Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, dear colleagues,

I am honored to welcome all of you to the 2022 UNDP Annual Meeting on Strengthening the Rule of Law, Human Rights, Justice and Security for Sustainable Peace and Development.

We are gathered at a time of profound crisis for both people and planet.

Today, new and evolving threats to the rule of law and human rights, justice and security have eroded decades of progress - compounding insecurity and fragility for millions while imperiling the prospect of achieving the SDG’s.

 As we meet to address these issues, we are fortunate to be joined by government officials, human rights defenders, members of academia and think tanks, development practitioners, champions for marginalized groups, representatives from civil society, women’s and youth groups.

And we are proud to call each of you partners.

Over the next two day - as partners -   we hope to demonstrate our resolve to the world.

Because despite these challenges,  we must remain confident in what can be achieved together, and we must remain committed to leave no one behind. Walking away from the 2030 Agenda cannot be an option for us.

As we rededicate ourselves to that agenda, this meeting presents a valuable opportunity to review important progress already underway.

First, it comes as we launch Phase 4 of our Global Programme on Rule of Law and Human Rights, reflecting more than a year of consultations, analysis and lessons learned. You’ll hear how we’re translating these findings into new partnerships and scaled up innovation for a more people-centered, community-based approach.

Second, UNDP is  in the middle of developing our  first ever  Human Rights for Sustainable Development Strategy (2022-2025). Developed in support of the SG’s Call to Action for Human Rights, this strategy will utilize human rights as a problem-solving measure for contemporary development challenges.

Third, we are commemorating the 10th Anniversary of the Global Focal Point (GFP) for the Rule of Law in crisis contexts by detailing our latest efforts to advance  people-centered approaches to security.

Fourth, we’ll address emerging threats through innovative solutions. For instance, we will explore how environmental justice initiatives can help to realize the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. And we’ll detail our newly launched Justice Futures CoLab – an initiative to accelerate and incubate new ways of addressing today’s justice challenges.

Fifth, UNDP has significantly scaled up its global efforts on Business and Human Rights. Tomorrow we will be launching a new guide for Heightened Human Rights Due Diligence for business in conflict-affected settings, which is a very timely resource given increasing risk for businesses around the world.

As such, this year, we are very pleased to highlight the Global Programme’s strengthened commitment to evidence-based policy development through the release of a series of new resources to be featured in respective session...

And of course, you will find UNDP’s cross-cutting work in over 50 conflict and crisis-affected areas in the 2021 Report which will be released at the end of this opening session. The projects outlined in the report represent indispensable efforts to uphold the social contract, increase public trust in institutions, and create accessible justice and inclusive legal protections for all.

I hope that this Annual Meeting will advance that same indispensable effort…

Serve to underscore the crucial nature of our work together with our partners…

And propel us to greater collective action in the year ahead.

With this, without any further ado let me turn to the keynote speaker. Please welcome the Administrator for the United Nations Development Programme – Mr. Achim Steiner.