UN General Assembly
1997

countries like the Marshall Islands require an international support structure that is conducive to sustainable development goals. The United Nations has a crucial and vital role, and we must maintain its leadership and coordination function. Reform of the United Nations requires that the Member States recommit themselves to their treaty obligations to negotiate in good faith and find the mutually beneficial steps that we need to take. I wish to reiterate the support which my Government has given to the proposals that have come out of the Committee on Contributions as a good starting point for financial reform. Let us take these modest first steps, and then in the next phase we can finish the reform. Reform will also have to involve the expansion of the Security Council. We have stated our support for various proposals in past general debates, and we have been involved in the working groups. Last week the Prime Minister of Fiji reiterated their proposal to give more prominence to the Pacific as a subregion of the Asian Group. This is an idea that we wholeheartedly