YouSaid · the spoken record

Mia Amor Mottley

lines on the record: 91
first: 2018-09-24
most recent: 2023-09-24
sittings or episodes: 4
sources: un-general-debate

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“but we can save the majority of people who are currently on the front line. Those of us who work on the SDGs believe that, as we work to save the planet, we have to redouble our efforts. I leave Members with one thought. The efforts to provide education, to save people from hunger and to remove gender discrimination are not simply the actions of Governments. They have now equally to be the actions of individual citizens. But Governments must help personalize those SDGs for their citizens. If we can do that, if we can continue to make the case for finance and if we can continue to stay focused on the climate crisis, then yes. we shall see a better world and we can shine the light on the future of many.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“That is why I ask: Will we take the road to be able to get to the gates, only to find that we are too late and the gates have closed. They will be open for some, but they will be closed for many. Vision without action. Nelson Mandela told us. is just a dream, and action without vision just passes the time. But vision with action can change the world. Our citizens believe that we come into a talk shop when we come here. We here know that it is potentially different, but it will be different only when those of us who have the responsibility to act on behalf of Governments can ask their Governments to come to the point of the decisions that we need to make to provide the funding, the tools and the solidarity to rebuild the trust that this debate calls for. If we can do that, then we will not save all.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“If we do not change how we do our business; if we do not recognize that the Security Council needs to put itself in a position not to speak to climate change, but to protect us against the climate crisis — because it is as much of a crisis as the war in Ukraine or the wars in Africa or the instability and conflict elsewhere in the world — and if we do not take a proactive approach, then we truly shall be victims of it. I believe that reform is critical at this point. But what I believe does not matter. What matters is the action of each and every country in that respect. Will we always be in a position of flux? No. There is hope because human beings want to survive, but the problem is that those whose actions we most need may be so confident in their survival that they do not act early enough for us.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“I do not want to prey on the Assembly’s time anymore, but suffice it to say that we have reached a point where we must give thanks for the progress made, but recommit ourselves. The mission was never simply to make progress; the mission is to be able to save the planet and to give the people of the world the best opportunity for life that is necessary for them as human beings; to be able to save the biodiversity of this world; to be able to save the soils of this world that must nurture the food that we eat; to be able to allow us to have access to safe water.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“There must be transparency and there must be moral strategic leadership if we are to build the team to save the planet and to save and attain the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in today’s world. There are many other things that we can discuss. We support the United Nations accepting the responsibility for tax. Why? Because as quickly as the world has been able to find a mechanism for a global minimum corporate tax. it has not found a mechanism to be able to inflate the financing opportunities available to developing countries. That cannot be. We know how to run fast in one set of circumstances when it suits one set of people, yet we run very slow when it matters to billions of people and their access to life and livelihood.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“It cannot be that the Caribbean Community, which needs a mechanism for stabilization in an energy crisis, cannot have access to the concessionary prices that the Government and the people of Venezuela are prepared to make available to their neighbours to minimize the suffering. How is it possible for Chevron and the European Union to access the oil and gas of Venezuela, while the people of the Caribbean cannot access it at the 35 per cent discount offered by the people of Venezuela. How is it possible that we should have to carry a cost of an additional 4 per cent of the gross domestic product of my own country simply because the rules that allow for one do not allow for the other?”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“We must bring resolution to those issues, and they are not incapable of resolution. When the United States of America and many countries in Europe determined that they were recognizing President Guaido without there being a presidency for him to assume because he faced no election, the members of the Caribbean Community came to this institution and met with the Secretary- General and with the representatives of a number of countries. Little by little, we saw people apply their hearts to wisdom and to recognize that the Charter of the United Nations did not allow for that kind of unconstitutional conferral of presidency on anyone. I say today that there must be transparency.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“We left Cuba last week, and what the people of Cuba are being asked to face on a daily basis because of a designation by a dying presidency is wrong. The voices of the global community, many of whose members have been the beneficiaries of Cuban assistance, need to stand united and to say that we cannot fight those battles when we need all hands on deck to save the planet. The artificial division of who is right and who is wrong and who is good and who is bad in the eyes of those who are powerful cannot continue to be the way in which this world functions. Let us turn to Venezuela. Oil prices are likely to go over $100. and those small countries that do not produce oil will be the victims of it. as will our people, including in large countries like the United States of America.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“But even when we put in the institutional support that Haiti may need, what we have not necessarily accounted for is the continued reduction in the numbers of the police, largely because of persons fleeing the land for greater opportunity and being facilitated in so doing. This cannot wait much longer, and I hope that those who constitute the members of the Security Council will recognize that they cannot use Haiti as a pawn because the Haitian people have suffered for too long and at the hands of too many. I turn now to the history of Cuba. That Cuba can help so many in this world, and yet is the continued victim of a blockade of over 60 years, but worse than that, designated as a State sponsor of terrorism, is wrong, wrong, wrong.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“As we heard the Secretary-General say in this Hall, politics is the art of compromise. Diplomacy is the art of compromise. I say simply to those who act in the name of the people of Haiti that there must be compromise in constituting that Government of national unity, if we are to build the bridge to provide the security to stop women from being raped, stop people from being killed and stop people from being affected by cholera and other public health diseases. I want to thank the Governments of Kenya and Rwanda, which, from as far back as 12 months ago. committed to providing the kind of institutional support and leadership that the Haitian police need.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“I shall not go into all of the details, but in my own region, in Africa, in Latin America and in the Pacific, there are too many examples where we fall short. I speak specifically now first and foremost about Haiti. The world owes Haiti a resolution. It is not a matter of options. The world owes Haiti a resolution. A year ago. we knew that the gas riots had led to serious instability, and 12 months later we cannot get out of this building and into the support that the people of Haiti need. There is no doubt a need for legitimacy with respect to the Government of Haiti, and therefore a national unity Government may well be the only bridge that can carry us to safety. The Caribbean Community has appointed three former Prime Ministers as an eminent persons group.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“We had the Bridgetown Initiative, and the Bridgetown Initiative has allowed us to keep the debate going because we need to change — as I said Monday morning in this Hall — the belief that we can have short-term money financing development and building resilience. I shall not go into all of the details because we do not have the time, but suffice it to say that we are committed to the twin battle of saving people and planet, and to ask us to do anything else is a false construct that does not work. The markets have to be educated as to why long-term capital is the only salvation for developing countries and. ultimately, for people and the planet. Year after year, we talk about the need for global moral strategic leadership.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“We were about to write to the leaders of the European Union last year on the issue of reparatory justice. We paused because of the Russian incursion into Ukraine, but it seems as though there are those who do not want to make peace, there or elsewhere in the world. And therefore we have to lift our finger off the pause button and resume the discussions because the development deficit caused by centuries of exploitation is now affecting our capacity to build the resilience that is necessary in our nations. Similarly. I want to express my thanks, because a year ago we did not have the Paris Agenda for People and the Planet.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“In our small island States, we value education, health care and the dignity of life, and therefore it will be anathema for us to tell our citizens that we do not have the space to provide for them those things that were the promise of independence. That is compounded by the failure of the developed world to accept that reparatory justice is a solemn obligation that we must confront. The conversation King Charles III held at the opening of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, when he was Prince Charles, was a conversation whose time had come — that of reparatory justice. But it cannot be a slow conversation, taken up when people feel like it has to be a conversation in which equal partners discuss. It cannot be an act of charity of those who simply feel that their conscience must be cleansed.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“Today we have a World Bank that, for the first time, acknowledges that there should be clauses to suspend debt — “debt pause clauses”, as they call them. Our battle now is to ensure that those provisions that pause clauses are not just for future instruments, but for existing instruments. If not. they will not help many. We have made progress, but there is still much to be done. The issues of debt sustainability cannot be left on the sidelines, particularly with the number of countries — more than 60 — facing debt row today, as we speak, because of the polycrises and because countries are being forced to choose between development and the building of resilience to fight climate.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“I therefore ask my friends to ensure that we summon the will. We listened to the Prime Minister of the Netherlands just now. and he reminded us ably that time is not on our side. And if time is not on our side, what must we do? The truth is. we have made some progress. Two years ago. the International Monetary Fund did not have a mechanism to focus on the cause of the problems that led to massive macroeconomic instability. We now have the establishment of the Resilience and Sustainability Trust, which, for the first time, will make funds available to middle-income countries that are vulnerable — 20-year money with a 10 and a half-year moratorium. A year ago. the President of the World Bank was questioning whether there was a climate crisis.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“The notion that we can preserve global public goods only with public money ignores the fact that we have seen for the past 50 years the absolute dominance of the capitalist markets lead into a consolidation of wealth. For that reason, their ability to be able to play that role must be examined by the rest of us. We cannot continue to put the interests of a few before the lives of many. I ask us today truly to pause because what keeps ringing in my head is that simple phrase: “Do not fail us now. Do not fail us now.” And that phrase can come from that little boy or girl who is a victim of hunger, one of the 575 million people last year. That plea can equally come from those who lost families in the multiple crises across the world in the past few years. That plea can come from small States that may not exist in the future.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“And by extension, therefore, they must take responsibility. We can go no further without an engagement of the oil and gas companies that is meaningful and credible, and we need to stop talking about it and just simply ensure that that kind of conversation can happen. But it is not just the oil and gas companies. We have nothing against them. We do not want to bankrupt them, but their actions continue to have implications for too many of our people. Their actions are equally bolstered by what I call the “FIT group”: the financial institutions, the insurance companies and the transport companies. They get a bye or a pass because they are invisible to the transactions and the activity that lead to the problems that the world is facing. But they too are as responsible and need to step up to the plate.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“We ask that question recognizing that Al is not in the immediate focal point of many because the drama and the crises that surround climate are taking up all of the oxygen, literally, in the world. Those people who died in Libya recently were going about their business. They had aspirations. They had business that they were hoping to do. families that they were trying to protect. And in the flash of an eye. all of that came to an end. and not because we did not expect it or anticipate it. The records of the multinational companies that are engaged in fossil fuels will show that they have known for a considerable period of time the consequences of their actions. And while they themselves are not the immediate cause, the absence of technology to be able to limit what they are emitting is the cause.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“Our democracy cannot survive if we do not have the same facts, but yet we live in a world where the generation of fake news is almost a daily occurrence and where people act on those premises without consideration for whether the news is true or not. The role that artificial intelligence (Al) and generative artificial intelligence will play in our world must be for good purposes and not evil, but if we are to ensure that is the case, then an appropriate framework for regulatory action must be put in place. We therefore support the actions of the Secretary- General. recognizing that the question will come one day from some, as to whether we sought to preserve our democracy or whether we allowed it to crumble and whether we have failed ourselves as individual citizens of the world.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“Are we going to be too late for the SDGs that are really the promise of development and the promise of the conferral of dignity on our people? We have today to determine what is the will of this organ, comprised of the Member States, to make the fundamental governance changes that will deliver in the third decade of the twenty-first century. Our world, as everyone knows, is replete with issues and I do not need to stand here and recount them in detail, for we have heard them in almost every speech delivered from this rostrum. But what is the issue is whether we can summon the determination that is required of us to make the changes that are appropriate to the age in which we live.”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“Those are not my words. They are the words of Rocky Dawuni. a famous reggae artiste from Ghana, nominated for awards multiple times. But his words ring true because, in a very real sense, are we going to tread the roads, only to be told that it is too late? Too late for us to save as many as we can from the climate crisis? Too late for us to save as many as we can from the conflicts of war? Too late for us to be able to provide the food that so many need as we reflect on the fact that more people are likely to be hungry in this world in 2030 than in 2015? Or as we get to the basic numbers that 735 million people suffered chronic hunger last year at a time when so many others had so much to throw away and to use?”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“I should like at the outset to congratulate my dear brother from Trinidad and Tobago on his assumption of the office of the presidency of the General Assembly. I would also like to thank the Secretary-General for his continued determination and for holding us and the rest of the world to the principles that are sacred to this institution. The truth is that the speech that he delivered at the beginning of this session of the General Assembly (see A/78/PV.4) can be adopted wholesale by the Government and people of Barbados because it reflects our aspirations, and it reflects our view of the current status of the world. I asked myself on Monday night, as we met to determine the halfway point of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): How many roads do we have to walk just to make it to the door, only to be told that the door is closed?”
2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)
“With the power of the pen, we can impose natural disaster and pandemic clauses in our debt arrangements, and we can change the capital that is available to multilateral development banks so as to remove current barriers to us fighting poverty. With those commitments, we can make a difference in today’s world. Let us do so, recognizing that a world that reflects an imperialistic order, hypocrisy and a lack of transparency will not achieve that mission, but one that gives us freedom, transparency and a level playing field will make that definable difference.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“Therefore, let us move to the task with dispatch — not to make sound bites but to have difficult conversations to secure the peace of the world and the prosperity of our people and to underpin those with a love for humankind, the original purpose that this Organization was formed to achieve. In the words of that same song: let us lend a hand to life, for it is the greatest gift of all. We cannot pretend day by day that someone somewhere else is going to make that change. This is our family, this is our world and this is our time to make that defining difference. Many of the things that are put before us today do not require money, but they require a commitment and political will.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“I ask us to recognize that those commitments on loss and damage and that granular detail matching commitment to capacity are absolutely critical if we are to make serious progress in saving our world. We know that our world needs to be saved. I want to salute Denmark for its commitment on Tuesday to offer $13 million towards a loss and damage fund, because it represents the first acknowledgement by a North Atlantic country that there is a justified need and justice in the demand for that loss and damage claim. I ask us to recommit ourselves to the big matters and to recognize that, if we do not speak truth to our population or explain and have the mature conversations rather than relying on headlines and sound bites, we will find a disconnect between those who are governed and those who govern.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“We must pause and get it right. Our small States are making commitments that the world wants to hear. However, when those commitments are undermined by the inability to supply the electric cars or batteries necessary to sustain renewable energy, then we know we have a problem. That is why natural gas has been viewed as a bridge to clean energy. But when the very access to natural gas is also affected, one understands better why emerging market countries in the Caribbean, including my own, and in Africa have determined that they cannot abandon access to their own natural gas resources until they are assured of having the capacity to sustain their populations. That is where the rubber meets the road.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“Today the people of Guadeloupe and Puerto Rico, and yesterday those of the Turks and Caicos Islands — and little do we know what will happen in Bermuda — face the difficulty of disruption by Hurricane Fiona. This morning I received news of difficulties concerning our own natural gas supply in my country, and I suspect that others will experience difficulties in this part of the world due to the facilities and installations being affected in Puerto Rico. This comes at a time when access to that commodity has already been affected by the war in Ukraine and the decision by Russia to cease the supply to Europe. When we match this with the reality that we have not planned in granular form our capacity to meet the commitments we have made for net zero — I am a big defender of net zero, as the Assembly knows — then I see trouble ahead.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“It is that agenda that speaks to the reform of the Bretton Woods architecture. We have asked, and will ask, countries and people to join it because we believe that, unless we take responsibility for ourselves and accept that we are the world, we will not see a change. As I come to the issue of climate change, which will dominate over the next 45 to 48 days as we head to Egypt, let us remember that the trust that is needed to propel us to fight the great causes of our time will not be won by breaching promises. The developing world, in particular the small island developing States, went to Paris and agreed to a global compact thanks to one of its key aspects, the promise concerning loss and damage.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“We are no different today. We have incurred debt for the coronavirus disease and the climate, and now in order to fight this difficult moment of inflationary crisis and uncertain supply of goods. Why, therefore, must the developing world now seek to find money within seven to 10 years when others had the benefit of longer time frames to repay? Finally, I want to deal with the issue very quickly and to impress on the Assembly that all of those things have been the subject not just of idle thought or arbitrary comment on our part. We had the good fortune in Barbados of collecting a large number of persons from civil society and academia at the end of July and the beginning of August, and we settled on what we have come to call the Bridgetown Agenda, which we believe to be an agenda for peace and prosperity inspired by the love of humankind.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“Because they are fundamentally the right to development and the right to give each person the ability to live a good life. We cannot get lost in the conflict, the climate crisis and the pandemic and forget what our mission is. I commend those that continue to remember that and ask that we reach a global compact. Financing for development cannot be short-term; it needs to be at least 30-year financing. The world recognized that when it allowed Britain to participate in the refinancing of its World War bonds, which were only paid off eight years ago, 100 years after the First World War started. Or when it allowed Germany to cap its debt service at the equivalent of 5 per cent of its exports, conscious that the cataclysmic experience of war would not have allowed it to finance reconstruction while repaying debts incurred for war.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“I am conscious that will depend on more countries seeding the Trust with capital and more countries agreeing perhaps to allow their special drawing rights to be used for that purpose, just as we asked them to allow those special drawing rights to be used to enable multilateral development banks to significantly increase the money that is available to countries, particularly at this time when we are on the verge of a debt crisis, with more than 45 countries facing the heat of the moment due to the increased cost of capital resulting from the monetary policies being put in place to fight the virulent cancer of inflation. We want to thank those countries that have come together to help us continue financing the Sustainable Development Goals, which we link to the global public goods. Why?”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“It is the first recognition that middle-income countries should be able to access funding irrespective of per capita income, depending on their climate vulnerability. To those who recommend this to the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, we say that they should not simply recommend it for countries following a disaster but also for countries before a disaster. Every dollar that is spent on research, as they have done, saves $7 in expenditure avoided, not to mention the lives saved. We do not want only to pay the undertaker, we want to save lives. I asked the IMF to reflect on the fact that the Resilience and Sustainability Trust may need to be delinked from quotas if it is to be effective.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“Of course, as I said to the United States Congress last week, we must also address countries’ needs in relation to, believe it or not, the right to a bank account, because countries across the world are being denied the right to access correspondent banking, leaving their citizens and economies to function as financial pariahs in a world that is supposed to be globally interdependent in terms of the movement of capital. The provision of that funding to promote public goods at a global level is critical if we are to make a difference going forward and achieve the peace, love and prosperity to which I referred earlier. I want to commend the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for its rapid financing mechanism at the beginning of the pandemic crisis and for the Resilience and Sustainability Trust that is soon to be launched.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“That funding would be used to address the needs of countries, whether in relation to climate stability, resilience and adaptation; the protection of biodiversity, both on land and in our waters; the protection of public health against the next pandemic, either a slow-motion pandemic of antimicrobial resistance or another that we have not even contemplated; the provision of education for all of our citizens, because to remain on Earth without the benefit of education is to be sentenced to life imprisonment from a young age; access to electricity, given that 600 million people in Africa are without it; or access to broadband, the equivalent in our age to the right to knowledge and prosperity.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“I will speak more to this tomorrow, but I want to say simply that, if multinational companies have contributed to the global public risk — or if they benefit from the solutions for global public goods — then they ought to contribute to its resolution through a small percentage of their profits.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“Today we speak about all countries and about this hot summer — from wildfires in California to heat waves in North America and Europe, waterways in Europe being unpassable by vessels, floods in China and, above all, the apocalyptic floods in Pakistan, for which our hearts go out to the people of that country. It simply cannot continue. Any attempt to deny that the climate crisis has humanmade origins is an attempt to delude ourselves and an admission that we want to be accomplices in the continued death, loss and damage that ensue for the people who are victims of the crisis. Our people demand better of us. We believe that today the most appropriate place to deal with global public goods is in fact the World Bank Group.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“Maybe if we referred to that continuously, we would remind ourselves that the purpose of reconstruction and development must be appropriate to the century in which we live, a century that not only demands of us the eradication of poverty, which remains a noble goal, but equally demands of us the protection of global public goods. All of us here have suffered as a result of the weakest among us being unable to rise to the occasion to protect public health. All of us now know what it is to be on the front line of the climate crisis. Years ago, we spoke about small island developing States being on the front line because we were the canaries in the coal mine.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“As I said last year, we live in a world in which the disparity in income is too great, in which some are even disproportionately and egregiously benefiting from crises. We must ask ourselves, therefore, whether the time has not come for a review of the settlement of the Bretton Woods institutions, which no longer serve in the twenty-first century the purpose that they served in the twentieth century, when they were catering to one quarter of the nation States that are now members of this institution. We ask ourselves whether the time has not come for our voices to collectively demand such a review through the boards of directors of the respective institutions. Why do I say that? The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development is really what the World Bank is.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“I simply say to the people of the United States of America not to be short-sighted in their goals, for in this hemisphere peace and prosperity is the province of all. Yes, there may be problems on both sides, but there is nothing that justifies further hardship for people because of ideological differences. If there are human rights differences, let us resolve them, as we have chosen to do with mighty countries across the world without the imposition of sanctions. Fairness and transparency demand it of us. I also want to talk about other solutions that we believe can alter our condition without imposing the burden of taxation that is unreasonably sown on the populations of the world.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“Any attempt to increase fuel prices by 150 per cent in any part of the world would be met with great consternation and anger by populations on fixed incomes. But when that happens in one of the poorest countries in the world that has been trying for almost 230 years to find stability, against the backdrop of the exploitation that it has faced, we ask ourselves what it will take for the world to stand up and be counted for the people of Haiti. Similarly, we ask for the same transparency with regard to the removal of the blockade against the people of Cuba. This is the thirtieth year in which a resolution has called for the removal of that blockade, but the blockade has been there for 60 years.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“That is why I use the language of that great anthem We Are the World, because there comes a time when we must heed a certain call, when the world must come together as one. Yes, regrettably, there are too many people dying in conflict and as a result of the economic crisis, and the hand that we must lend to life comes in the decisions that we must make to reform and to fight for peace and not to fight to sustain war wherever it is found around the world; to fight for reform so that our citizens are not made victims of poverty due to the triple crisis of climate change, the pandemic and now the conflict that is causing the inflationary pressures that have regrettably led to people taking circumstances into their own hands, as we have seen in Haiti in the last week.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“We ask that the determination be made by those countries, who must understand that if we are to move from possibilities to realities, we must embrace a transparent framework that allows our peoples, who are losing faith in their institutions and in the governance of the world, to understand that fairness means something — the ability for all to have a voice — and that we cannot only speak to it in the corridors of democracy within the nation State, and indeed it will be meaningful only when it is also reflected in our international community. If I perhaps have one simple theme today, it is that fairness and togetherness are what is needed to bring about peace, love and prosperity in the world. No, that is not romanticism. Those are hard realities that simply require decisions.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“Therefore, the reform must not simply address the Council’s composition but also remove the veto. We also believe that if the Group of Seven and the Group of 20, in their capacity as the world’s informal governance subcommittee, are to be fair, they must recognize that we can no longer accept that persons have to call year after year for the inclusion of the people of Africa and of African descent. For how can the world have at its core a subcommittee that excludes more than 1.5 billion people of the world and then expect it to reflect fairness and transparency in its decision-making?”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“We must decide whether we want to stand for peace, love and prosperity, knowing that we choose to do so at the most difficult time and from the most difficult, deep place we have seen in a very long time. I believe it is possible, but it is up to us to turn possibilities into realities. What do I mean? We have been speaking for a long time about the reform of this institution and the recognition that only one quarter of the States now in existence were present when this institution was formed. Earlier this week, President Biden spoke of the need to reform the Security Council (see A/77/PV.6). We echo that, but we go further because we believe that a Security Council that retains the power of the veto in the hands of a few will still lead us to war, as we have seen this year.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“I had hoped that we would have seen improvement, but I am now convinced more than ever that there comes a time when we must heed a certain call, like the one made when others before us, when I was a student, sought to fight the great famine in Africa and came together as one world to make that definable difference. Last year I asked us to do the same (see A/76/PV.12) and it may be, in the words of Jimmy Cliff, that we have to keep trying, trying and trying, but the world must stand up if our citizens are to live a better life. I say this today because it is easy to come and only complain. However, the truth is that it is within our power to make that difference and that definable change.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“Allow me, at the outset, to congratulate Mr. Csaba Korosi on his election as President of the General Assembly and to thank Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed for their courageous leadership and commitment in very difficult times. This year we come together again and the battles continue; indeed, they have grown. What we have seen over the course of the summer and the course of this year with the war in Ukraine are the concomitant consequences for ordinary people all over the globe with respect to inflation, the scarce supply of goods and quite simply hardship. The struggle for access to food continues, regrettably, to be the environment in which we live.”
2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)
“No war is worth it. No profit is large enough to be worth the price of war or the destruction of our planet. The people of Barbados, and I, as their leader, choose to honour our legacy, our great civilization and our freedom fighters who fought for better. Barbados chooses to fight for the path of peace, prosperity, planetary protection and hope. Barbados chooses love of self, love of neighbour, love of planet and love as a virtue. Barbados chooses a spirit of love, courage, hope and brotherhood for all humankind. We pray that everyone here will make the same decision.”
2019-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 74 (2019)
“The only way that the mission of this entity can be guaranteed is if, country by country — and multilaterally, I might add — we stand on principle, the principles that have protected us from another great war for the past 74 years — and thank God for those principles and our avoidance of that great war — and that have inspired us to continually work to achieve and maintain human dignity and prosperity, as we set about meeting the Sustainable Development Goals. The baton is now with us. It is our turn. Will we hold it firmly and continue the race to help the marginalized, those unseen and without voice, truly the forgotten of this world, or will we drop the baton — even when we know better from the experiences of the past century, during which so many died needlessly? My country and region are clear about where we stand.”
2019-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 74 (2019)
“As Dylan Thomas wrote, “We will rage, rage against the ... light [and] not go silent into that good [or, should I say, dark] night”. The world is at a crossroads, and we continue to be reminded of it as recently as this morning in the statements we have heard. The United Nations will survive only if it remains relevant to the needs of our people and to finding solutions, not to all the problems of our time, but to the great problems and challenges to humankind — saving where we live, living with others with respect and dignity in peace and supporting equality, not the dominance of any one race, religion or sect.”
2019-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 74 (2019)