Naalakkersuisoq Vittus Qujaukitsoq meets with top UN official

Naalakkersuisoq for Finances Vittus Qujaukitsoq met on Tuesday 2 September 2020 with Jens Christian Wandel, to talk about world goals and COVID19. Jens Christian Wandel is the daily top official at the UN with responsibility for implementing the SDG 2030 agenda and follow-up on COVID19 in the UN system.

Vittus Qujaukitsoq began the meeting by giving a status on the work with the SDG 2030 agenda and sustainable development in Greenland as well as the economic challenges in the wake of COVID19.

From his position at the UN, Jens Christian Wandel was able to provide a number of interesting perspectives on the work on the SDG 2030 agenda in relation to the worldwide COVID19 pandemic. All countries in the world are affected by the epidemic - economically, socially and humanly. More than ever, it is important that countries find some sustainable long-term solutions to the challenges we face globally and not just quick non-long-term decisions.

Globally, the picture emerges that new investments in digitization and IT infrastructure are essential and crucial for countries to become more independent and resilient in relation to being influenced by COVID19. There is a great return-on-investment potential in countries becoming independent of, for example, physical meetings etc. In addition, COVID19 has made equality issues more current than ever before and here Jens Christian Wandel predicts that in order to maintain stable societies, the countries of the world are wise in prioritizing a work with equality higher in the future.

Jens Christian Wandel also sent some positive messages to Greenland and saw some new opportunities for Greenland despite the fact that the crisis is far from over. He pointed out here that there are a number of green investment funds globally, which it would be obvious for Greenland to try to attract and address. Here it becomes important that Greenland continues to communicate about our work SDG 2030 agenda and ensures that there is a systematic implementation of the SDG 2030 agenda with collection and follow-up on global indicators.

The overall message from the top official was that Greenland is on the right track and must maintain the openness and transparency around the work with the world goals that we have had so far and which, for example, the SDG 2030 platform anguniakkavut is an expression of.

There was also time to turn the 8-year-old project that Jens Christian is involved in through Sustainablenow. In the project: We stand together in Tasiilaq, the SDG 2030 agenda is the central tool for ensuring local ownership as a foundation for a new sustainable development. At the meeting, it was agreed to share knowledge and experiences in the future and jointly seek to coordinate the national work with the SDG 2030 agenda with a locally based initiative such as We stand together in Tasiilaq.

Ministry of Finance by e-mail: oed@nanoq.gl