At the United Nations General Assembly’s annual debate on Friday, Albanian President, Ilir Meta told world leaders that “we continue to see the UN as a multilateral instrument through which peaceful international order is safeguarded.”

“Heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, chronic lung disease, depression” – just some of the illnesses outlined by World Health Organization (WHO) chief Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus, who drove home the danger by asking delegates to stand up, when they heard the name of an illness that had killed someone they loved: One by one, every single person in the room, got to their feet.

Warning that the world seems to be drifting away from dialogue and towards unilateral action – at great peril to very fundamental tenets of democracy – the President of Namibia called on world leaders, gathered at the United Nations General Assembly, to embrace multilateralism.

The rate of sustainable development is “too slow” and private business has a major role to play in speeding it up, while also slowing the runaway pace of climate change that threatens the entire world with catastrophe, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said Monday.