Distinguished guests, colleagues, and friends, 
 
Ladies and gentlemen, 
 
Good afternoon.  
 
On behalf of UNDP China, I am delighted to join this seminar on global poverty reduction and partnerships.  
 
We meet at a time when development gains are under significant pressure and threat.  
 
Climate shocks, economic volatility, demographic pressures, and persistent inequalities continue to affect the lives of millions globally.  
 
Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) - our global blueprint to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity for all - is far off track from the vision adopted by all Member States at the United Nations in 2025. 
 
As all of us are aware, poverty today is multidimensional, interconnected, and increasingly shaped by structural vulnerabilities. Poverty is also deeply intertwined with other challenges like climate change. 
 

The 2025 Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) report notes that 1.1 billion people live in acute multidimensional poverty, over half of them are children. 
 
According to the same report, 887 million people in poverty are exposed to at least one climate hazard; 309 million confront several at once.  
 
By the end of this century, the countries projected to face the steepest temperature increases are those already burdened with higher levels of multidimensional poverty. 
 
In this context, strategic multi-stakeholder partnerships and south-south cooperation — for knowledge exchanges, co-designing innovative and integrated development solutions, exploring new forms of development funding, including blending financing and coordinated action across borders—are no longer optional.  
 
They are indispensable to addressing overlapping hardships, if we are to move the needle on poverty eradication. 
 
That’s why the theme of today’s seminar is so relevant: stronger strategic partnerships are critical for us to put the Sustainable Development Goals back on track. 
 
Ladies and gentlemen,  
 
Over the past decades, countries and institutions have accumulated a wealth of effective practices in targeted poverty alleviation, rural development, social protection, and livelihood enhancement.  
 
However, the challenge today is not the lack of “good examples”—it is how to transform those examples into scalable, adaptable models that work across diverse local contexts and responding to local development priorities and capacities  

As the UN’s lead international development agency, UNDP adopts a holistic, whole-of-society approach to poverty eradication and building inclusive, resilient and sustainable economies.  
 
We look not only at income, but at the intersecting dimensions of deprivation —education, healthcare, digital access, gender equality, environmental risks, and institutional capacities.  
 
Our programmes combine social protection, digital solutions, climate adaptation, inclusive finance, and community empowerment into coherent and interlinked pathways for long-term resilience. 
 
These systemic approaches are increasingly necessary as poverty becomes more sensitive to climate risk, labour market changes, and demographic shifts. 
 
Across our global portfolio, UNDP works with governments, UN entities, international financial institutions, research institutes, and the private sector to design solutions that are practical, scalable, and evidence-based.  
 
The six decades of our work across 170 countries have consistently shown us that partnerships have the most impact when they blend financial resources, technological capabilities, local knowledge, and clear, consistent and coherent policy support that brings a whole of society and whole of government approaches. 
 
Here in China,  this year marks our two decades of strategic partnership with IPRCC. Let me thank you for our strong collaboration. 
 
Together with our long-standing collaboration with CICETE, and other national and local governments, we have piloted and scaled comprehensive, multi-stakeholder collaborations to address the poverty challenges across China.  
 
For instance, through the MOFCOM–UNDP Commercial Support for rural revitalization project, farmers’ cooperatives in four counties have strengthened market linkages, expanded e-commerce participation, and improved household incomes.  
 
Our work on inclusive finance and digital tools has helped small businesses—especially women-led enterprises—expand their economic opportunities and reduce vulnerability to shocks. 
 
These results reaffirm a key development principle: when each partner brings their comparative advantage, the collective impact is far greater than the sum of siloed individual efforts. 
 
The key lesson for UNDP - strengthening cooperation platforms that connect national and local development institutions, promoting policy innovation and supporting capacity building and knowledge exchange is critical for success.