarity: Accelerating action on the 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals towards peace, prosperity, progress and sustainability for all’.
Delivering remarks on his priorities for the UN General Assembly’s (UNGA) resumed 77th session, UNGA President Csaba Kőrösi emphasized preparations for the 2023 SDG Summit – the midpoint of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development – and for the Summit of the Future in 2024. He urged Member States to follow up on the lessons learned from Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs) and to “make the most” of the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) in July, using it as a steppingstone “to achieve qualitatively better results in September.”
The UNGA President stressed the “need for strengthening the shared responsibility for governance of our global common goods,” revealed by the “new dynamics of challenges,” including deepening geopolitical divide, inflation, food and energy shocks, and record-high debt burdens. He called for “transformative solutions,” with human rights at their core, for a safer, more just, and more sustainable world.
Reiterating his presidency’s motto, ‘Solutions Through Solidarity, Sustainability and Science,’ Kőrösi said he will advance discussions on the recently proposed “scientific mechanism to identify the most effective ways to encourage
The UNGA President stressed his hope that the UN 2023 Water Conference will become a new “Paris moment” for water action. He said the event will aim to raise the level of ambition to realize SDG 6 (clean water and sanitation) by integrating water and climate policies, moving beyond reactive water management, and taking proactive steps to emerge from the water crisis. Kőrösi urged Member States “to go beyond the traditional debate on the difficulties of water cooperation by establishing a global water information system to support regional and local predictability and resilience.
