Many of you know how much I have advocated for an integrated global civil society movement. These are the days to take that key fundamental next step. I want to thank you, to acknowledge and highlight the extraordinary contributions of different civil society organizations to the UN global conferences of the '90s. I saw it, I was there, I can testify to the way all of you shaped and enriched the final products. Thank you for that.
Success breeds responsibility.
And many new tasks lie ahead of you. We now have to deal with the fact that the benefits of globalization are not reaching enough people. That in absolute terms poverty and inequality have grown. The UN conferences of the '90s were a constructive response by the world community to the downside of globalization. Yet the powers that be seem to need crisis and tension to react.