UN General Assembly
2025

Now, let me remind us all, mental health is a human right. Sanity is the people's right. When we invest in mental health, people recover and reenter community and work as a consequence of a country's rise. Antigua and Barbuda is committed to working on a United Nations resolution treating mental health as essential to development. The other issue that I would like to address is non-communicable diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, and various forms of cancer. They account for 75% of all deaths in the Caribbean. They are the most significant cause of death globally, creating a silent global health crisis. We need to urgently address this crisis with the same urgency of infectious diseases. Madam President, what is set out here is the minimum needed to honor the Charter at 80. The storms are stronger, the deaths are heavier, inequity is wider, yet the remedies have not changed and they certainly need to change.