YouSaid · the spoken record

Alhaji Sir Dawda KAIRABA JAWARA

lines on the record

64

first

1978-09-24

most recent

1978-09-24

sittings or episodes

1

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un-general-debate

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1. “It is therefore in the light of these circumstances and considering the magnitude of the task that the Sahelian countries came together in September 1973 to form CILSS to tackle collectively the immediate effects of endemic drought and to work out a medium- and long-term strategy and programme for the rehabilitation and development of the Sahel region. 14. I am happy to say here that the United Nations, through FAO and the United Nations Sahelian Office played a vital role in that initiative. In view of the level and scope of the assistance required to undertake the planning of those programmes, in the first instance, as well as the amount of investment funds required for their realization, it was necessary that the international community be involved in those activities.”

   1978-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 33 (1978)

2. “The scope of the Sahel’s water potential can best be appreciated if we recall that the River Niger discharges 32 billion cubic metres of water per year at Niamey, the Senegal River discharges 24 billion cubic metres at Bakel, Lake Chad receives 43 billion cubic metres from its main tributaries, the Logone and the Shari, and the Gambia River discharges 9 billion cubic metres of water a year into the Atlantic Ocean. At the same time the Sahel’s irrigable land potential has been put at more than 2.3 million hectares. 13.”

   1978-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 33 (1978)

3. “The objective of regional food self-sufficiency in the Sahel cannot be achieved, however, as long as we continue to depend on occasional seasonal rainfall that is both too erratic and insufficient to meet the crop production needs in the region. The solution of this problem demands not only a marked improvement in rain-fed agriculture in the area but also a significant and rapid expansion of irrigated agriculture through the harnessing and use of the vast water resources of the region, including its enormous reserves of underground water.”

   1978-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 33 (1978)

4. “It is an economic choice because in reality the Sahel is a cereal-producing region par excellence and has the land and water resources to produce cereal grains not only for itself but also for other regions of the world and thereby to be in a position to contribute its quota to the resolution of the world food crisis. Finally, it is a social choice because it is based on the fact that agriculture will for a long time to come continue to be the basis of our economies and the main employer of our peoples. Above all else, if we give food self-sufficiency such prominence, it is because people are still hungry and malnourished in the Sahel 12.”

   1978-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 33 (1978)

5. “We have had to pay for greater increases in the cost of imported materials, particularly manufactured goods, agricultural inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides, and cereal grains. 11. While large-scale food aid and the importation of food grains, especially in years of drought, have ensured the region’s survival, the objective of regional food self-sufficiency in the Sahel is a political, economic and social option for its peoples. It is a political choice because it is recognized that during any global food crisis it will be the poor nations, and the poorest ones in these countries, that will suffer most.”

   1978-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 33 (1978)

6. “The destruction of the already fragile ecosystem has also been further accelerated and the relentless advance of the desert set in train. At the height of the Sahelian drought in 1972 and 1973 the desert had advanced by scores of kilometres in some areas. Agricultural production in most of the Sahelian countries during the past decade has either declined or stagnated. In recent years all these countries have faced tremendous hardships, and without the assistance of the international community many more lives of human beings and of livestock would have been lost. In addition, like most of the developing countries of the third world, our States suffered greater penalties from inflation than the more developed parts of the world.”

   1978-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 33 (1978)

7. “But that concept of basic needs must be related to the specific and dynamic circumstances of each individual country and region. Therefore, as the current Chairman of the Conference of Heads of State and Government of the Permanent Inter-State Committee on Drought Control in the Sahel [CILSS], I should like to take this opportunity to acquaint this Assembly with the grave situation in that region of West Africa resulting from consecutive years of drought. In the Sahel, with its fragile ecology, the problems of under-development have been exacerbated by the spectre of nearly a decade of persistent drought. 10. The recent droughts in the Sahel have resulted in the loss of several thousands of human lives, a severe decimation of the livestock population in the area and a significant drop in the level of production of food crops.”

   1978-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 33 (1978)

8. “Yet it is also true that, in spite of these achievements, the disparities between the living standards of people in developed and in developing countries are continuing to widen, and today many millions of people the world over are permanently trapped in a situation of absolute poverty. There is thus a clear case for concerted action to be taken by the international community at large, in collaboration with the Governments of the countries concerned, to improve the living conditions of the poorest peoples of the world and to meet their basic needs. That is the challenge facing all of us today. 9. The introduction of the basic-needs concept as a new approach to development, particularly in developing countries, is an initial promise that the challenge is being responded to.”

   1978-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 33 (1978)

9. “I have made those preliminary remarks simply to demonstrate that man has the vision and the capacity to resolve the world’s problems if he has the necessary political will to do so, and that the prescription for the solution of contemporary global problems-especially those relating to hunger, malnutrition and disease, human rights and racial discrimination-was appropriately entrenched in the United Nations Charter. 7: On this occasion I should like to focus attention on the area of economic justice in the hope that this Session will mark a major turning-point in the quest for the attainment of this noble objective. 8. There is no doubt whatsoever that in the past two decades some progress has been made in the area of economic development.”

   1978-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 33 (1978)

10. “The horror of the nations and States is thus reflected in the objectives and principles of the Charter of the United Nations, which are primarily “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war”. A major achievement by the draughtsmen of the Charter is the endowment of succeeding generations of mankind with an instrument which, if properly used and its tenets respected by all States, will guarantee the three objectives of the maintenance of peace, the respecting of human rights, and the promotion of socio-economic progress for peoples all over the world. 6.”

    1978-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 33 (1978)

11. “Today as I speak to you the wind of political change in Africa is losing its historic momentum of the 1960s as decolonization approaches its final phase, while the economic storm that has been shaking the world since 1973 has not shown any sign of abating. Indeed, it is this worsening economic crisis, rooted in the unsatisfied basic needs of the vast majority of mankind, that constitutes the greatest threat to world peace today -- that seemingly elusive yet noble objective which inspired the creation of the United Nations. In 1945 the world emerged from a war whose devastation has never been equalled in the history of conflicts between nations.”

    1978-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 33 (1978)

12. “Paradoxically, the great progress made in international politics in the same period, which significantly coincided with the first 10 years of the Organization of African Unity [OAU], was not matched in the sphere of economic relations between nations. On the one hand, Africa had emerged from colonial domination and was approaching total liberation at a pace that could be neither slowed down nor halted; and, on the other hand, international relations, hitherto characterized by super-Power politics and conflicts operating within a dangerous framework of bipolar interest blocs, was evolving into a system of general horizontal co-operation in the developed world, of the Northern Hemisphere. 5.”

    1978-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 33 (1978)

13. “Nearly five years ago I had the opportunity to address this Assembly at its sixth special session when, for the first time, the whole world, both industrialized and developing countries, rich and poor nations, big and small Powers, suddenly discovered their collective interdependence in the face of a universal economic threat that was triggered primarily by an unprecedented increase in the prices of indispensable international trade commodities. The gravity of that situation was accentuated by the total unpreparedness of the international community, which, in the preceding decade, had failed to recognize the urgency of changing the existing economic order in a manner that was fair, just and equitable to the majority of humanity. 4.”

    1978-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 33 (1978)

14. “May I first of all extend to you, Mr. President, my sincerest congratulations on your election as President of the thirty-third session of the United Nations General Assembly. At a time when African and third-world values can and should influence and contribute more effectively to contemporary world leadership and international affairs, we are confident in the knowledge that your long and brilliant record and experience in international affairs and deep knowledge of the United Nations system, is well as the quality of your collaborators in the General Committee and in the Secretariat, inspire confidence that this session will usher in a dynamic and rational step into a new era of international co-operation. 3.”

    1978-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 33 (1978)