Richard Ewart
SYDNEY (ABC Pacific Beat/ The Fiji Times/ Pacific Media Watch): With the United Nations General Assembly meeting still underway in New York, the focus is very much on the challenges of the future, whether that is climate change, ending poverty or helping people fleeing war zones.
Getting young people onboard will be important for future progress on these issues so a handful of youth leaders have been in New York for the week's events.
However, Maraia Tabunakawai from Fiji Women's Rights Movement, who has just returned to Fiji from New York, said Pacific young people have had a low profile during the week's proceedings.
She said the new list of Sustainable Developments Goals (SDGs) for the United Nations 2030 agenda does not relate to youth.
"Obviously it means we are people that have been sidelined, not even central to the sustainable development goals, and I would not consider that sustainable."
According to Tabunakawai young people need to be more involved and consulted with in the decision making processes.
Goals into action
Meanwhile, high on the Fiji Prime Minister's agenda at the UN meeting was to discuss how the newly adopted goals were to be achieved.
"We have the goals, now how do we get there?" asked Voreqe Bainimarama.
Speaking on the second day of the General Assembly Summit, where leaders deliberated on the collective efforts and resources necessary to achieve the 2030 SDG, Bainimarama said the global community was at a "fork in the road".
"Do we act wisely to preserve the resources of planet Earth for generations to come or do we continue to consume the Earth's heritage as if there was no tomorrow?" he asked.
Bainimarama said although many countries had the ideas, funding was a barrier in achieving goals, and this was why talks should be on how the goals could be achieved.
With the pressing issue of climate change in the Pacific, smaller Pacific nations have been looking for support from more developed countries, but Tabunakawai said:
"It's a matter of survival, and we're not hearing that from other Pacific countries like Australia and New Zealand...it's the developed countries that are not very supportive".
The Prime Minister of Vanuatu Sato Kilman also addressed the assembly and said if climate change cannot be achieved he doubts that sustainable developments in Small Island Development States (SIDS) can be achieved.
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) - also called Global Goals and Agenda 2030 - are an inter-governmentally agreed set of targets relating to international development.
They include; ending poverty and hunger, improving health and education, making cities more sustainable, combating climate change, and protecting oceans and forests.
They will follow on from the Millennium Development Goals once those expire at the end of 2015.
More information on the Sustainable Development Goals
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