Events

11 Apr 2023

Belarus against dividing world into ‘garden’ and ‘jungle’

An archive photo

MINSK, 11 April (BelTA) – Belarusian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Yuri Ambrazevich delivered a speech at the fifty-sixth session of the UN Commission on Population and Development, BelTA learned from the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The Commission on Population and Development was established in 1946 as a subsidiary body of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). It is the key UN body responsible for reviewing the implementation of the Program of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development, studying and advising the ECOSOC on population changes and their effect on economic and social conditions.

As part of the general debate on "Population, education and sustainable development", Yuri Ambrazevich stressed that this year's theme is consonant with the main priorities of the Belarusian state. Proof of this is the data of the World Bank, according to which Belarus is among the top 50 countries in terms of the percentage of education and youth development expenditures to GDP.

Regarding the development of society, Yuri Ambrazevich noted that there is no universal recipe and that the Western concepts of development do not fit all, even in the countries of the victorious liberal democracy. These theories are even less relevant to most countries in the global South.

Yuri Ambrazevich spoke against dividing the world into "the garden” and "the jungle" and, more so, imposing someone's approaches to state, political and other development through sanctions and unilateral coercive measures.

The head of the Belarusian delegation called on the commission to unequivocally condemn the practice of using unilateral coercive measures by Western countries in the form of trade, financial and other prohibitions and restrictions. Such methods run counter to the fundamental interests of the development of any people, any particular family and the common man.

The deputy minister said that the conviction that a family and the birth of children are a high human value is strongly defended in Belarus and is transmitted both in society from parents to children, and by state institutions through schools and other institutions. The Belarusian government is actively engaged in ensuring demographic security and promoting the birth rate by supporting the traditional family, where marriage is a traditional union of a man and a woman, where every child has a mother and a father, where parents take care of children and children took care of the parents.

Yuri Ambrazevich also delivered a statement on behalf of the Group of Friends of the Family. The Group was established in New York in 2015 at the initiative of Belarus, Qatar and Egypt. Today, this informal association has 25 UN Member States. The Group reaffirms that the family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State. The Group promotes programs and policies at the global level aimed at strengthening the institution of the family for the sustainable social and economic development of human society.

The Belarusian diplomat highlighted the relationship between education and demographic and social changes in society, and emphasized the primary role of parents in the upbringing and education of children. The countries’ commitment to providing the broadest protection and assistance to the family as the natural and basic unit of society was reaffirmed.