UN General Assembly
1996

development throughout the world? In any case, the image the world projects of itself does not reflect these ideals, but rather two poles spinning further and further apart: the pole of wealth and the pole of poverty. It’s not that there has been a lack of international meetings, at the highest levels, to try to find more effective solutions to reduce the level of poverty, increase the equity of trade and so forth. But it seems that, with each meeting, these problems get worse. The firm ground of progress is crumbling under the feet of the developing countries and their future — given their current relations with the Powers holding the reins of the global economy — seems quite uncertain. This is especially true for the small island developing States like the Seychelles, whose only resources are the precarious revenues of tourism, which is subject to so many vicissitudes, and fishing. Their meagre resources, pumped into a network of tremendous competition, require them to make titanic efforts. Like many other countries whose