President Salva Kiir at the United Nations General Assembly, September 21, 2022 - Photo Courtesy: VOA

The government has started gathering views to define South Sudan’s stance for the upcoming Summit of the Future at the 79th UN General Assembly in New York.

The summit, set to begin towards the end of September, is a high-level event that brings world leaders together to forge a new international consensus on delivering a better present and safeguarding the future.

Yesterday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs gathered views from academia, civil society groups, youth, persons with disabilities, members of parliament, and technocrats in various government institutions.

The views were collected on five thematic areas, including sustainable development and finance for development, international peace and security, and youth and future generations.

Other key areas include science, technology, innovation, and digital cooperation, as well as transforming global peace.

Deng Deng Nhial, Director General of Multilateral Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, says the consultation will help South Sudan provide solutions to problems facing the global community.

“We are all here to consult, deliberate, analyse, and provide solutions, and thoughts that will take us to a promising future. Visualizing the future, we all want for the global community,” said Deng.

“The consultative meeting is about the summit of the future, where the summit of the future outcomes will be intergovernmental, negotiated, action-oriented, pack of the future,” he said.

For her part, the Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General says the anticipated summit offers multilateral solutions for a better tomorrow.

Anita Kiki adds that the UN system is committed to supporting South Sudan in overcoming challenges such as flooding, the influx of people fleeing the Sudan conflict, and the economic crisis.

“South Sudan faces numerous challenges on its path to sustainable development. The current humanitarian crisis affecting 9 million people, the continuous influx of people fleeing conflict in Sudan, presently numbering 800,000 in South Sudan, the current economic crisis, and the ongoing floods all remind us that the road ahead will not be easy,” Anita said.

“Within every challenge lies an opportunity. Therefore, in line with the goals of the summit, we will continue to support South Sudan to demonstrate resilience and overcome these challenges as the nation continues efforts to find a working formula for peace,” she said.

The theme for this year’s Summit of the Future is “multilateral solutions for a better future tomorrow.”

Charles Pasquale Clement, acting Secretary for the South Sudan Association of the Visually Impaired stated; “We need to move from the current situation where we are into the level whereby, we will be living in a very conducive environment, peace, security.”

Diko Janet Isaac, 21, a youth activist pointed out that there are numerous challenges young people are facing.

“As young people, we have a lot of challenges and one of the challenges is addressed under the youth and future generations,” said Janet.

“When we talk about the challenges of young people we can talk about unemployment, access to information and all these things,” she said.

“When we talk about science and technology, we look at the opportunities that come along with all these aspects.”

Ter Manyang, Executive Director, of the Center for Peace and Advocacy raised concern over border encroachment.

“There is a question of encroachment on the country entering into the South Sudan borders, I think we need an international mechanism to address that one because this issue could undermine the peace and security in the region,” said Ter.

“African Union peace and security, they need to advocate very seriously for Africa to have two seats at the United Nations,”he said.