UN counts on icddr,b to achieve SDGs

The UN Secretary-General has lauded icddr,b’s decades of work towards meeting public health challenges and saving lives, and said he counts on its “continuous support” to achieve the new Sustainable Development Goals.

“By focusing on interventions designed for the world’s poorest people, you are directly contributing to sustainable development and the promise to leave no one behind,” Ban Ki-moon, who visited the Dhaka-based centre in 2011, said in a video message.

World leaders last year adopted new SDGs promising to include even the most marginalised people in their efforts for sustainable development by 2O3O.

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The UN chief said icddr,b had helped “to significantly reduce infant, child and maternal mortality in Bangladesh and beyond”.

“I am particularly grateful for your commitment to the Every Women Every Child movement,” he said.

icddr,b’s Executive Director Prof John Clemens, in a statement, expressed his gratitude for the message and said, “We are grateful and honored to have received this positive and supportive message from the UN Secretary-General.”

“icddr,b is committed to developing innovative solutions and to generating scientific evidence to help Bangladesh and the global community achieve the Sustainable Development Goals,” he said.

The Bangladesh-based international centre was established in 1960.