UN General Assembly
2003

counter-productive anyway. Cuba is a peace-loving member of the international community whose people do not deserve the punishment that has been meted out to them for almost four decades now. Let me now turn to development issues. In Africa, our efforts to achieve sustainable development continue to be seriously undermined by a variety of factors, prominent among which are conflicts, structural weaknesses, natural disasters and disease. For the international system to successfully address those factors of underdevelopment, more serious attention must be paid to the implementation of the Brussels Programme of Action for the Least Developed Countries for the Decade 2001-2010, and more attention must be focused on the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals. We must also give effect to the commitments made at Doha, Monterrey and Johannesburg. There is no shortage of blueprints for development. What is in short supply, and what needs to be urgently mobilized, are resources. So far, there is still a big gap between commitment and action. Africa’s development partners must make good on their pledges to support Africa’s development. My