At the outset,
I would like to congratulate His Excellency Mr. Vuk
Jeremi. on his outstandingly successful presidency of
the General Assembly at its previous session. I would
also like to congratulate you, Sir, on your assumption
of the presidency at its current session and to wish you
every success.

I am pleased, indeed honoured, to address the
Assembly today for the first time in the name of
the State of Palestine, following the Assembly’s
historic decision on 29 November of last year to raise
Palestine’s status to that of a non-Member Observer
State. As representatives of their Governments and
peoples, Members have championed justice, right and
peace, while affirming their rejection of occupation
and standing for principles and ethics and on the side
of peoples yearning for freedom. For that, I once again
offer my deepest thanks and gratitude today on behalf
of Palestine and its people. The Palestinian people
celebrated resolution 67/19. They rightly felt that they
were not alone in the world and that the world stood
with them. They celebrated because they realized that
the overwhelming result of the Assembly’s vote meant
that justice was still possible and there was still room
for hope.

I assured the Assembly last year that our quest to raise
Palestine’s status was not aimed at delegitimizing an
existing State, the State of Israel, but at consecrating — I
repeat, consecrating — the legitimacy of a State that
should exist, which is Palestine. I have also affirmed
before the Assembly that our quest was not intended to
affect the peace process, nor is it a substitute for serious
negotiations. On the contrary, our quest is supportive of
the choice of peace and has revived a process that was,
in truth, moribund. As we have repeatedly affirmed and
proved in practice, the State of Palestine, which abides
by the Charter of the United Nations and resolutions
of international legitimacy, will exercise its role and
uphold its responsibilities within the international
system in a positive and constructive manner that
reinforces peace.

A new round of negotiations was launched a few
weeks ago, thanks to the tireless and appreciated efforts
of the President of the United States, Mr. Barack Obama,
and of the United States Secretary of State, Mr. John
Kerry. I affirm before the Assembly today that we
have begun those negotiations and shall continue them
in good faith and with open minds, strong will and
determination and a sharp focus on success. I assure
Members that we shall respect all of our commitments
and foster the atmosphere most conducive to continuing
the negotiations seriously and intensively, while
providing guarantees for its success and aiming at a
peace agreement within nine months.

As we engage in a new round of negotiations, we
must remind everyone that we are not starting from a
vacuum or from point zero, nor are we lost in a labyrinth
without a map or a compass, at risk of losing sight of
the destination. The goal of the peace that we seek is
defined and the objective of the negotiations is clear
to all, just as the terms of reference and the basis and
foundations of the peace process and of the agreement
we seek are longstanding and within reach.

As for the goal of peace, it is embodied in redressing
the historic, unprecedented injustice that befell the
Palestinian people in the Al-Nakba of 1948. It is the
realization of a just peace, the fruits of which can be
enjoyed by the Palestinian and Israeli peoples, as well
as by all the peoples of our region.

The objective of the negotiations is to secure a
lasting peace agreement that immediately leads to the
establishment of the independence of a fully sovereign
State of Palestine, with East Jerusalem as its capital,

on all of the Palestinian land occupied in 1967, so that
it may live in peace and security alongside the State of
Israel. The negotiations must also resolve the plight of
Palestine refugees in a just, agreed-upon solution, in
accordance with resolution 194 (III) and as called for
by the Arab Peace Initiative.

We reaffirm our refusal to be drawn into the
whirlpool of a new interim agreement aimed at the
perpetuation of an interim State with interim borders,
or to enter into transitional arrangements that will
become the fixed rule rather than an urgent exception.
Our goal is to achieve a permanent and comprehensive
agreement and a peace treaty between the States of
Palestine and Israel that resolves all outstanding issues,
answers all questions and allows us to officially declare
an end to the conflict and to all claims.

The terms of reference and parameters of the
negotiations, their goals and the basis of the agreement
we seek are all found in the Assembly’s historic decision
to upgrade Palestine’s status, as well as in the countless
resolutions of this body and of the Security Council
and those of the League of Arab States, the European
Union, the Non-Aligned Movement, the African Union
and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. In fact,
over the years, the parameters have become the basis
of an international consensus, indeed, near unanimity.

Exactly 20 years ago, precisely on 13 September
1993, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the
sole and legitimate representative of the Palestinian
people signed, together with the Government of Israel,
the Declaration of Principles Agreement on the White
House lawn in Washington, D.C, in the presence of our
departed leader, Yasser Arafat, and Yitzhak Rabin,
the late Israeli Prime Minister, the King of Jordan and
former President Bill Clinton.

Some five years earlier, on 15 November 1988,
the Palestinian National Council had adopted our
programme for the achievement of peace, thereby
taking an extremely difficult decision and making a
historic, painful and harmful concession. However, as
representatives of the Palestinian people, and having
long been aware of our responsibilities to them, we
mustered the necessary courage to accept a two-State
solution, namely, Palestine and Israel on the borders
of 4 June 1967 and the establishment of a Palestinian
State on 22 per cent of the land of historic Palestine.
Thus we realized our part in achieving a historic
settlement, upheld our obligations and fulfilled all of
the requirements from the Palestinian side as set by the
international community, in order to attain peace.

At the same time that the PLO affirmed its choice of
peace as a strategic option and a solution resulting from
negotiations, the PLO firmly repudiated violence and
affirmed an ethical, principled rejection of terrorism
in all its forms and manifestations — especially State
terrorism — while affirming respect of international
humanitarian law and United Nations resolutions.

As a genuine historic breakthrough, the signing
of the Oslo Accords led to an unprecedented political
movement that fostered great hopes and generated
high expectations. The PLO worked with dedication to
implement the Accords in order to end the occupation
and to realize a just peace. However, 20 years on, the
picture appears dispiriting and bleak: great dreams have
been shattered and goals have become more modest.

As much as we felt in those days that peace was
at hand, today we realize how far we are from it, for
the goal of the Accords has not been achieved, its
provisions have not been implemented and its deadlines
have not been respected. All the while, ongoing intense
settlement construction, which aims to change the facts
on the ground in the occupied Palestinian territory, has
violated the spirit of the agreement, struck at the core
of the peace process and caused a deep fracture in its
cornerstone, that is, the two-State solution.

The start of a new round of negotiations is good
news, but it cannot serve as grounds for complacency
or an exaggerated sense of tranquility on the part of
the international community. The negotiations we
are undertaking today with the Israeli Government
under the auspices of the United States require that
the international community exert every effort to
make them succeed, namely, through international and
regional organizations and individual States upholding
the international consensus on the goal of peace, the
objectives of the negotiations, the terms of reference
and the basis for a permanent peace agreement.

However, at the same time, the international
community is asked to remain vigilant. The international
community must condemn and put an end to any actions
on the ground that would undermine negotiations. In
that regard, I refer above all to the continuation of
settlement construction on Palestinian land, particularly
in Jerusalem. There is an international consensus
among the countries of the world, international and
regional organizations and the International Court

of Justice on the illegality and illegitimacy of those
settlements. The position of the European Union with
regard to settlement projects is a positive model of what
can be done to ensure an environment supportive of
and conducive to negotiations and the peace process.
It is also imperative that the near-daily attacks on the
religious sites in occupied Jerusalem, the foremost of
which is the Al-Aqsa Mosque, cease, as the continuation
of such attacks will have dire consequences.

History is the best teacher. It teaches us that waging
war, imposing occupation and building settlements
and walls may provide temporary quiet and temporary
domination, but they certainly do not ensure real
security or guarantee sustainable peace. Such policies
may create a specific reality on the ground, but they
certainly do not create a right or provide legitimacy.
Such policies may impose weak stability, but they
cannot prevent the inevitable explosion, because such
polices in fact fuel situations that are already inflamed
and cause them to explode. Above all, such policies are
incapable of extinguishing the aspirations of a people
for freedom, and cannot eradicate their living memory
or their narrative.

Therefore, what is required now is to heed the
lessons of history, to abandon the mentality of force
and occupation, to recognize the rights of others
and to work on an equal footing and in full parity to
achieve peace. What is required is to stop relying on
exaggerated security pretexts and obsessions in order to
consecrate occupation and to stop contriving demands
that push the conflict out of its defined political arena
and towards the abyss of religious conflict in a region
burdened with such sensitivities. That is something that
we categorically reject.

I am confident that the Israeli people want peace
and that a majority of them support a two-State solution.
We have always expressed our firm positions and have
always explained them at the negotiations table with the
Israeli Government and in the meetings and contacts
that we have intensified in recent years with a wide
spectrum of actors from Israeli society.

Our message is rooted in the idea that the two
peoples, the Palestinians and Israelis, are partners in
the task of peacemaking. That is why we keep reaching
out to the Israeli side, saying: let us work to make the
culture of peace reign, to tear down walls, to build
bridges instead of walls and to open wide roads for
connections and communication. Let us sow the seeds
of good-neighbourliness. Let us envision another future,
one that the children of Palestine and Israel enjoy in
peace and security, where they can dream and realize
their dreams, a future that allows Muslims, Christians
and Jews to freely reach their places of worship, and a
future in which Israel gains the recognition of 57 Arab
and Muslim States, the States of Palestine and coexists
in peace and each of their peoples can realize their
hopes for progress and prosperity.

While we discuss the realization of peace between
Palestine and Israel as an imperative to achieve a
comprehensive peace between the Arab countries and
Israel in accordance with United Nations resolutions,
we bear in mind the current volatile reality and
unprecedented dynamics besetting our region.
Palestine does not interfere in the internal affairs of
Arab countries, but we have clearly affirmed our stance
in support of the demands of the peoples of our region,
their choices and their peaceful popular movements to
achieve those demands, along with the programmes and
road maps they have adopted to reach their goals.

Furthermore, while we have condemned the crime
of the use of chemical weapons in Syria, we have
affirmed our rejection of a military solution there and
stressed the need to find a peaceful political solution to
fulfil the aspirations of the Syrian people.

The overwhelming majority of the Palestinian
people were born in Palestine and were sent into exile
after the 1948 Al-Nakba. However, 65 years afterwards,
they continue to be its direct victims. Since the start of
this year, 27 Palestinian citizens have been killed and
951 have been wounded by the bullets of the occupation,
and 5,000 fighters for freedom and peace are currently
being held captive in occupation prisons. Does anyone
deserve an end to this occupation and the realization of
a just and immediate peace more than the Palestinian
people?

This year and in the past few years, Palestinian
refugees, despite their neutrality, have continued to pay
the price of conflict and instability in our region. Tens
of thousands have been forced to abandon their camps
and to flee in another exodus, searching for new places
of exile. Do the Palestinian people deserve justice less
than the rest of the peoples of the world?

Since the beginning of the year, construction has
been under way on thousands of settlement units by the
occupation authorities, and construction tenders have

been issued for thousands of others on our occupied
land, even as additional vast areas of land are either
expropriated or declared off limits; 850 homes and
structures have been demolished.

Palestinians are forbidden to plant on their own land
and to use the majority of the area of our country, which
is only 22 per cent. They are prevented from using their
own country’s water to irrigate their crops. The wall
and checkpoints continue to tear apart the lives of the
Palestinian people and to destroy their economy. The
siege is growing tighter, along with the attacks and
oppressive discriminatory measures against occupied
Jerusalem, its holy places and its citizens. In Gaza,
for years an unjust blockade has been imposed on our
people.

So is there any people more deserving of freedom
and independence than the Palestinians? Since the
beginning of the year, 708 terrorist attacks have
been perpetrated by settlers against our mosques and
churches, our olive trees, our agricultural fields and our
homes and property. Is there the shadow of a doubt in
anyone’s mind that the Palestinian people have the most
need of security?

Also, is there a nobler mission on the international
community’s agenda than realizing a just peace in the
land of the monotheistic faiths, the birthplace of Jesus
Christ, the site of the ascent of the Prophet Muhammad
and the resting place of Abraham, the father of the
prophets?

As they remain steadfast on their land, the
Palestinian people also continue to build their
institutions, to strengthen internal unity, to achieve
reconciliation by returning to the ballot box, to
wage a peaceful and popular resistance to counter
the oppression of occupation and of settlements and
settler terrorism, and to hold fast to their rights. The
Palestinian people do not want to remain “out of place”,
in the words of Edward Said. Our people are waiting for
the day when their cause ceases to be a fixed item on
the agenda of the United Nations. Our people want to
have freedom, God’s gift to humanity, and to enjoy the
grace of living an ordinary life. For we, as Mahmoud
Darwish wrote, cultivate hope and shall one day be
what we want to be: a free, sovereign people on the land
of the State of Palestine.

I personally am one of the victims of Al-Nakba,
one of the hundreds of thousands of my people who
were uprooted in 1948 from our beautiful world and
thrown into exile. Like hundreds of thousands of other
Palestine refugees, I knew as a youth the pain of exile
and the tragedy of the loss of loved ones in massacres
and wars, as well as the difficulties of building a new
life from zero. In refugee camps and the diaspora,
in exile, we knew the bitter taste of poverty, hunger,
illness and humiliation, and the challenge of affirming
one’s identity.

Our people have walked the path of armed revolution
and have risen from the ashes of Al-Nakba. They have
collected their shattered souls and identity to put their
cause to the world and ensure that the recognition
of their rights is enshrined. We have walked a long,
difficult path and sacrificed dearly, and yet we have
affirmed at all times our active quest for peace.

Twenty years ago, on behalf of the Palestine
Liberation Organization, I signed the Declaration
of Principles Agreement, and we have since worked
faithfully and diligently to implement it, affirming to
all our respect for our commitments and the credibility
of our positions. The successive setbacks encountered
have not shaken our strong faith in the objective of a
just peace, and we shall continue to work tirelessly
and unwaveringly to see it realized. My own personal
hope is to see the day when a just peace reigns so that
the generation of Al-Nakba can pass on to its children
and grandchildren the flag of an independent State of
Palestine.

Time is running out; the window of hope is
narrowing and opportunities are diminishing. The
current round of negotiations appears to be a last
chance to realize a just peace. The mere thought of the
catastrophic and frightening consequences of failure
must compel the international community to intensify
efforts to seize this opportunity.

The hour of freedom for the Palestinian people has
rung. The hour of the independence of Palestine has
rung. The hour of peace for the two peoples — Israeli
and Palestinian — has rung.


I
am pleased to congratulate you, Sir, on your election
as President of the General Assembly at its sixty-
eighth session, and to welcome the fact that this lofty
responsibility has been entrusted to a dear friend from
Antigua and Barbuda, a member of our community of
Latin American and Caribbean States. You can count
on the firm support of Peru in the execution of your
work.

At the outset, I wish to express our respect for and
solidarity with the people of Mexico and Pakistan,
who are suffering as a result of natural disasters. I also
wish to express the strong rejection and condemnation
of the Government and people of Peru of the terrorist
attack in Nairobi. We are relieved that this horrendous
attack has come to an end. We express our unwavering
solidarity with the families of the victims and with the
Government and people of Kenya at this difficult time.

The world is changing, the agenda is realigning,
new actors are emerging and new horizons are coming
into view for the future of humankind. All countries
and peoples are affected by such rapid transformation.
However, we note with concern that some fundamental
truths have not changed. Wars continue, mostly in new
forms, emerging from the shadows and exacting an
ever higher price from innocent populations.

Regarding the Syrian tragedy, we express our
solidarity with the Syrian people. Peru condemns
the use of chemical weapons as unacceptable in all
circumstances. It is an affront to humankind and a clear
violation of international law. The Syrian people deserve
an immediate solution to the bloody conflict ravaging
their country. We therefore urge all parties involved to
find a peaceful and negotiated solution that respects the
mechanisms for the settlement of disputes. We also call
on the Security Council to uphold its responsibility to
maintain international peace and security.

At the same time, inequality is becoming ever
more extreme. The gap marginalizing the poor from
the benefits of progress and development widens by the
day, robbing them of the rights enshrined in the Charter
of the United Nations.

It is crucial for us to strengthen, renew and
uphold our global commitment to developing peaceful
relations among peoples and to seeking solutions
that reject the use of force as means of solving our
problems. It is therefore particularly gratifying for Peru
and a source of genuine pride that we addressed our
maritime delimitation dispute with Chile in the most
constructive and cooperative way possible, through a
mutual commitment to abiding by and enforcing the
judgment to be rendered by the International Court of
Justice. This process will, I trust, transform the very
nature of our relationship into a profitable and enduring
coexistence for the future of our neighbouring peoples.

The rule of law and its principles in the conduct of
international affairs are therefore indispensable tools
for our conduct as members of the community of peoples
of the United Nations. However, the greatest threat to
international peace and security falls not in the realm
of relations between States, but transcends them and
may even use them as tools for shadowy schemes. We
are referring to terrorism, drug trafficking, organized
crime, mafias and corruption. All of these crimes pose
a genuine threat to life, progress and development,
affecting primarily the poorest, which means that such
crimes are increasingly becoming the main obstacle to
the realization of the goals of the United Nations.

The underlying problems remain the same. Peru
therefore welcomes the fundamentally important
theme you have chosen, Sir, for our discussions — the
development agenda for beyond 2015, which is the
deadline for achieving the Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs).

Our country, happily, has made progress and
attained some of the best benchmarks for achievement.
Since 2000, according to United Nations Development
Programme indicators, we achieved certain goals early,
in particular in the fight against poverty and extreme
poverty, hunger, child mortality, and access to safe
drinking water. In 2000, more than half of Peruvians
lived in poverty; today, only a quarter of my countrymen
still face that situation. Our goal is to reduce those
living in poverty to one fifth of our population by the
end of my term, in 2016.

We have undertaken to realign the growth
model by focusing on inclusion. In those efforts, the
State is implementing a number of connected and
interdependent policies. It is worth underscoring the
unprecedented measure of devoting expenditure to the
poorest and most excluded through a range of social
programmes aimed at improving the living standards
of the population, enhancing education for children
and young people and promoting gender equality and
access to health services, paying particular attention to
those in vulnerable situations.

We are deeply concerned to note that the
environment is deteriorating, which is having an impact
on our security, in particular that of the most vulnerable.
This is happening even as we remain unable to agree on
measures to ensure our sustainable development.

The development agenda must also pay particular
attention to the empowerment of women and the
protection of vulnerable groups. Our Government
attaches particular importance to the rights of
indigenous peoples. We were the first in the world to
legislate and regulate the right to prior consultation on
measures directly affecting such groups in accordance
with Convention No. 169 of the International Labour
Organization.

We are equally concerned about the rights of migrants
and the opportunities for integrated development, to
which they contribute, fostering inter-cultural dialogue
and economic exchanges between their countries of
origin and their host countries. In that vein, we have
promoted the free movement of people and welcome the
initiative of the Government of Spain to promote visa-
free entry for Peruvian nationals into the Schengen
Area .

We therefore welcome the commitments contained
in the document “The future we want”, adopted at the
United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development
held last year (resolution 66/288, annex). The process
proposed at that event to establish sustainable
development goals should converge with the post-2015
development agenda, leading to the greater capacity
of the Organization to contribute to solving urgent
problems and dealing with development challenges.

We urgently need to integrate the various separate
efforts. The United Nations should have a single,
comprehensive development agenda. But to do so, we
need to change the equation and place the fight for
equality and against inequality at the centre of our
efforts. Let us not make growth an end in itself; rather,
we should turn it into a tool. That is why in Peru we
believe that the right formula is “inclusion for growth.”
That is the direction Peru proposes for the post-2015
agenda.

Peru has made a quantum leap in its economy. We
are currently among the fastest-growing countries.
Responsible management of our economy has helped to
create 800,000 new jobs so far during my Administration
and has also helped to reduce unemployment by
7 per cent. We are gradually diversifying our economy.
Non-traditional exports account for one third of
our total exports — more than $11 billion dollars
today — and service exports account for $5 billion. We
are developing our immense potential for tourism.

The economic growth in recent years has been
extraordinary, and I must say it has been the result of
much effort, rigour and work, as well as democratic
continuity and perseverance. Peru has managed both
to avoid the worst effects of global instability and to
attract levels of investment flows that are unparalleled
in our country’s history. Our task is to strengthen
the foundations that have enabled such growth, in
particular by strengthening democracy, institutions,
the rule of law and security, building citizenship and
opening spaces for participation.

We have the means to do that, since we are a
country of entrepreneurs: 98 per cent of our businesses
are small or medium-sized. They employ 75 per cent
of the economically active population and contribute
42 per cent of the gross domestic product. Thanks
to our efforts, Peru is now considered an emerging,
middle-income country, with new middle classes and a
growing domestic consumption, and it is able to attract
long-term investments for large projects.

Thanks to that and to the extent that we have
strengthened our national capacities, we will be
able to encourage industrial policies geared towards
changing economic and social structures. For us,
industrialization is a national goal. In order to move in
that direction, in December Lima will host the fifteenth
General Conference of the United Nations Industrial
Development Organization.

Being centrally located on the map of South America
and having played a key role in Latin American history,
Peru views its region from the perspective of a country
that seeks consensus, both internal and external. Peru
is a country that perceives regional integration as an
effective way to improve the present and future of
our security and development. We Peruvians have an
overriding conviction that, on our own, we can move
forward rapidly, but together we can do that better and
reach farther.

Peru is part of the Pacific Alliance, along with
Mexico, Chile and Colombia. Together we are moving
towards integration with a strategic projection towards
the Asia-Pacific region and the world. In that region,
which is home to the most dynamic economies of the
twenty-first century, we are also part of the Asia-

Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum. We hosted the
Leaders’ Meeting in 2008 and will host it again in 2016.

We are also a member of the Union of South
American Nations, having recently completed our
term as pro-tempore president. We participate in the
Community of Latin American and Caribbean States,
which this year held its first summit with the Heads
of State and Government of the European Union.
We maintain our hemispheric roots through the
Organization of American States, and at the subregional
level, we are currently the pro-tempore president of the
Andean Community. We consider all those forums to be
complementary. We participate in them with a constant
call for integration, dialogue and consensus.

Peru is a reliable partner committed to global
causes. Our commitment to the values and principles
of the General Assembly brings us to point out the
need for reform. That is necessary in order to make the
United Nations system more legitimate, representative,
accountable and effective through the strengthening of
its principal organs, specialized agencies and various
organizations in the areas of security, development
and human rights. Peru shares the position held by a
large number of Member States on the need to reform
and expand the Security Council so as to reflect the
realities of the twenty-first century.

Our aspirations also entail more transparency
and accountability on the part of individual economic
actors and greater justice in the distribution of wealth.
With those objectives in mind, in 2014 Peru will host
the thirty-fifth session of the Economic Commission
for Latin America and the Caribbean and in 2016 the
fourteenth United Nations Conference on Trade and
Development. We thereby hope to contribute so that the
Doha Round can be resumed, in the scope of the World
Trade Organization, with better prospects.

In many parts of our Latin America and in Peru,
republican States were weak from the start, concentrated
in the capital city. Their core problem has been therefore
that they have been unable to deal with the entire nation
and have focused perhaps on one third of the country.
It was impossible to build citizenship, since in practice
there were different categories of Peruvians: those who
received Government services and those who did not.

Our efforts must be directed at the creation of a
twenty-first-century State, a State that serves all,
not just a few. While this includes an eminently
ethical component, its basis is not restricted to that
important dimension. It also has profoundly practical
repercussions for society at large. We cannot forget that
a State that does not serve the entire population breeds
and exacerbates inequality. As long as such degrees of
inequality exist – and I will never tire of saying this -
any policy aimed at combating poverty will have only
relative effects.

For that reason, my Administration has worked not
only on economic growth but in all areas of growth. The
history of my country has seen other periods of growth,
but they proved to be unsustainable and benefited very
few. Economic growth is a means and not an end; it
is an indispensable tool, but it is not sufficient. Our
people, especially those who are most forgotten, cannot
wait indefinitely for growth without the State actively
promoting the extension of its benefits.

In addition, that will set in motion a virtuous circle
in which progress for our most vulnerable countrymen
and the development of a population free of extreme
poverty, with health care and education for all, will
create the conditions for even greater economic growth.
That is why we stress the new political concept of
simultaneous growth and redistribution. That is what
I mean when I stress the necessity of “including so as
to grow”.

Two years ago, less than two months into my term
as President of Peru, I stood before the Assembly to
emphasize my Government’s commitment to social
inclusion. I said then that we were working to turn
our economic growth into development and quality of
life for my countrymen. I also said that we intended to
hone our democracy so that it could solve the problems
and meet the needs of all. The country we want is a
prosperous one where all the Peruvians, women and
men, without any distinction, can enjoy the benefits of
growth in a dignified, safe and free manner. After two
years in office, I reaffirm what I said; our commitment
remains the same.


It is a great honour and
pleasure to participate in the sixty-eighth session of
the General Assembly on behalf of the people and
the Government of Tuvalu. At the outset, I would like
to congratulate the President on his new leadership
responsibilities; he has all the blessings and support
of Tuvalu. I also wish to thank and acknowledge with
profound appreciation the outgoing President and the
continued assistance and support given by Secretary-
General Ban Ki-moon, the specialized organizations
and their respective heads and staff. We are particularly
grateful for our membership in the United Nations
following a successful sixty-seventh session.

The new Government of Tuvalu, of which I am
honoured to be Deputy Prime Minister, was elected
two months ago. Just last week, the Government, in
cooperation with development partners, launched a
road map committing to mutual partnerships that will
deliver and make a difference for the people of Tuvalu.
The road map focuses on improving the delivery of vital
basic services, strengthening good governance and
enhancing local capacity to address Tuvalu’s unique
vulnerabilities and respond effectively to the impacts
of climate change.

It is visionary and timely to focus our debate on the
theme of “The post-2015 development agenda: setting
the stage” as we approach the end of a journey called
the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). We are
now ready to chart a new path, which we are calling
the sustainable development goals (SDGs) and the post-
2015 agenda. And as we do every fall, we have gathered
to reaffirm our spirit for and commitment to a renewed
multilateralism and genuine collective action and to
reflect, assess, address and plan for how to realize the
Charter’s principles of peace, justice, human rights,
social progress and equal opportunity for all.

However, our global efforts cannot be fully universal
until the United Nations pragmatically recognizes the
international contribution that the Republic of China on
Taiwan has made and the responsibility it has undertaken
to achieve the noble goals of the United Nations, as well
as the MDGs and SDGs, thus improving the standards
of living of millions all over the world. The Republic

of China’s significant international participation in
United Nations specialized agencies, including in
the World Health Organization, UNESCO, UNICEF,
the International Civil Aviation Organization, the
International Maritime Organization and the United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change,
is critical as we collectively advance towards the
post-MDG era and enter the era of the sustainable
development goals.

Tuvalu also fully supports the lifting of the embargo
against Cuba. That will allow the Republic of Cuba to
further consolidate and enhance its cooperation with
small island developing States (SIDS) like Tuvalu.

Looking back at our MDG journey, we have come
across a myriad of crises and challenges, both natural
and man-made. We know where we have come from,
we know our capacities and constraints in facing those
crises and challenges, and we know the direction we are
heading in. We give great attention to how to address
the many persistent and ongoing issues in their entirety
and in their many forms, as we approach the finish line
for the MDGs.

As we make the transition to the SDG stage and the
post-2015 agenda, we take heed of the intrinsic lessons
from the MDGs. First, the United Nations continues to
be a beacon of hope and, through strategic advocacy
and awareness campaigns, the Organization brings the
real issues and current events into the consciousness
of both the public and the membership in order to
propel action and redress. Secondly, partnership is
key to the success of this truly universal Organization.
Working together cooperatively delivers much more
that we can make happen on our own. Cooperation
and collaboration with communities, businesses, think
tanks, churches, philanthropists, regional groupings
and not least each United Nations Member, reaffirms
a true and sustainable union that should constitute the
way forward for the SDGs.

The United Nations Charter should be mirrored in
our national goals and priorities. Our vision for the new
SDGs and post-2015 agenda must reflect a membership
that is striving for the same goals — a world that
embodies peace, not conflicts and terrorism; hope,
not despair; opportunities, jobs and prospects for a
decent life, not unemployment and welfare dependence;
security and freedom, not insecurity and totalitarianism;
equality, not autocracy; unity, not divisiveness; good
governance and leadership, not tyranny; sufficiency,
not poverty; progress, not setbacks and regression; and
empowerment, not constraint.

Let me reflect on Tuvalu’s performance with
respect to the MDGs as the deadline 2015 draws near.
I am pleased to report that Tuvalu has made significant
progress towards the achievement of its MDGs, despite
the impact of the various global financial and economic
crises on its small, vulnerable economy. In the 2012
MDG progress report, Tuvalu was assessed as being
on track with respect to four of the MDGs: primary
education, child mortality, maternal health and global
partnership; as having the potential to achieve three
MDG targets: gender equality, combating HIV/AIDS,
and environmental sustainability; and as being unlikely
to achieve the MDG on poverty.

The attainment of the MDG on poverty is a
formidable challenge for the fourth-smallest country in
the world. Tuvalu is poorly endowed in terms of natural
resources and has almost no productive capacity. Tuvalu
is highly dependent on aid, leasing gratuities and rental
incomes derived from its national assets — air, sea
and its domain — and remittances. We will continue
to seek the invaluable support and cooperation of the
United Nations and the donor community in our pursuit
of attaining the MDG on poverty as we approach 2015.

Gender equality and the empowerment of women
and youth is pursued at all levels of decision-making. In
2012, Tuvalu adopted a family protection bill that aims
at safeguarding our women and girls against sexual and
gender-based violence, domestic violence and rape. The
bill has facilitated access to justice and improved the
provision of services to women and girls who have been
subject to discrimination and violence, whether in the
public or the private sphere.

Tuvalu is also fully committed to the strategic
implementation of the outcomes of the Barbados
Programme of Action and the Mauritius Strategy
for the Further Implementation of the Programme of
Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island
Developing States. As we approach the International
Year of Small Island Developing States, in 2014, and
the third International Conference on Small Island
Developing States in Apia, Samoa, we urge the United
Nations to ensure that SIDS status and SIDS-specific
recognition are truly sanctioned in the Organization’s
bureaucracy. We have seen enough General Assembly
resolutions that address SIDS issues in a vague
and abstract way, and yet the entire United Nations

development agenda includes no specific treatment of
SIDS. The 2014 SIDS Conference must be decisive on
establishing special windows for partnerships on SIDS
that are designed to ensure not only their sustainable
development but also their long-term security and
survival.

Tuvalu appreciates the decision of the Economic
and Social Council to defer consideration of Tuvalu’s
graduation from the least developed country (LDC)
category under the Istanbul Programme of Action for
the Least Developed Countries for the Decade 2011-
2020. That said, however, Tuvalu humbly submits that
while the threshold criteria of LDC graduation — the
human development index, per capita gross national
income and the economic vulnerability index — are
well established, it would simply be irrational and
irresponsible if application of any two of the three
criteria was the only measure of consideration for
graduation. Given Tuvalu’s extreme vulnerability
as a SIDS, we believe that our failure to achieve a
satisfactory EVI level carries more weight for us in
considering our possible graduation from the LDC list.

Climate change and sea-level rise have had dire
consequences for Tuvalu’s situation. Our survival and
security, and our children’s future livelihood, have
been seriously compromised by the international
community’s inaction on climate change. The fifth
assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change, Climate Change 2013: The Physical
Science Basis, has further confirmed to the world the
stark predictions for SIDS like Tuvalu in the wake of
climate change and sea-level rise. The challenge we
put to the Assembly is, What else are we waiting for?
What is the relevance of talking about post-MDGs
and SDGs when the world continues to fail in its duty
and obligations to urgently reduce greenhouse-gas
emissions and provide genuine adaptation? Ensuring
Tuvalu’s long-term security means saving the whole
world.

Climate change is no longer an environmental
or political issue. It is a borderless security issue for
humankind. Everyone must act to urgently reduce
greenhouse-gas emissions and provide adaptation.
Among the papers distributed to the Assembly is the
2013 Pacific Islands Forum Communiqué, which
contains the Majuro Declaration for Climate Leadership,
which Tuvalu strongly supports. Through the Majuro
Declaration, the Pacific island leaders commit their
full responsibility and leadership to making their own
contribution, however minuscule, to global efforts to
cut greenhouse-gas emissions. If we SIDS in the Pacific
can do it, surely others can, too.

The world must save Tuvalu and the SIDS in
order to save the whole planet. We urge perseverance,
with the United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol as the primary
international and intergovernmental instruments for
negotiating the global response to climate change.
We call on all parties to work diligently to reach a
legally binding framework for curbing greenhouse-gas
emissions at the upcoming nineteenth session of the
United Nations Climate Change Conference, in Warsaw.
The framework should also include mechanisms
dealing with climate-change-related loss, damages
and insurance for SIDS, and should provide adequate
and accessible financing for adaptation support to
SIDS such as Tuvalu. Tuvalu also applauds and fully
supports the leadership of the Secretary-General and
his commitment to hosting a climate change summit
next year.

For Tuvalu, the climate change issue is
predominantly linked to the oceans. For a nation
surrounded by seas, an ocean SDG is pertinent, for
obvious reasons. Seventy per cent of the planet’s
surface is covered by oceans, which are the cornerstone
of Earth’s life support system. The uncontrolled and
increasing carbonization of our oceans and their
biodiversity are genuine issues of concern and must
be urgently addressed. At the same time, radioactive
spillovers of land-based nuclear wastes into the oceans,
especially those that have followed recent incidents,
must be dealt with properly and prevented from
happening again. Here, the principle that the polluter
pays should be the basis for efforts to clean, mitigate
and prevent contamination of the oceans.

Tuvalu is currently heavily dependent on
imported fuel and petroleum products for electricity
generation and transportation requirements. That will
continue in both the short and medium term. Many
recommendations for alternative energy sources and
technologies, whether solar, wind or wave, have been
proposed but not fully implemented. Our energy sector
has set itself the challenge of becoming 100 per cent
renewable by 2020. We appreciate the support of the
many donors we have had for alternative renewable
sources of energy, assistance with formulating energy
policy and promoting efficient energy sources. Science
and technological capacity in Tuvalu also remain

underdeveloped, and we need relevant and simple
technologies that can be made readily available and
priced effectively, especially for LDCs and SIDS. The
facilitative role of the United Nations as a repository
of such technologies and practices within the
Organization’s networks and websites will prove highly
beneficial.

Finally, as we approach the end of the MDGs
and embrace the SDGs, we must pay attention to
the nations with special needs, the poorest and most
vulnerable, in making every effort to meet the MDGs
and achieve a smooth transition to the SDGs. The scale
of the challenges can be addressed only by reforming
ourselves — the United Nations and each Member
country. Delivering on the future we need and on
our sustainable goals, delivering more and delivering
better, will require increasing doses of great effort
and discipline, perseverance and courage, tolerance
and harmonious coexistence, multilateralism and
interdependence on the part of us, the peoples of the
United Nations.

In a couple of days, Tuvalu will celebrate its thirty-
fifth year of independence. Can we tell our children
and grandchildren a story of continued survival on
our God-given peaceful islands? Or do we have to tell
them that the world, under the United Nations, that
noble body, can no longer save their future because of
climate change and sea-level rise? As with great pride
we celebrate the continuing vibrancy of democracy
and the rule of law, and our political independence in
Tuvalu, we also appeal to the world. Please save Tuvalu
from climate change. Let the world save Tuvalu in order
to save itself.


We praise the almighty Allah
for making possible yet again this gathering of world
leaders. I would like to congratulate President Ashe
on his election to preside over the General Assembly
at its sixty-eighth session. His impeccable credentials
and extensive experience in multilateralism will
undoubtedly enrich the debates and proceedings of this
session. He has the full support of my delegation. In the
same vein, I wish also to pay tribute to his predecessor,
Mr. Vuk Jeremi., for his sterling leadership during
the sixty-seventh session. Our special thanks go to
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for his stewardship
and for the commitment he has manifested to the
welfare of humanity, particularly of the third world.

I take this opportunity also to convey our heartfelt
condolences to the President, the Government and the
people of Kenya, who have suffered one of the most
heinous crimes against humanity. Our hearts go out to
the families of the victims. This is a clear manifestation
of the fact that terrorism in all its forms cannot be
accepted. This also has nothing to do with our noble
religion, Islam.

As we gather for the sixty-eighth session of the
Assembly, we must pause and take stock of our collective
record in responding to the many different global
challenges with which mankind has had to grapple. Our
global body, the United Nations, has indeed adopted
countless resolutions, which, if implemented to the
letter, would have made the world a much better place
for the whole of mankind and, indeed, for all other
creatures on our planet.

Unfortunately, some Member States continue to
disregard resolutions necessary for the maintenance
of world peace and even question or disregard with
impunity resolutions adopted by the Assembly. The
United Nations continues to be incapacitated as a
result. This certainly calls for an assessment of its
strengths and weaknesses, with a view to rendering
it more effective. Civil strife and terrorism caused
by the negative behaviour of some world Powers are
undermining human security and even the viability
of States. Poverty, hunger and disease still decimate
countless communities, while our capacity to respond
to these man-made humanitarian crises remains
discriminatory and inadequate.

This is demonstrated yet again in the case of Syria.
We believe that this Organization was established in
the first place to find lasting solutions for peace and the
protection of human life. Informed and honest decisions
should be made instead of those driven by the interests of
a few self-appointed gods, thereby causing irreparable
damage to the social fabric and economies of countries
in conflict. My Government supports the view that the
regional organizations in the Middle East should take
the lead in the negotiations towards the resolution of
the crisis in Syria. The tragedy unfolding in Syria has
become a scar on our conscience as civilized people,
and that war must be stopped by any means necessary.

All that we hear is the talk about chemical weapons
and the need to ensure that they are not used by anyone.
This does not make any sense as long as this barbaric
war lasts. Whether or not chemical weapons are used,
thousands of people will continue to die in the most
horrific manner. It is the same horrific and senseless
death in both cases, and our duty is not to choose which
form of death is acceptable and which not. Our duty is
to stop the senseless and barbaric killings in Syria. We,
the United Nations, must end that war immediately;
otherwise the people of Syria will continue to perish at
the hands of satanic and sadistic forces. The Security
Council and all the Powers behind the war in Syria
must not only prevent the use of chemical weapons but
must also bring this brutal war to an immediate end
without preconditions. The Syrian war must be stopped
and stopped now.

The 2013 report on Africa’s performance towards
achieving the Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs) reveals mixed results. Africa’s substantial
progress towards many goals, targets and indicators
is beyond doubt, but serious challenges still remain,
especially in translating economic growth into decent
job opportunities, improving service delivery and
minimizing income, gender and spatial inequalities.
Violent conflicts and economic shocks in some
countries, as well as unprecedented natural disasters
over the decade induced by climate change, have
caused setbacks in the achievement of the MDGs in
many countries.

Despite such challenges, some African countries,
and the Gambia in particular, are making impressive
gains towards some of the established goals. My
Government is on track to achieve the education MDG
target for net enrolment in primary education and
literacy rate among the population aged between 15
and 24 years. My Government has made serious and
informed policy reviews to prioritize basic primary
education, while expanding access to secondary, higher
and tertiary education, with an emphasis on improving
quality in all areas. We are working diligently to ensure
that the gender disparity gap in enrolment is closed by
2014 and to provide free education and an equitable
chance for all to be literate by 2015 and beyond.

We must ensure that the post-2015 development
agenda builds on the important progress of the
MDGs and is expanded to cover broader sustainable
development issues, as agreed in Rio. Therefore, the
choice of the theme for this session, “The post-2015
development agenda: setting the stage”, is indeed apt,
timely and thought-provoking. Clear, time-bound,
targeted and measurable global benchmarks are crucial
if we are to realize our desired objective.

Protecting African livelihoods requires
international, regional and country approaches
that recognize and act on the overlap of conflicts
orchestrated by foreign Powers and severe weather
hazards. The Gambia firmly believes that mitigating
the adverse effects of climate change and putting an
immediate end to the massive looting of African natural
resources by Western multinational companies call for
a timely and decisive global response. It is a challenge
that should unite us, not divide us. The Gambia is of
the firm opinion that Africa should play an active role
in shaping the goals based on its own development
priorities and common interests.

The greatest threats to human existence are basically
three and are a consequence of human behaviours which
are ungodly attributes. They are: excessive greed, and
therefore addiction to accumulating material wealth
by any means, mostly through violent or immoral
schemes; an obsession with world domination by any
means, including the resolve to use nuclear, biological
and chemical weapons to achieve that fanciful dream;
and homosexuality in all its forms and manifestations,
which, though very evil, anti-human and anti-Allah, is
being promoted as a human right by some Powers.

None of the three threats, which are more deadly
than all natural disasters put together, has anything
to do with climate change. The first led not only
to colonization and the plundering of African and
Asian human and material resources but also to two
devastating wars among the Western Powers, which

were unfortunately wrongly termed “world” wars.
Colonialism was maintained by subjugation and
massive looting of resources in the colonies, leading
to the impoverishment and destitution of hundreds of
millions of colonial subjects.

From the thirteenth century until the middle part
of the twentieth century, the notions of human rights,
good governance and democracy were philosophies
forbidden to Africans. Any African under a colonial
Government who advocated for them ended up either
at the gallows, in a mass grave or rotting in colonialist-
built dungeons called prisons. This was during the
colonial era, when the African continent was treated
like an abandoned game park and Africans were treated
worse than animals.

Today, after fighting for our freedom and
liberating our continent, we are being prescribed a
new religion — democracy, human rights and good
governance — by descendants of the same colonial
Powers. Present-day Africans cannot be hoodwinked
by anyone, any more, and we are determined to defend
our independence and dignity, and to take control of
our own natural resources at any cost and by any means
necessary.

In regard to the second threat, the obsession with
world domination, we are seeing the unprecedented
development of deadly nuclear, biological and chemical
weapons, as well as other weapons of mass murder, by
the same Powers. We all agree that all forms of human
tragedy and catastrophe emanate from the West. They
have spent more money on killer technologies than on
medical and agricultural technology up to today. If they
unleash a third world war, God forbid, that would put an
end to human existence on planet Earth, including the
United Nations itself.

As for the third threat, we know for a fact that all
living things need to reproduce for posterity. They
become extinct when they can no longer reproduce.
Therefore, the Assembly will all agree with me that
any person promoting the end of human reproduction
must be promoting human extinction. Could it be called
promoting human rights when one advocates for a
definitive end to human reproduction and procreation?
Those who promote homosexuality want to put an
end to human existence. It is becoming an epidemic,
and we Muslims and Africans will fight against such
behaviour in our countries. We will never accept it. We
want a brighter future for humankind and the continued
existence of humankind on the planet; therefore, we
will never tolerate any agenda that clearly calls for
human extinction.

Peace and security are inextricably linked to
development. The Gambia continues to abide by
and live by that principle, which has warranted
my Government’s relentless commitment to peace
initiatives under the auspices of the African Union and
the Economic Community of West African States, one
of which successfully culminated in a democratically
elected Government in Mali a few weeks ago. I seize
the opportunity, therefore, to congratulate the brotherly
people of Mali for giving peace a chance by electing a
Government through democratic means.

With more concerted efforts through consultations
and dialogue, we shall also soon witness a lasting
solution to the political impasse in Guinea-Bissau. I am
also happy with the work currently being undertaken by
the African Union High-Level Panel for Egypt, which
seeks to achieve an inclusive and peaceful transition
through dialogue, compromise, reconciliation and
tolerance. My Government will continue to use its
membership in the Peace and Security Council of the
African Union to propose peaceful measures that will
facilitate enhanced engagements aimed at achieving the
desired results in our common quest for lasting stability
in the African continent.

However, the present trends across the world cast
serious doubts about the effectiveness of the conflict
-prevention and management mechanisms adopted
by regional organizations and, most importantly,
the United Nations. Instead of acting as an effective
mechanism for conflict prevention and resolution, as
well as advancing global security, the Security Council
has become a barrier to progress, peace and security
in some instances where lopsided decisions can only
be classified as racist and misguided and therefore
unacceptable.

Africa’s legitimate quest for full representation on
the Security Council continues to be a strong warning
that needs to be urgently heeded. International peace
and security are the business of all, and Africa, a
continent whose resources, ranging from material to
human, have helped to bail the West out of poverty to
reach affluence from the thirteenth century up until
today, cannot be expected to continue to play second
fiddle in the Security Council or in any international
organization from now on. The Gambia remains resolute
in its stance that the permanent and non-permanent
membership categories of the Security Council should

be equitably distributed regionally and expanded to
conform to current geopolitical realities. The Gambia
stands by Africa’s demand for two permanent seats as
well as two non-permanent seats, as clearly articulated
in the Ezulwini Consensus and the Sirte Declaration.

How long will the international community
continue to ignore the legitimate right and aspirations
of a continent of 53 States, all members of the General
Assembly? The calls have been very loud and very
clear, but some Western Powers continue to ignore
them. That must end, or the Assembly will see a very
dignified, determined and independent Africa assert its
legitimate rights worldwide in its own way.

My delegation strongly condemns the application of
unilateral and degrading coercive measures as a means
of settling disputes. Such measures have an adverse
impact on the lives of innocent people, who lack any
means of defending their legitimate sovereignty in the
face of massive military might. We find the continued
application of such measures against the peace-loving
people of Cuba to be inhumane and unjust and a
blatant violation of the basic human rights tenets of
the Charter of the United Nations, which, ironically,
were promulgated to prevent such behaviour in the first
place.

It is in that spirit that the Gambia shares the
views expressed by the international community in its
continued unequivocal opposition to the United States
of America’s sanctions against Cuba. The embargo
against Cuba contravenes the fundamental principles
of international law, international humanitarian law,
the Charter of the United Nations and the norms and
principles governing peaceful relations among States,
violating the sovereign equality of States and the
principles of non-intervention and non-interference
in the domestic affairs of other Member States. The
embargo has no legitimate or moral justification, given
the fact that it continues to undermine the fundamental
basic rights to economic emancipation and the
development aspirations of the Cuban people. As a
responsible member of the international community,
the Gambia therefore joins other Member States in
calling for the immediate repeal of laws, measures or
policies that impede the free flow of international trade
and navigation against Cuba.

We also reiterate our call for a serious and decisive
reassessment of our policy towards the Republic
of China on Taiwan. The concerns of the 23 million
hard-working and peace-loving people of that great
country continue to be ignored. The Republic of China
on Taiwan has a democratically elected Government,
which is the only legitimate Government that defends
the interests of the people of Taiwan in the conduct of
world affairs and in its many serious interactions with
each and every nation of the world. The Taiwanese
people have the same concerns as all of us with regard
to global problems. Yet they are not a member of the
vital organs of the global body to contribute their share
in the search for solutions to those problems.

The situation in the occupied Palestinian territory
remains pathetic as a result of decades of collective
punishment, fraught with the glaringly degrading
and inhumane treatment of innocent civilians and
the gross denial of access to humanitarian assistance
and basic services, and essential medical supplies and
construction materials, which has become the daily
rule rather than the exception for the Palestinians. The
pattern and frequency of those human rights abuses, as
well as the disproportionate use of force perpetrated by
the occupying Power, continues unabated.

The Gambia is of the conviction that the ongoing
seizure of Palestinian lands and properties to make way
for illegal settlement activity is morally and politically
unacceptable. Such uncalled-for behaviour on the part
of Israel is in blatant disregard for international law
and casts serious doubt on Israel’s intention to seek
genuine and lasting peace with its brothers and sisters,
the Palestinian people. How can the international
community and the United Nations continue to watch
such glaring injustice and protracted human rights
abuses in silence, without feeling an iota of guilt for not
taking bold and appropriate steps to bring them to an
end? How long should we allow such blatant disregard
for international law to continue unpunished?

While we welcome the resumption of peace talks
between Israel and Palestine, we hope that this time
around the brokers will be decent and honest enough
to ensure that both sides are genuinely committed to
a two-State solution that would eventually usher in
permanent peace and security in the Middle East and
beyond.

We live in a world of new and evolving
threats — threats that could not have been anticipated
when the United Nations was founded in 1945. Unilateral
bullying and the criminal invasion of resource-endowed
sovereign States under the pretext of strengthening
democratization, combined with terrorism, organized
crime, poverty and disease, will remain a serious threat

to global peace and security unless appropriate steps
are taken to eradicate them. Meeting such challenges
today calls for sincerity and honesty to mount well-
coordinated and concerted global efforts.

The Gambia firmly believes that socioeconomic
development and respect for the sovereign rights
of countries to control their own natural resources,
especially minerals, should be the collective line
of defence for a collective global security system
that takes the sovereignty of each nation seriously.
Combating poverty will not only save millions of
lives but also strengthen States’ capacities to combat
terrorism, organized crime and intra-State conflict.
We need renewed and genuine global partnerships and
commitments that are binding and based on respect for
the sovereign right of each individual State to choose
a way of life that is based on its religious and cultural
values, as no administrative system is better than the
way prescribed by the almighty Allah.

It is also necessary to increase the credibility and
effectiveness of the Security Council by making sure
that selective justice is abandoned and rejected by
all Members of the United Nations family. From all
indications, there is an imperative need to inject new
ideas and impetus into the Security Council and to
expand its membership to reflect current geopolitical
realities. Moreover, respect for the principle of equal
sovereign rights of peoples and the need to promote and
respect peaceful relations among all States, rich or poor,
black or white, should be the overriding considerations
for the peaceful coexistence of Member States — that
is, if 2015 and beyond is to bequeath a peaceful and
prosperous world to future generations of the human
race.


It
is an honour to join other speakers in addressing the
General Assembly at its sixty-eighth session. This
year the Assembly has as its theme “The post-2015
development agenda: setting the stage”. These annual
meetings are thus an opportunity to consider and reflect
on the course that each of our countries is following to
achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

There can be no doubt that recent events have posed
a major challenge to the achievement of prosperity,
development and progress, especially in those regions
of the world that have suffered most from the effects of
the international economic crisis and of climate change.
El Salvador has been no exception.

When, on 1 June 2009, the Government that I head
took power, the nation’s economic growth rate was at
negative 3 per cent, with 40,000 jobs lost. There had
been a considerable drop in exports, especially to the
United States, our principal market. Income from taxes
and family remittances had decreased, and broad sectors
of the population were impoverished or excluded from
the benefits of public policies.

But that harsh reality was not just a product of the
crisis. It was the result of decades of the implementation
of economic and social models that excluded the great
majority and promoted backwardness and injustice. As
from June 2009, with the process of political alternation
in El Salvador, that reality began to shift.

As soon as our Government took power, we made a
commitment to achieving the Millennium Development
Goals and to use them as a road map. The Government’s
five-year plan states that our strategic plan is to have
a healthy, educated and productive population with
the capacity and appropriate opportunities to fully
develop its potential to become the foundation of our
development. The Government’s plan incorporates
strategic instruments and policies aimed at achieving
the MDGs over the short and medium term. We took
the strategic decision not to shift the costs of the crisis
onto the poorest segments of the population, as had
been the habit in the past.

For that reason, we devised and implemented
policies aimed at combating poverty, reducing

inequality, achieving a process of social inclusion and
creating new institutional mechanisms that would make
it possible to more equitably distribute wealth and the
benefits of economic growth.

Our Government put an end to the old concept
of the patrimonial State, which defended only the
interests of small political and economic groups.
Now the Salvadoran State is at the service of the
most underprivileged. That shift in public policy has
translated into an increasingly modern and effective
State that is fighting poverty, social exclusion, violence
and corruption. Thus this new type of governance,
which is based on the implementation of best practices,
transparent and increasingly participatory, has already
begun to have a positive impact on the achievement of
the MDGs, as demonstrated by the following results.

El Salvador has made great progress towards
eliminating poverty and hunger. In the past year, we
not only achieved but exceeded the goal of reducing the
number of households living in extreme poverty. We
also made major achievements when it comes to access
to education. In 1991, the net coverage for primary
education was 75 per cent of the population; last year it
was 93 per cent. We have gained almost 20 percentage
points in those years.

Since the beginning of my Administration,
all students in public schools — some 1.3 million
children and young people — have received free shoes,
uniforms and school supplies. The impact of this was
immediately noticeable, as we increased enrolment
while dramatically reducing the dropout rate. Twenty
years ago, 85 per cent of the population of working
age was literate, but this rate has now reached almost
100 per cent. Over for the past four years alone, the
Government has managed to reduce the illiteracy rate
by 5 per cent. With the help of thousands of volunteers,
we are teaching over 170,000 adults to read.

In terms of health, one of the achievements we are
most proud of is related to the significant reduction in
maternal mortality, one of the two sections of Millennium
Development Goal 5. With the health-care reform
undertaken by my Administration, we have increased
access to health services by hiring more doctors,
nurses and specialists and establishing new women’s
centres. Pursuant to the Millennium Development
Goals, the objective is to achieve a maternal mortality
rate that is equal to or below 52.8 maternal deaths per
100,000 inhabitants by 2015. We have reached that
goal in El Salvador and even exceeded expectations by
reducing the rate to 41.9 maternal deaths per 100,000,
or 11 fewer than the target for this Goal.

The comprehensive health-care reform initiative
that we launched has been tasked with bringing health-
care services to the most remote corners of our country
that, historically, have been isolated from economic
and social development. This firm commitment of
our Government has led us to increase the health-care
budget by 60 per cent over a period of four years. That
has allowed us to increase the supply of medicines in
hospitals and public health clinics by between 50 to
82 per cent in that time and to significantly expand
the proportion of the population who are immunized.
Similarly, free health consultations mandated by our
Government have contributed to a 40 per cent increase
in demand for such services, which represents a
significant step in our goal to extend that service to the
majority of the population.

I cannot speak of advances in health care
without talking about access to and improvement
of basic services such as drinking water. Our efforts
have gradually borne fruit in the areas under our
responsibility in this respect. We have met the target
of 71 per cent of households having treated water piped
into their houses. In 2011, under our Government, this
was already true of 72 per cent of households. Sanitation
is covered by another Millennium Development Goal,
which set the target of 89 per cent of households having
this service by 2015. As of two years ago, 96 per cent of
Salvadoran households had access to sanitation.

In summary, great efforts have been undertaken
to achieve the best possible outcome on each of the
indicators, leading to enhanced well-being for all
Salvadorans. I believe that the time has come to conceive
of social programmes for people as an investment and
not as an expense, or even worse as a waste, as some
leaders in the country mistakenly continue to believe,
stuck as they are in their stingy and outdated ways of
thinking.

It is clear that the gains we have made in my
country in recent years have not been the result of
chance. El Salvador is going through a period of great
change. This profound transformation has occurred
first through a change in the economic model that has
set a different course for our nation. We are working
primarily on restoring the vitality of our countryside
in order to make it once again a central engine for
economic development.

Thanks to our family agriculture plan, which
provides small and medium-sized farms with free
delivery of improved seed packets and fertilizer,
training and access to technology and credit, last
year we had record food-crop harvests and were still
able to keep the price of basic grains within reach of
the entire population of El Salvador. We have also
successfully implemented school lunch programmes,
so that children receive at school fresh, healthy food
grown on Salvadoran farms. Today, more than 800,000
poor Salvadoran children receive two glasses of fresh
milk a week in school as part of their diet. All these
efforts have brought more prosperity to Salvadorans,
especially the poorest.

But in addition to poverty, there are other scourges
such as violence, drug trafficking and organized crime
that deprive our people of well-being and happiness.
With this in mind, we have implemented public policies
to reduce violence and fight crime.

The Government has created new police units,
overseen the graduation of 4,000 new agents and
redoubled operational plans to curb crime. At the same
time, a non-aggression pact between the two main youth
gangs was agreed on two years ago. The Government
was only a facilitator of that pact, which has established
the minimal conditions to reduce gang violence levels
in the areas most affected by that phenomenon. Thus,
ongoing crime suppression and prevention efforts have
resulted in a 50 per cent reduction in homicides. The
Government’s security policy has also dealt a heavy
blow to organized crime gangs, allowing for significant
seizures of drug shipments.

We know, however, that huge challenges remain.
There are major obstacles to development that will not
be overcome in my new Administration’s four years in
power. I would highlight in particular the challenges
represented by climate change and the resulting need
to protect and safeguard the lives of tens of thousands
of Salvadorans. We are a region exposed to extreme
weather phenomena, at least five of which El Salvador
has experienced in recent years. They have had the
greatest impact on the most vulnerable parts of the
population and the country’s infrastructure, causing
losses in the billions of dollars.

A major challenge is to build a sufficiently fair and
democratic society that is respectful of those who make
up the majority of the population — women. El Salvador
has undertaken serious efforts to achieve goals derived
from the Millennium Development Goals in the area
of gender equality and the prevention, punishment and
eradication of violence against women.

In addition to establishing a confidential call
centre for reporting gender violence, the Government
has approved the first national policy against human
trafficking and achieved a considerable decrease in
women’s deaths by homicide. Without a doubt, the
most valuable contribution in this area lies in the City
of Women initiative, through which we have created
four comprehensive care centres for women and are
on track to create two more, scheduled to open later
this year. This initiative is already considered by
international organizations and world leaders a model
of public management. It is a comprehensive and
integrated system of specialized services for women in
the areas of sexual and reproductive health, economic
empowerment — through both formal employment
and support for entrepreneurship — and prevention
and treatment of gender-based violence. It also helps
to focus the priorities and attention of my Government
on women.

Another tangible demonstration of the ongoing
process is the dialogue undertaken to achieve reparations
for victims of gross violations of human rights and the
vindication of the rights of war veterans. With regard
to the latter, we have succeeded in repaying a debt that
adminstrations prior to ours had failed for years to
recognize and to repay. Moreover, my Government has
promoted a reconciliation process without precedent in
the nation’s history and a recognition of the human rights
atrocities committed in El Salvador. As Head of State, I
asked forgiveness for the disappearances, murders and
torture, and from all those who experienced the brunt
of such abuses during our civil war. I ordered a dialogue
with organizations representing the victims of serious
human rights violations. As a result of this process, in
the days to come I will announce a national reparations
programme, which will include the ratification of
various treaties human rights adopted by the General
Assembly and a guarantee that such violations will
never recur.

The right to food, education and welfare must be
ensured in order to achieve sustainable development
and eradicate poverty. In that respect, all the efforts
of national Governments must be complemented and
strengthened with the support of the international
community and the United Nations system.

Radical change is needed in the global economic
system, which is based on financial speculation

and consumerism and not only has an impact on the
most developed economies of the world, but also
and especially makes the least developed countries
even poorer. International cooperation must seek
fundamentally to improve the productive capacities of
our countries and to invest in people suffering from
poverty and exclusion. My Government believes that
the path to growth is investment in the poor and their
transformation into a middle class with access to health
care and education.

I invoke international solidarity and the agenda of
the General Assembly in which we are gathered here
today in order to advocate once again for the lifting
of the blockade against Cuba. I have made this same
request in my previous statements before this forum,
as I believe that Cuba is part of the American soul and
that the blockade is a relic of the past. The brotherly
people of Cuba, like all peoples of the world, have
the right to seek development and well-being through
comprehensive integration.

Similarly, we support diplomatic efforts seeking
a swift peaceful solution to the conflict in Syria. We
condemn the use of chemical weapons, and we support
the agreement between Russia and the United States
whereby Syria’s chemical weapons would be destroyed
under the supervision of the United Nations.

Before I conclude, I should like to express my firm
belief that the United Nations will take the necessary
steps to guarantee the development and implementation
of a comprehensive post-2015 agenda. In that context, I
believe that we will realize a better and fairer world for
all of humankind.

In El Salvador, we are preparing to implement that
agenda. We are happy to be among the few countries
in Latin America working on multidimensional
poverty measurement. Next year we hope to use these
statistics to complement our income-based poverty
measurement. We will thereby be in a better position
to implement comprehensive policies that will allow us
to eradicate poverty in a definitive and lasting way. I
thank the United Nations for its invaluable cooperation
in the pursuit of our major aspirations as a nation, and
the Assembly for its attention.


On behalf
of my country, Tunisia, and the Tunisian people,
I greet the Assembly and all those around the world
represented here.

On 17 December 2010, Tunisia, as the Assembly
knows, was the first country to experience the Arab
Spring, the peaceful revolutions of Arab peoples
aimed at ridding themselves of corrupt dictatorships
hampering the economic, political and social progress
of their countries. Such dictatorships had imposed with
brutal force corrupt regimes that had swept away basic
human civilization. What has now been seen in some
Arab Spring countries may lead some to believe that
those efforts at liberation have failed and that the dream
has become a nightmare.

What we must remember is that the Arab Spring
is not a final stage, something that can be achieved
overnight. It is, rather, just the beginning of a liberation
journey and a future project leading towards further
horizons. What we must take into consideration is the
element of time. Nations require decades to gain control
of their revolutions and achieve their success or failure.
We must remember that the Arab Spring, like all human
projects, may stumble or come to a standstill — indeed,
may fail. Our duty — the duty of those here — is to
persist in support of that journey and to begin afresh
after each obstacle.

We believe that the difficulties involved in
building democracy in the Arab Spring countries are
only natural and will be overcome. Our peoples will
never accept regimes that shackle them. We want
to fight extremism cloaked in religion, not replace it
with dictatorship cloaked in nationalism or patriotism.
Those difficulties do indeed reveal that political, social
and ideological forces are pushing countries this way
and that; building democracy and civil institutions is
replete with difficulties in all Arab Spring countries.

From this rostrum, I would like to speak to the
current authorities in Egypt and call on them to release
President Mohammed Morsi and all political detainees.
Only a bold initiative such as that has the potential to
end the political tensions, stop the violence and bring
all the parties back to a dialogue as the only means to
solve all the difficult problems caused by the current
transitional phase.

The restriction of movement of goods and persons is
increasing the difficulties faced by the struggling people
of Gaza under Israeli occupation and colonization.

Tunisia is dealing with three challenges. That
of terrorism, as exemplified by the killing of the two
martyrs, Shukri Belaid on 6 February and Mohamed
Brahimi on 25 July, is a major political challenge that
has impeded the work on the Constitutional Council.
The second is the fact of slowing domestic and foreign
investment. The third is that we are having to learn
democracy at the same time that we are building and
defending it. It has not yet taken root in our political
and social traditions or our general culture. In
Tunisia we have many of the elements necessary for
success — a responsible and conscious political class
that has continued to pursue dialogue, a legitimate,
disciplined and professional army and a people who
are peaceful and politically aware and who understand
what is in their own interests.

I would like to assure the Assembly that the Arab
Spring in Tunisia will continue and succeed. We

will set a date for elections and will agree on a just
Government. Those elections will be supervised by the
United Nations, the League of Arab States, the African
Union and all other relevant international and local
organizations and civil society groups. God willing,
they will be held next spring. We are aware that the
forces of terrorism and chaos will try to destabilize
them as much as possible. Tunisia is undertaking this
experiment both for itself and for the rest of the world.

We want our revolution to be peaceful. We want
justice to play its role in the transitional period. We
also want to expand the concept of democracy. It is
not merely about the rights of those winning 51 per
cent of the vote, and ignoring those who won 49 per
cent. We want coalition Governments that take into
consideration the fact that society is made up of many
parts. We want to learn from one another. Our success
or failure will have consequences that will reach far
beyond our borders. Hence the importance of solidarity
among peoples, so that we can ensure success for this
unique experiment.

Today the Arab Spring has encountered the ultimate
expression of suffering in Syria. The violence that has
faced peaceful demonstrations has shocked us from the
beginning. It is escalating day after day, and is now brutal
on a scale that history has seldom seen before. In Tunisia
we have taken a strong position against the dictatorship
in Syria. We supported the the struggle of the Syrian
opposition and expelled the regime’s ambassador from
our country. We have been warning for a long time now
about the problems of the militarization of the events,
of factionalism, sectarianism and outside intervention,
whether by States or so-called jihadi groups, including
some from Tunisia, which we know will be a danger to
us when they return from that suffering country.

We have always called for a peaceful solution and
have gone so far as to say that life is more important
than justice, and if it is necessary not to prosecute the
Syrian dictators — and if they leave the scene — we
should accept that situation, however bitter. Our fears
have become reality, however, and we continue to
live with this nightmare that is afflicting the valiant
Syrian people, as well as our conscience. We have
never seen such a pitch of brutality and barbarity. A
political solution to end the nightmare is desperately
needed. However, what we also need is the support of
the General Assembly for prosecuting the case through
the International Criminal Court (ICC). That would be
a contribution to international law that could contribute
to protecting people against dictatorships, particularly
the Syrian dictatorship, which is an extreme example of
how immorally a regime can behave.

We are fully confident that had the Court been able
to act, the Syrian regime would not have attempted to
turn the presidency of the country into rule-by-heredity,
limiting ruling to one party only. It would not have
dared to convict members of opposition political parties
and sentence them to death. Imagine if the Court had
been able to act in such cases. What if the Court had
been able to pursue a course in favour of human rights?
Imagine how we could have avoided the nightmare that
the Syrian people has been going through — 100,000
dead and 7 million displaced persons, with a regime
killing men, women and children with all the weapons
at its disposal, including chemical weapons.

Have we ever seen such a brutal regime by an
individual person who came to power through force
and falsification and who is fighting a barbarous civil
war that has set the stage for ugly scenes beyond any
ever seen in the history of the region? The regime ought
to be brought to the ICC. Justice delayed still cannot
bring millions of dead back to life. There have to be
preventive bodies that can take up such situations from
their very beginning.

Regimes like that of Syria cannot last long
against internal democratic opposition and the lack of
international recognition. Tunisia therefore calls on all
democratic States that wish to build institutions that
counter the rise of dictatorships to support our project.
We believe that such a constitutional court would be the
expression of a new spirit needed by the international
community.

We are meeting in this place with all the nations
of the world to review the world’s problems, many of
which are foreseeable and bring great pain to people.
We would have been able to avoid such situations had
we adopted the slogan “Think globally and act locally.”

As a medical doctor, I would recall that we were
able to conquer epidemics that raged against humankind
through efforts at prevention. Dictatorships, climate
change and poverty must be thwarted internally and
among peoples. In facing such epidemics, we must have
preventive policies that save humankind. We hope to
God that there is enough time for us to quickly take
such a direction before it is too late.


May I first congratulate Mr. John
Ashe on his election to the presidency at the current
session. I am sure that his wisdom and experience will
guide our deliberations on the many challenges that
the world faces today. Also, allow me to commend His
Excellency Mr. Vuk Jeremi. for his excellent leadership
during the sixty-seventh session.

The President knows better than most the unique
combination of challenges faced by small island
developing States. We are being battered from all sides,
both literally and figuratively. Over the past decade, we
have faced a flood of crises with a genesis far from our
shores that have stretched our capacity to protect and
improve the health and prosperity of our people.

The near collapse of the global financial system
and spikes in food and energy prices have caused
enormous difficulties for our small and vulnerable
economy. A severe drought caused additional hardship
and foreshadowed the much more difficult future we
will face in a warming world. At the same time, the
flow of official development assistance and climate
financing have begun to stagnate.

Thankfully, we are presented with an unprecedented
opportunity over the next few years to transform
how the international system supports sustainable
development. We will be continuing work on a number
of important processes over the next year., They include
the crafting of sustainable development goals and the
post-2015 development agenda, the work of the High-
level Political Forum on Sustainable Development
and — of particular importance to my country — the
proceedings of the third Global Conference on the
Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing
States. In addition, we must make rapid progress
towards a new climate-change agreement in 2015,
which will obviously have enormous implications for
the sustainable development prospects of small islands.
We must work in a coordinated fashion so that those
processes are mutually reinforcing and deliver concrete
results, rather than produce the usual rhetoric. It will be
a challenge, but under the President’s skilled leadership,
I am confident we can succeed.

However, I fear we will come up short of our
ambitions for transformational change if we shy away
from making fundamental reforms in the way the global
economy works. We began a promising conversation
on the matter back in 2008 when the financial crisis
was still fresh in our minds, but as stock prices have
rebounded, our attention has wandered. Let us not
forget that most of the problems that caused the previous
crisis have not been fixed. Those same problems also

undermine sustainable development in many countries
and communities around the world.

In 2009, the Commission of Experts on Reforms
of the International Monetary and Financial System
submitted a report (A/63/838) to this body in which it
indicated that finance, which should be the servant of
the economy, had been promoted to be its master. The
rules of economic governance had been increasingly
written to serve the interests of a shrinking few as they
pursued risky ventures — ventures that often played
havoc with people’s lives and livelihoods. We are
very familiar with some of the results of that system:
stock-market bubbles, currency bubbles and property
bubbles. When they burst, they leave behind enormous
hardship. Even worse, investments in risky activities of
that type compete with more productive investments in
basic infrastructure, renewable energy, health services
and the like — investments that contribute to true
sustainable development.

Our reckless inaction is demonstrated by the
inflation of the latest bubble: the carbon bubble. At
least two thirds of known fossil fuel reserves cannot be
burned if we are to limit the rise in global temperatures
to below two degrees. The cost of renewable energy has
fallen considerably in the past decade. By any measure,
fossil fuels are a very bad long-term investment, yet
that has not prevented trillions of dollars in private
investment and fossil fuel subsidies from pouring into
new infrastructure for the exploration, extraction and
consumption of fossil fuels.

The size of the recent housing bubble has been
estimated at $4 trillion. The carbon bubble could be
more than five times larger. That should be an issue of
serious international concern. How do we allow trillions
of dollars to flow into destructive activities while the
most basic needs of millions go unmet? The reasons are
complicated, but make no mistake that this is a choice.
It is a choice made by international policymakers to
prioritize profits over people.

As the President said earlier this week, “it is
time for us to concede that our efforts at reforming
and revitalizing our Organization need new impetus”
(A/68/PV.5, p. 5). Reclaiming the global economic
system and putting it to work for the good of the people
will be a long and difficult process, but it may be the
only way to reach our sustainable development goals.

The Commission’s 2009 report made many good
recommendations for our consideration, and the first
step must be to bring more transparency and democratic
oversight to economic governance. The most important
decisions are not made in universal bodies, such as the
General Assembly, but rather far away from the small,
the isolated and the vulnerable. Is it any surprise that
the system has failed to meet our needs?To address that
problem, we should start by relaunching the discussion
on global economic governance here in the General
Assembly, as well as by reforming the governance of
the Bretton Woods institutions, so that they are more
inclusive.

The systemic barriers to sustainable development
are formidable, but that has not stopped Nauru
from seeking practical solutions that can be readily
implemented in the short term. An example is the
recently completed Nauru case study on climate change
financing. The study identified a number of steps my
Government and our development partners can take to
make official development assistance more effective.
For example, project-based financing was found to be
markedly less effective than more flexible modalities,
such as general budgetary support.

Another key finding concerned the need for
domestic institution-building. Accessing many sources
of multilateral finance is, quite frankly, beyond the
capacity of my Government, and the traditional
strategy of conducting regional workshops has simply
not worked. We hope to collaborate with development
partners to design sustained programmes with a
significant in-country component, so that there is a
durable transfer of the skills necessary to benefit from
international support mechanisms.

Nauru has also made its best efforts to contribute at
the international level. We have the tremendous honour
of presiding over the Alliance of Small Island States
(AOSlS), a group that has been a leading advocate
for climate action for more than two decades. The
upcoming nineteenth session of the Conference of the
Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention
on Climate Change (COP-19), to be held in Warsaw,
will be important to laying the foundation for an
ambitious agreement in 2015. A key priority for the
COP-19 will be jump-starting near-term mitigation
action through the launch of a process guided by more
technical expertise and focused on energy efficiency
and renewable energy. AOSIS has proposed a very
practical and collaborative approach to rapidly scale
up the implementation of policies and the deployment
of technologies that not only reduce greenhouse gas

emissions but also advance domestic sustainable
development priorities. In the view of AOSIS, that
technical process can prepare the ground for a much
more ambitious post-2020 agreement.

The proposal in no way relieves developed
countries of their international obligation to take the
lead in addressing climate change. They should be held
accountable for fully implementing best practices to
reduce their own emissions, while also providing the
means for implementing adaptation and mitigation
actions in developing countries. The AOSlS proposal
indicates the way to accomplish those objectives.
Establishing an international mechanism to address
loss and damage is also a key priority for AOSlS, as is
mobilizing climate financing and making sure the Green
Climate Fund is ready to accept donor contributions in
2014.

Climate change is the greatest challenge to the
sustainable development of small islands. We must
come to terms with the fact that, owing to our delay,
some grave impacts are now unavoidable. Some will
have security implications. Addressing the security
implications of climate change remains a key priority
for Nauru and the Pacific small island developing
States. I would like to reiterate our proposals for
moving forward.

First, we are calling for the appointment of a
special representative on climate and security to help
expand our understanding of the security dimensions
of climate change. The special representative would
regularly report to the General Assembly and the
Security Council on emerging climate-related security
threats and would facilitate regional cooperation on
cross-border issues. Vulnerable developing countries in
particular could benefit from a special representative
equipped to help them evaluate their security situations
and develop action plans to increase the resilience
of their institutions. At some point in the future, the
special representative could become an invaluable
asset in preventive diplomacy efforts and post-conflict
situations.

Secondly, we are requesting the Secretary-General
to lead a joint task force of all the relevant organs and
specialized agencies to immediately assess the capacity
and resources of the United Nations system to respond
to the anticipated security implications of climate
change. We have heard in countless forums about the
potentially destabilizing effects of climate change, yet
we have only the vaguest idea of what an international
response to those effects would look like. That needs to
change. We must start preparing for the challenges that
lie ahead. As the Secretary-General said at the High-
level Political Forum on Sustainable Development,
“We must strengthen the interface between science and
policy”.

The world’s attention is now focused on the
immense suffering in Syria. On behalf of the people
of Nauru, I would like to offer my condolences to the
millions of people whose lives have been affected by
the Syrian conflict. We are horrified by the scale of
human atrocity there. I am compelled to ask: Do we
always have to wait for well over 100,000 people to
be killed before we can find solutions to restore peace
and security? As the President observed, the mandate
of this body has limitations, and we cannot issue
resolutions that bind countries. The United Nations
invests enormous power in the hands of a tiny minority
of five, which is not so different from global economic
governance being dictated primarily by eight.

Nauru is always striving to improve bilateral
relations. I would like to express my gratitude to
Australia, which has always been an important partner.
We look forward to our continued work with the new
Government as we continue to collaborate on joint
projects that are delivering important benefits in my
country.

Nauru is gratified to note that, with solid
international support and cross-Strait rapprochement,
the Republic of China on Taiwan has increased its
meaningful participation in United Nations specialized
agencies and mechanisms. We continue to encourage
the positive interaction between the two sides of the
Taiwan Strait in the international arena. Furthermore,
I would like to recognize the contributions that Taiwan
has made to helping my country make progress towards
the Millennium Development Goals. We also express
our gratitude to the Governments of New Zealand, the
Russian Federation, Japan, the Republic of Korea and
India; they are all invaluable partners in our joint effort
to bring sustainable development to my island.

As the President of the General Assembly aptly
described in his opening statement, setting the stage
for sustainable development will require introspection,
frank discussion and coming to terms with some hard
truths about the nature of the challenges we face and
the institutions we have at hand to respond. Only by

correctly diagnosing the problems and choosing the
appropriate tools to begin our work will we be able to
reach satisfactory outcomes that benefit us all.