UN General Assembly
1999

international financial structure, as the focal point of a 5 global economy, should include the element of international solidarity and cooperation aimed at the introduction of measures to reduce poverty. We cannot understand why more than $1 trillion dollars circulates in international financial transactions every day while not a penny of those resources goes to the world's poor. All of Haiti's problems would be solved with only a single minute's worth of banking transactions on the international market. The same could be said of Nicaragua and of Honduras, and even of our own country, the Dominican Republic. The eradication of poverty is not an illusory goal. With the wealth currently circulating world-wide, we could restore a sense of dignity to each and every human being. Determining how to achieve this is the big challenge facing this Organization in the twenty-first century. To meet that challenge the United Nations itself has to go through a process of change and reform, beginning with acceptance that all its Member States are equal, with no differentiation between the powerful ones that possess the