UN General Assembly
2018

It is with a great sense of honour and satisfaction that I address the General Assembly for the first time as Minister for Foreign Affairs and Communities of the Democratic Republic of Sao Tome and Principe. It is with great pleasure that I address my first words to Her Excellency Ms. María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés, whom I congratulate on her election to the presidency of the General Assembly at its seventy-third session, and to whom I express our support for the course of her term, which we believe will be very successful. We note that she is only the fourth woman to undertake this noble function, and we hope that those numbers will increase in the future in the name of the greater inclusion of women in positions of importance in the Organization. I also congratulate the outgoing President, His Excellency Mr. Miroslav Lajčák, on conducting the work of the previous session of the General Assembly judiciously, zealously and selflessly in an extremely difficult international context.