UN General Assembly
2001

In spite of all these apprehensions, my delegation is still encouraged by the wide global consensus on a range of major issues of critical concern to the least developed countries of Africa. The positive conclusions reached during the special session on HIV/AIDS and the world Conferences that took place this year — the Third United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries, the United Nations Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects and the World Conference against Racism and Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance — reflect a newly emerging global recognition that there is an urgent need to begin concretely addressing the issues that will aggressively advance the economic and social progress of the less developed nations. The declarations and programmes of action agreed at those Conferences must be the centrepiece of any genuine international crusade to reduce social and economic disparities and inequalities between the North and the South. Indeed, the persistence of these inequalities and injustices, in our view, is the root cause of the political, economic