UN General Assembly
2025

Because while the eight decades of the United Nations have seen far too much conflict and suffering, they have also seen human progress on a scale even the most optimistic of the founding fathers who dared to dream that working together could work to transform the lives of ordinary people would never have imagined themselves. Let me cite just one example. In 1945, global life expectancy, war aside, was in the mid-40s. Children born this year, in 2025, can expect to live in their mid-70s. Now, that didn't happen by luck or by accident. It happened by will and resolve. It happened by effort. And it happened also because of the positive work being conducted by the agencies of this United Nations. And it is not just in terms of life chances that the United Nations has had a positive, transformative impact. The values inscribed in the founding charter had a profound effect on the journey to self-determination of so many nations, like my own, Malta. In 1945, Malta was still a colony, a British military and naval base.