UN General Assembly
1996

be our failings, as its successes are also ours. None the less, last year’s stock-taking of the performance of the 50-year- old United Nations must have underlined more than anything else how complex and daunting the challenges faced by the Organization and by the international community are becoming. There are probably no greater challenges before the international community in this regard than those of development and of peace and stability — two concerns that define the very essence of the United Nations and that constitute the core purposes and objectives of the Organization. It is not yet a distant memory that we all rejoiced at the end of the cold war, believing that it would open up new vistas of opportunity for addressing the vital issues of international concern that had been overshadowed for decades by the arms race, East-West rivalry and other manifestations of the cold-war era. That positive development — the end of the cold war — also encouraged many in the developing world, especially those of us in Africa, to undertake far-reaching political and economic