Opening Remarks of UN Resident Coordinator Mr. Hao Zhang delivered at the UNSDCF Presentation to Diplomatic Community based in Maldives

Your Excellencies,

Good morning and thank you for being here.

Firstly, I would like to thank you, and your staff for the diligent and productive engagement across the different stages of the cooperation framework formulation process. The insights you and your colleagues have shared has been invaluable.

This week has been an important one in the formulation process for the new UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework 2027–2031.

On Monday, we held a validation workshop to present the new Cooperation Framework with government ministries, independent institutions, civil society, youth, the private sector and development partners.

Yesterday, the UN agencies and Government Ministries came together to discuss and finalise the framework at the Joint Steering Committee meeting.

Today, we share it with you from a partnerships lens, because your engagement has been part of shaping this framework, and your partnership is what will help make it real.

The framework is built around three priorities:

Human Capital — quality services, skills, and livelihoods for people across all of Maldives.

Resilience and Sustainability — protecting the Maldives from climate change, which is not a future risk here but a present reality.

Governance — stronger, more accountable institutions that people can trust.

These are not just UN priorities. These are priorities jointly identified with stakeholders in Maldives on progressing sustainable development in Maldives.

Each of your countries already has a relationship with the Maldives — as neighbours, investors, bilateral partners, or climate allies.

We invite you to view this Cooperation Framework not only as a planning document, but as a platform for partnership and investment. Its value lies not only in the priorities it identifies, but in the nationally owned, consultative and analytical process through which those priorities have been defined.

This gives partners a credible entry point for aligning support — whether through financing, technical expertise, knowledge exchange, innovation, policy dialogue, institutional partnerships, private sector engagement or access to wider networks.

In this sense, the Framework can help connect public and private actors around shared priorities, reduce fragmentation, and turn development cooperation into more coordinated and catalytic action.

We will further outline joint programming opportunities through a Partnership and Resource Mobilisation Strategy that will be formulated after the Cooperation Framework.

In closing, The Maldives is a country that stands out in shaping global conversations on climate, oceans, and the future of Small Island Developing States.

The Cooperation Framework contributes directly to the Antigua and Barbuda Agenda for SIDS. By focusing on its priority actions, it supports the Maldives in accelerating SDG progress while also aiming to position the country as a SIDS leader, showing how global commitments such as ABAS agenda can be translated into practical, nationally owned and partnership-driven results.

What the Maldives achieves here — in resilience, in governance, in inclusive development — becomes a model and a message for the world.

Your countries' partnership in this journey amplifies that impact.

We look forward to hearing from you today, on where you see the opportunities, and how we can work better together.

Thank you.