The President of the Republic stated today, 11 November, that the current pandemic situation cannot divert society and political decision-makers from achieving the sustainable development goals included in the 2030 agenda of the UN.
“Those objectives considered a priority a few months ago were momentarily removed from the horizon of yours and our immediate concerns in this pandemic period, concentrating that we are all in the fight against the scourge of Covid-19”, said Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.
The head of state was speaking in a message transmitted by video at the public presentation session of ODSlocal – Municipal Platform for Sustainable Development Goals, held in Lisbon.
In a short speech, the President of the Republic, who sponsors this initiative, underlined that "in this stage as or more demanding than the previous one" it is necessary "to build the present with a sense of the future and that future means sustainability".
“If it is too early to realize all the changes and implications of the current pandemic, one thing is certain: the scale and spread of the new coronavirus has shown how connected we are globally. It is also for this sense of global and planetary interdependence that the goals of sustainable development call and challenge us», he attested.
The ODSlocal digital platform allows municipalities to map best practices to meet sustainable development goals for 2030 defined by the United Nations (UN).
The project, which has the support of the La Caixa Foundation, is promoted by the National Council for the Environment and Sustainable Development (CNADS), associated with two university research centres, OBSERVA/Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon and MARE/ Faculty of Sciences and Technologies of Universidade Nova de Lisboa, and the start-up in the area of environment and climate change 2adapt.
"It is an initiative of great value, which makes a contribution so that citizens and mayors follow, monitor, control, scrutinize the work done in each municipality to achieve those goals", he highlighted.
The platform has already had a pilot phase in which the municipalities of Bragança, Cascais (district of Lisbon), Castelo de Vide (Portalegre), Coruche (Santarém), Loulé (Faro), Seia (Guarda) and Viana do Castelo.
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