Excellencies, distinguished guests, and fellow civil society, good morning. I represent the Asia Pacific Regional CSO Engagement Mechanism, speaking on behalf of 17 constituencies and 5 subregions gathered at the Asia Pacific Peoples’ Forum on Sustainable Development under the theme “Resist, Reclaim, Rebuild.” We are here to check development realities in a time of overlapping global crises.
We resist development narratives that continue to marginalize people across diversity and intersecting experiences of poverty, hunger, displacement, and inequality. Across our region, communities are deprived of decent work, land, resources, and livelihoods while bearing the heaviest impacts of climate crisis, economic crisis, and conflicts. Women in rural areas lack access to clean water, sanitation, energy, and essential resources, and many in the region are still far from disaster recovery. Indigenous peoples continue to be displaced, and lose their lands, livelihoods, and cultures by so-called development projects and climate solutions. Migrant workers face exploitation and exclusion from protection systems. LGBTIQ+ people continue to face violence in public spaces. Yet decisions that shape their lives remain in the hands of those who benefit from these harms.
Financing for development is increasingly diverted toward militarization, extraction, and private gains. Amid rising geopolitical tensions among imperialist powers, resources that should support social protection, care systems, and public services are redirected to military spending and debt servicing. While deprioritising ODA commitments, International financial institutions are used by developed countries to perpetuate colonial and extractive debt traps for our region. Climate financing is too often captured by “false solutions” and technology-driven approaches that fail to address structural barriers and exclude marginalized communities, while corporations expand their influences over development agendas.
With only five years left to achieve the 2030 Agenda, we remain in resistance to the fact that the SDGs will not be achieved by 2030. Only about one-third of targets are on track. The promise to Leave No One Behind remains largely unmet. Progress is slow, uneven, and in many cases regressed, with persistent gaps across key areas, poverty, hunger, and inequality, among others.
The SDG monitoring framework itself has also left many of the systemic issues we raise largely unchecked, failing to question structural inequalities, systemic oppression, and abuse of power. Meanwhile, the UN system faces mounting challenges in resources, legitimacy, and meaningful participation, while multilateralism itself is in crisis. This is evident in the marginalization of SDG 17 on global partnership. Within this context, corporate influence continues to shape development governance in ways that often prioritize profit over people and the planet.
We reclaim development that is rooted in human rights, care, justice, and accountability–not colonial power, militarism, debt, profit, and extraction. We call for Development Justice that means redistributing resources, wealth, and power; building economies that ensure dignified lives through living wages, decent work, and social protection; recognizing and valuing unpaid care; eliminating structural discrimination; and holding states and corporations accountable for environmental extractions. Decision-making power must shift to peoples most affected as rights-holders leading solutions for their communities.
We also need multilateralism that is democratic, rights-based, and accountable. It must go beyond participation to monitor progress using people-defined indicators, confront unequal power relations, and hold governments and corporations accountable. Only then can multilateralism foster real accountability and collective action for justice.
To rebuild, Development Justice is not an alternative narrative—it is a necessary political shift.
We demand Development Justice as the framework for the future, for people, for the planet, and for generations to come.
Thank you
Nhuun Yodmuang
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