Speech by Ms. Christine McNab
UN Resident Coordinator
2005 World Summit Jordan Forum
30 August 2005
Excellencies,
Ladies & Gentlemen
Allow me first to thank you for joining us today in this special forum which is only two weeks away from the 2005 World Summit.
The Summit is expected to be the largest gathering ever of world leaders, which makes it larger even than the Millennium Summit. The task will also be much tougher than it was in 2000. Instead of just setting targets and assessing how far their pledges have been fulfilled, this time world leaders must come together an agree on collective response to the multiple threats and challenges faced by the people everywhere in this century.
The year 2005 also represents a defining moment for the United Nations. It is not only a year that marks our 60th anniversary. It is also a year in which we are thinking ahead, and engaging in a constructive debate about the future:
- How to defeat poverty and reach the Millennium Development Goals
- How to build a collective security system able to meet our common threats in this century;
- And how to increase respect for human rights in every land.
It is also a time when we are determined to reform the United Nations so that it can more deftly tackle the world issues that confront us.
In the last several months, a great deal of thinking has been done on those issues, the reports of the High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, and of the Millennium Project, offered very thoughtful analysis of the challenges of our time as well as bold, yet practical, proposals on how to deal with them.
The United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Report 2005 “The World at a Cross Road” will focus on aid, trade and security in an unequal world. The Report will be officially launched in September globally, and will be launched in Jordan under the Patronage of H.R.H. Princess Basma bint Talal
The Secretary-General's report "In Larger Freedom: towards development, security and human rights for all" is the key document for the 2005 World Summit, and is the focus of our meeting today. The Report proposes to world leaders a package of reforms that are designed to advance the three great causes of development, security and human rights with equal seriousness and to reshape the United Nations.
Our world faces ranges of threats and challenges. From terrorism and weapons of mass destruction through genocide and civil war to extreme poverty, endemic disease and climate change. All these threats are interlinked and the world needs a comprehensive strategy for dealing with them. Therefore, the UN Secretary-General, in his report, has put forward a carefully crafted and achievable set of policy commitments and institutional reforms that has all the ingredients to form the basis for a global deal to face these challenges.
The global deal proposes the need for:
· a new deal on development, debt reduction and fair trade opportunities for poor countries;
· a reiteration of the principle of the international community's responsibility to protect the weak when their own States are unwilling or unable to do so;
· an affirmation of the need to agree on a comprehensive legal convention on terrorism, ending the political debates over its definition;
· and a call for wide-ranging institutional reform to create more credible UN human rights mechanisms as well as to bring the Security Council and the General Assembly into the 21st century.
The Secretary-General also calls on all countries to do their part to ensure that, between now and the year 2015, the fight against poverty and disease is taken to an unprecedented level. Each developing country should adopt and begin to implement, by next year, a comprehensive national strategy bold enough to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. And each development country should support these efforts with action on aid, trade, and debt relief.
The Report's heading "In Larger Freedom" is taken from the UN Charter. The words encapsulate the Secretary-General's own vision that development, security and human rights are ends in themselves, but also that they reinforce each other, and depend on each other.
Yet, the major reform decisions rest with the Member States, therefore, the world needs to rise to the challenges of today and make this world freer, fairer and safer for all its inhabitants.
World leaders will have an opportunity to make history again.
· if the Summit in September takes decisions that help strengthen our collective security;
· if we make real progress in our fight against poverty, disease and illiteracy;
· if the world provides the means to reach the Millennium Development Goals;
· if governments recognize the centrality of human rights and reform the United Nations to ensure it is up to the job it has to do,
then all the world's people will benefit.
That's why the Summit will be a unique opportunity for the world's leaders to consider the Secretary-General's proposal and make their decisions that will improve the lives of people around the world significantly.
The 2005 World Summit is a once-in-a-generation opportunity. We must act now. The clock is ticking. Agreement is in reach on all of these important proposals, but time is short and there will not be another opportunity for global agreement of all the world's most challenging issues for years to come.
We hope that when world leaders meet in New York, they will set our world decisively on the path of collective action on development, security and human rights for all, with a rejuvenated United Nations as the effective instrument of their common purpose.
Excellencies, Ladies & Gentlemen,
Let us imagine together a world
- Where every child eats.
- Where everyone votes.
- Where every home enjoys clean water.
- Where no unemployed youth picks up a weapon instead of a future.
This is the world that the UN Secretary General is hoping for in his Report. It is within our reach. We have the means at hand to ensure that nearly every country can make good on the promises of the Millennium Development Goals. Our challenge is to deploy those means.
Let me remind you that overcoming poverty and combating the many other threats to our security demands a collective effort, that's why it is essential for us today to have with us representatives of the government, the Lower House, the Upper House, civil society, private sector, media, academia, associations and research centers. We are confident that together we can strive to create a world where every human being lives in dignity, with real hope of a prosperous future.
Finally, allow me to express on behalf of the United Nations, my deep appreciation to the Government of Jordan for all their assistance in the preparation of today's event.
Thank you.