UN General Assembly
2017

Today the General Assembly constitutes a unique deliberative forum that is essential to our recognition of both the fragility and the diversity of our world. We, the Member States, need to regain our sense of ownership of our Organization, which has been somewhat lost. The United Nations is not made up just of its Secretariat and its field missions, programmes and funds. First and foremost, it is about its Member States and their will or lack of it, about dialogue and cooperation or alienation. No ideal composition of the Security Council or perfectly optimized General Assembly agenda will mean anything to the world beyond the East River unless Member States demonstrate a willingness to look for ways to better understand one another and agree more often.