UN General Assembly
2018

Maybe because now, just as in the past, as I travel around my country and the world, I see exclusion and injustice. We exclude the different, the poor, the elderly, the young. We mistreat women, girls and indigenous people. There are so many abandoned and forgotten brothers and sisters. Many people simply pass by, without even noticing their presence. As States Members of the United Nations we cannot allow indolence and idleness, misery and injustice to continue to be part of the daily landscape. That is what the Sustainable Development Goals draw attention to. They are a fundamental part of the programme that my Government has proposed to the Ecuadorian people, which we have called, and I will repeat, A Whole Life. Maybe because it is evident to me that we want to be happy throughout life, and that is why we govern. We are here in a great country. The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America, written by Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, states in its famous second sentence,