Merkel addresses refugee crisis at UN

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aim to eradicate extreme poverty, fight inequality and injustice, provide quality education to all and achieve economic growth by 2030. World leaders passed the ambitious agenda on Friday, which was the result of years of consultations with governments and civil society, during a high-level summit just before the week-long United Nations General Assembly marking the 70th anniversary of the UN.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel called for global partnership to achieve development goals and pledged to increase Germany's budget for development.

"Each and every one of us should work and must work to implement the agenda, so that people all over the world can live a life of dignity," Merkel said.

Germany will stand by its obligation to allocate 0.7 percent of its gross domestic product to finance development and will also increase its development "substantially," Merkel announced at the UN.

Addressing the refugee crisis, the German Chancellor underlined that the causes forcing people to flee their home countries have to be tackled. Millions of refugees were fleeing "raw terror and violence." Merkel stressed that peace was a "key prerequisite" for development.

Germany expects about 800,000 asylum applications in 2015 - according to some figures, that number could be as high as one million.

The German government and regional states have agreed on a package of measures on dealing with the mass influx of refugees. More money will flow to each state depending on how many refugees arrive. Each of the federal states will receive 670 euros (about 751 dollars) per asylum seeker, per month.

On Saturday Merkel is due to visit the Ground Zero memorial to the terror attack on September 11 2001 in New York.

das/lw (dpa, AFP)