YouSaid · the spoken record

Bharrat Jagdeo

lines on the record: 96
first: 1999-09-24
most recent: 2011-09-24
sittings or episodes: 6
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

“From now on, I will watch the proceedings in this Hall from afar, but for all of my invocations to the United Nations to do better, it remains the place where noble ambitions are pursued. I wish the United Nations and its Members all the best for a secure, prosperous and socially just future. On behalf of my country and people, I express our full support for the Organization and for strengthening its capacity to better fulfil the many mandates entrusted to it.”
2011-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 66 (2011)
“Today’s developed world needs to catch up with the realization that the world has changed, and it is in its vital national interests to change its approach to development issues. Food security is not just about people in poor countries; prices in Europe and the United States are rising too. Energy insecurity will hit today’s developed countries and destroy their competitiveness as rapidly as it will hit the developing world. Resource insecurity is already driving up imported inflation in many developed countries and elsewhere. Climate insecurity could be the tipping point for today’s Powers to be relegated to history, with all the suffering that would entail for their peoples. So the narrative is changing and I hope that we will rise to the challenge.”
2011-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 66 (2011)
“To address these challenges, the United Nations and other international institutions need to modernize fast, and the international system needs to correct the inconsistencies between aid, trade and climate policies as I have outlined. In part, this means making the Security Council more democratic, transparent and legitimate. Fifty-four African countries have no permanent seat on the Council; neither do the 33 countries that comprise the Latin American and Caribbean region. Guyana strongly supports early 11-50702 18 reform of the Security Council through an expansion in both the permanent and non-permanent categories and enhanced representation of developing countries.”
2011-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 66 (2011)
“Existing pledges on greenhouse gas emissions under the Copenhagen Accord will not contain global temperature rises within limits that will avert catastrophic climate change, and some States will face extinction. Moreover, the anaemic delivery on financial pledges made at Copenhagen and formalized in the Cancún agreements is leading to a disastrous breakdown in trust between the developed and developing world. The prospects for reaching an internationally legally binding agreement on climate change at the seventeenth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Durban, South Africa, would appear rather bleak. There is therefore an urgent need for high-order political leadership to re-energize the climate change process and deliver credible results.”
2011-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 66 (2011)
“Guyana will be supportive of all peoples who struggle for democracy and dignity. This also means that we need to rapidly upgrade our response to supporting development, food, energy and resource security. We need to see the Doha trade round not as some zero-sum game between the developed and developing world, but as a critical component to enable the world to meet the urgent challenges that an increasingly prosperous, growing population will present. We need to redouble our efforts to meet the Millennium Development Goals, and to defeat non-communicable diseases. Guyana therefore welcomes this week’s meeting on non-communicable diseases and the adoption of the Political Declaration (resolution 66/2, annex). Finally, we need to move beyond the global insanity that is our response to climate insecurity.”
2011-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 66 (2011)
“But that means consistency in our efforts to address all forms of insecurity. We need to support peaceful peoples everywhere to assert their basic rights to physical security and development. The global response to the Arab Spring and other peace movements across the Middle East has been remarkable for its inconsistency. Guyana supports the right of the Palestinian people to full statehood and urges the acceleration of the negotiations to achieve this. Palestinian rights and blood are as valuable and important as those of people everywhere else. I urge all Members to support the draft resolution when it comes before this body. Guyana was delighted to co-sponsor resolution 65/308 that resulted in the entry of South Sudan into this General Assembly. But we need to do much more.”
2011-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 66 (2011)
“Pursuing this integrated response to our global challenges presents unparalleled opportunities for peoples across today’s developing world. The food we need, the energy we generate, the minerals and other commodities from which we grow our economies, along with our forests and other land that can be the drivers of climate solutions, are all largely in the developing world. With the right international action, the developing world can lead the globe in the creation of the transformational shift we need to see. Importantly, within the United Nations, we already have many of the entities we need to solve these problems in an integrated way. That realization should motivate us to understand that by next year’s United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, we can start to make the progress that is necessary.”
2011-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 66 (2011)
“That sounds an impossible task, but I would argue that it is not. There are solutions to enable those opportunities to be grasped today, and the United Nations can provide the platform for making the changes that are needed. We can do that if we draw motivation from the realization that the idea of integrated sustainable development, where we optimize our response to the interlinked security challenges, is not some abstraction for environmentalists. It is not a piece of rhetoric about a theoretical better future. Instead, it is an essential and specific call to action that has the potential to be the key global breakthrough of our time. It can change the global paradigm of development in a way that enables us to address the interconnected security challenges we face in the world today.”
2011-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 66 (2011)
“And the fact that we are not treating it as an emergency will be viewed by history as the biggest derogation of responsibility by societies and Governments to ever take place. How can we rapidly change that situation before we run out of time? Those four challenges represent both opportunities and difficulties. The difficulties are obvious, but they are opportunities in the sense that we have enough land, innovation and human ingenuity to feed the world. We have enough clean energy potential to power future prosperity. We have enough resources to provide the foundations for economic growth. We know that to avert climate change means using fossil 17 11-50702 fuels and land in the right way. Once we start realizing those opportunities, we can create new platforms for peace, development and physical security.”
2011-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 66 (2011)
“And if countries are to develop, they need minerals and other commodities. China alone accounts for more than a third of the demand for many of the most important global commodities, and countries across the world, most notably in South America and Africa, can supply them. How do we help global development by sourcing such minerals and using them efficiently and justly? Fourth is the challenge of climate security. If we are to avert the biggest economic and social catastrophe ever seen, we must stabilize our planet’s climate. At the absolute limit, that means stabilizing global temperatures at a maximum of two degrees above pre-industrial levels. Yet we are on track towards perhaps a four- or five-degree rise, according to the United Nations Environment Programme. The disaster that this could represent is beyond anyone’s comprehension.”
2011-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 66 (2011)
“First is the challenge of food security. We are heading for 8 billion, then 9 billion people. Rising prosperity means that those people want greater amounts of, and more nutritious, food. By current trends, we need 100 million hectares of new land by 2020 to meet that demand. How do we do that and avoid excessive price increases and volatility? Second is the challenge of energy security. As the world gets richer, our demand for energy increases massively. We are likely to demand 36 per cent more energy by 2035. How do we generate the energy needed to meet such demand in a way that helps people everywhere to develop and does not choke off economic growth through high prices caused by energy scarcity? Third is the challenge of resource security. If we are to alleviate poverty, countries need to develop.”
2011-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 66 (2011)
“That presents the United Nations and its Member States with a great opportunity to realize our values and to secure the global peace, justice and security to which we aspire. But to do so, we must face up to the opportunities of interconnectedness with responses that are interconnected. Our record on international collective action in recent years is not good. That leads me to my third point, which is that the search for justice and the achievement of rights for all require us to broaden our traditional understanding of security. We must struggle to achieve rights in a new way and, as many have said before me, alongside the physical security challenge, there are many other aspects to human security and the realization of rights. I think that there are four other elements of security, in particular, that we need to properly understand.”
2011-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 66 (2011)
“Billions of people have been lifted out of poverty; new businesses are generating millions of jobs, growth and capital; and there is once again genuine intellectual debate about the right way to embed rights and justice at the core of the global governance structure. However, the emergence of those great Powers is happening in a totally different way to how Powers emerged in the past. They are emerging in a world that is interconnected through instant communications capabilities and globalized trading and financial systems. What we are witnessing is unlike anything that has happened before, and few communities and no country on the planet are not impacted, almost in real time, by those changes as they happen.”
2011-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 66 (2011)
“The core point is that, while the values that inform the work of the United Nations and our Member States — the values of peace, equality and justice — are timeless, they are of limited use unless we, as the United Nations and as individual Member States, draw on them to catalyse consistent, meaningful and practical responses to the contemporary changing challenges that our peoples face. The second point that strikes me is how utterly different today’s contemporary challenges actually are when compared with those of just 12 years ago, not to mention those of the 1940s, when the United Nations was founded. The rise of China, India, Brazil and other developing countries is transforming the globe for the better.”
2011-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 66 (2011)
“Before the end of the year, I will be proud to be the first President of Guyana to demit office under the constitutional term limits that I signed into law in the early days of my presidency. Inevitably, that milestone has caused me to look back on the changes that have taken place in this body since I first stood here 12 years ago. Three things strike me 11-50702 16 as I reflect on the role of the United Nations over those 12 years. The first is that the central point that I and others have repeatedly made from this rostrum stays as true today as it was when we first articulated it.”
2011-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 66 (2011)
“Allow me first to convey to the President my warmest congratulations on his election to guide the work of the sixty-sixth session of the General Assembly. I have no doubt that under his leadership, Qatar will be instrumental in the service of his presidency, and, indeed, in that of the Assembly as a whole, as we face the challenging times ahead. I also recognize the service of his predecessor and wish to record our appreciation for that service. To our Secretary-General, I offer my delegation’s congratulations on the renewal of his mandate, an act that bears testimony to the confidence placed in him by the Member States of this body. This is the last time that I will address this great Hall as President of my country.”
2011-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 66 (2011)
“We therefore hope that we are demonstrating the value of action on the three interlinked financing commitments I spoke of, and I hope that we are starting to show how interconnected global responses can deliver globally valuable results. The United Nations is, despite its many limitations, our best hope for the advancement of humanity. Its universality allows the Organization to play a central and catalytic role in balancing the differing interests of Member States and in generating consensus on the issues that divide us. We must therefore commit fully to the principles and purposes of its Charter and to the improvement of its structure. On behalf of my country and people, I wish to assure the Assembly of our full support for the Organization and for strengthening its capacity to better fulfil the many mandates entrusted to it.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“We have a deal in place with Norway on reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, and because of this we are in the process of creating a climate finance fund that will amount to between $300 million and $500 million between this year and 2015. We have also identified how we can use this climate financing to 10-54965 18 invest in education and health care; to catalyse private finance to move virtually our entire economy to clean energy; to open up non-forested land for new economic activities; to invest in climate adaptation needs and to support our indigenous people in the economic and social transformation of their communities.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“So we have looked at the contribution we can make in two ways: first, by creating a financial mechanism whereby we can put our entire rainforest under protection; and secondly, by using the resources we receive for the climate services we provide from our protected forest to reorient our economy on a low- carbon trajectory. As a consequence, after one of the most comprehensive national consultations on climate change anywhere in the world, we have started to implement our low-carbon development strategy. We have identified how we can cumulatively save forest- based emissions of 1.5 gigatons by 2020.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“Even countries that did not associate themselves with the Accord should hold the developed world accountable for its commitments. We have long said in Guyana that if the international community is prepared to be held accountable, we will not be found lacking. Three years ago, we said that notwithstanding the immense climate challenges in our country — in 2005 floods caused damage equivalent to 60 per cent of our gross domestic product — we were prepared to do our bit. We have determined that, as a country more than 80 per cent of whose territory is rainforest, we can make a disproportionate contribution to solving climate change.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“Specifically, in Guyana we believe that action on deforestation and forest degradation is one of the efforts that can be made quickly and with maximum impact. I want to emphasize that none of this is about asking the developed world to provide us with aid. Instead, it is about ensuring that the capital for addressing climate change is allocated where it can have the biggest impact. In addressing these matters, I want to raise a sensitive subject: the Copenhagen Accord, which was the only tangible outcome of last year’s climate Summit. I know that many countries here today associated themselves with the Accord reluctantly, and that some did not associate themselves with it at all. But I believe that reluctant or no association with the Copenhagen Accord, and strong support for some of its provisions, are not mutually exclusive.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“The international community can do three things even in the absence of a treaty, and we can achieve breakthroughs in each when we meet in Cancún. First, we can hold the developed countries accountable for the commitments they have made to the immediate short-term ramping-up of financing for climate action in the developing world. The existing commitments of a total of $30 billion by 2012 and $100 billion per year by 2020 can be agreed to in Cancún. Secondly, we can solve the vexed issue of an effective financial transfer mechanism to ensure that the funds flow both to adaptation and mitigation actions. Thirdly, we should look at ramping up meaningful sectoral responses that work in the short term.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“To that end, Guyana continues to hold that the international community needs a legally binding global climate treaty that would first facilitate the emission cuts needed to stabilize the planet’s climate, and then enable us to move on from seeing climate change purely in terms of its costs, while also allowing us to see how it can catalyse a once-in-a-lifetime global economic transformation that can benefit people everywhere. This cannot happen without deep, binding emission cuts in today’s developed world, which could stimulate the financial flows that can address mitigation and adaptation across the developing world. We recognize that such a global treaty may not be achievable this year, but we are not powerless to act now.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“They feel that this will require global economic growth powered by efficient and clean energy, new green industries, and a new, less carbon- intensive approach to forestry and agriculture. But despite knowing this, the international community continues to fail to put in place the measures that will enable the economic transformation that we claim we want. This is in large part due to the absence of a global agreement that puts a price on high-carbon activity and rewards low-carbon innovation. We need this to change.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“When we met here last year, many hoped that the United Nations would facilitate agreement on global action to stabilize our planet’s climate at the meeting of most of the world’s leaders in Copenhagen in December. Not only did the global community fail to accomplish that, we are now in real danger of suffering from a catastrophic drift in ambition, where we no 17 10-54965 longer even try to connect the scientific evidence on climate change with the necessary global action to avert it. This drift in ambition must be stopped. It is a consequence of choices we make; it is not predetermined. So we must rededicate ourselves to crafting a shared response to shared climate threats. Most progressive countries now realize this, and are committed to temperature rises of a maximum of 2° degrees C or lower.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“When those who seek to represent their citizens deny that that is true, or fail to understand its consequences, they threaten their own national interests and the wealth and security of their nation. Therefore, failure to appreciate the need for an interconnected, global response to climate change and loss of biodiversity is not just an abdication of responsibility to some intangible global good or to people on the other side of the world. It is a very real, measurable threat to citizens in every village, hamlet and city in the world. History will not judge kindly those who were too blinkered or ignorant to realize that. So a step change in our efforts to avoid catastrophic climate change and protect biodiversity is needed.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“As we enhance them further, I believe we will see that better accountability, properly understood, can help us rise to the challenges we face. I would like to highlight the centrality of the need to protect and preserve our environment. While each of the issues I have mentioned is a global one requiring a global response, the environmental challenges we face mock those who think we still live in a world where global collective action is somehow a matter of choice. The destruction of a natural habitat anywhere in the world removes life forms that could have been the bedrock of future medical advances for citizens everywhere. A ton of carbon emitted in Africa or Asia threatens the citizens of the smallest village in North America.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“Aid flows are appreciated and valuable, but they sometimes pale into insignificance when those countries that promote how their aid is helping the achievement of, for example, the Millennium Development Goals are also pursuing unjust, narrow- minded trade or climate policies. I therefore call on the United Nations to establish a set of global accountability indicators with which we can transparently monitor whether the members of the international community are pursuing policies that, in a holistic sense, help them discharge their global responsibilities, not just through the provision of aid but also through the avoidance of unfair trade and climate policies. Through the Millennium Development Goals, we have started to develop some of the indicators we need.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“Inconsistencies and a lack of coherence among aid, trade and climate policies in the developed world, to name just three areas, often create difficulties for developing countries who seek to make progress. The United Nations can help to change those realities, and provide the framework for global responses that match the ambition of the institution. But at the core of that framework must be an enhanced understanding of the concept of accountability. As countries like mine fully embrace our need to be accountable for the actions we take to support a global response to the MDGs, financial instability and climate change, so too developed countries must recognize their responsibilities and the need to take a holistic approach to their dealings with the rest of the world.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“Or we could choose to ask ourselves if we are prepared to be held accountable for carrying our share of the responsibility. My country recognizes that we must deliver our part. We are on track to meet most of the Millennium Development Goals, especially in the areas of education and health. We are doing all we can to weather the financial crisis with the minimum suffering for our people. And we recognize that we must do more than just complain about climate change. We have created our Low Carbon Development Strategy, which sets out a long-term path to protect our 16-million- hectare rainforest and move our entire economy onto a low carbon trajectory. But there are times when it feels as though the international system sets out to put hurdles on the path to overcoming the challenges.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“Instead, it is in all of our interests for the United Nations to provide the platform that facilitates global, interconnected responses. 10-54965 16 But I think we have some way to go if that platform is to be created. When it comes to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), although progress has been made, we have not connected the rhetorical support for their achievement to actual delivery. When it comes to the financial crisis, we have not connected the benefits of globally open financial systems to measures that protect against the risks that those systems create. And when it comes to the climate crisis, we have not connected the scientific evidence to global policy responses that mitigate the worst extremes of climate change. We could choose to continue in this vein, but it is clear where that would lead us.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“The challenges are many, but this week has drawn three of them into particularly sharp focus: first, our global efforts to halve poverty and achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015; secondly, a global financial crisis that threatens to undo much of the progress we have made in lifting people out of poverty; and thirdly, a climate crisis that carries the risk of planet-wide disruption that endangers entire nations and the continuation of much of what we take for granted today. Those challenges are all a function of the dominant characteristic of the modern world: our interconnectedness as a global community. And we will meet the challenges only if we adopt an interconnected response. The notion that we can protect our national and global interests through inward-looking national responses is no longer valid.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“I bring to all delegates at this sixty-fifth session of the General Assembly the warm greetings of my Government and people. The United Nations was founded out of the ashes of war and violence. Its noble ambitions, grounded in the timeless values of peace, equality and justice, seek to create a better world for this and future generations. But if those values are to mean anything, the United Nations must not be merely about a statement of aspiration. Instead, we must strive until the United Nations provides the framework where the timeless values I speak of can be given life through meaningful and practical responses to the contemporary challenges our peoples face.”
2010-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 65 (2010)
“I have just said to President Chávez Frías that I wish I could conclude by singing, but I do not have his wonderful voice. Instead, I will confine myself to saying that we all have an important role to play in solving this crisis, but the developed world has a moral obligation to play a greater part in solving both the financial crisis and the climate change crisis, because it is due to its actions that we are in this situation. I hope that the developed world recognizes this obligation and the urgency to act upon it now.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“The sum of money needed for this interim period may seem large, but it does not only represent a very good value for money abatement solution; it can also generate significant financial flows for developing countries, it can create alternative livelihoods for indigenous peoples and other forest-dependent communities, and it can preserve the enormous biodiversity present in the world’s forests. Twenty-five billion euros over five years represent less than 1.5 cents per citizen per day in developed countries. It is a fraction of what the world has generated to save the financial system from collapse, it provides a bridge to a long-term REDD+ solution under the UNFCCC, and it buys the world badly needed time in the race to defeat climate change. To turn away from making this proposal a reality would be a mistake of historic proportions.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“We support its report, which lays out how the world can achieve a 25 per cent reduction in global deforestation rates by 2015 with an investment of less than €25 billion in total. Using highly conservative estimates of forest carbon, this could lead to seven gigatons of greenhouse gas emissions being avoided between now and 2015. If this occurred, it would be the single biggest contribution to averting climate catastrophe over this period. And it can be done. Rainforest countries representing the vast majority of the world’s tropical forests have worked with the informal working group and are willing to act. The question now is: Will the developed world understand the enormous potential this offers our world, and will it act to generate the finances that are needed?”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“In parallel, Guyana continues to play its part in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) process, which must provide the long-term framework for combating forest-based emissions through the United Nations Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD) or the REDD+ Programme. But we also believe that the world can move quickly to slow down deforestation starting now, not in 2013. Guyana was pleased to participate in the April G-20 side meeting that addressed how this can happen. We support the proposals made by the informal working group on interim financing for REDD, which was set up after the G-20 side meeting.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“In Guyana, we remain ready to play our part, and we have launched our low-carbon development strategy, which sets out how we can place our entire forest under long-term protection, not only to provide the world with badly needed climate services, but also to move our economy onto a long- term, sustainable low-carbon development path, where jobs are created across our country in sectors that do not threaten our trees. Thanks to the visionary leadership of the Prime Minister of Norway, our two countries are also working together to provide a functioning model of how low-deforestation and low-carbon economies can be created in countries such as ours.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“Of particular urgency will be finding ways to work together to address the 17 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions that result from 13 09-52425 tropical deforestation and forest degradation globally. As with climate change in general, we now have a large degree of clarity around the nature of this specific problem. We know that it causes more emissions than the entire European Union, and we know that this is because the world economy makes trees worth more dead than alive. We also know that the only sustainable way to address the problem is national-scale action in forest countries coupled with international incentives that place a value on trees to make them worth more alive than dead. We now need to rapidly move from constantly rearticulating this problem towards putting in place workable solutions.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“Failure to overcome them now will mean misery for future generations, and the eventual costs of tackling climate change will be even greater than they are now. We therefore need to find a way through. This will require leadership from all nations. I welcome the proposals laid out by Gordon Brown, and subsequently supported by the European Union, to generate funding in excess of $100 billion per annum to address climate change in the developing world. For the first time, there is a proposal that starts to square up to the magnitude of funding that is required for adaptation and mitigation. Having spoken with many of my fellow leaders this week, I am confident that, with the right signal from the developed world, developing countries are ready to play their part.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“Others are worried that acting on climate change now will stymie their national development, precisely at a time when many are poised for historic levels of economic growth and social advances. On the other hand, many developed countries are worried that the financial transfers needed will be an excessive burden on their budgets during extremely challenging economic times. Domestic constituencies in the developed world are also fearful about transferring significant sums of money abroad, and they worry that jobs or investment will be driven away from their economies. There are also fears from individual countries that they will be expected to carry a greater burden than other developed nations. These political concerns could be a recipe for a stalemate that the world cannot afford.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“The challenge for the Copenhagen meeting is to turn these building blocks into an agreement that can start to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In doing so, we should be guided by science and by the need for solutions that treat all countries fairly. But we also need to recognize that the challenge now is as much about political will as it is about scientific, economic and institutional considerations. In addressing the politics, we need to recognize that in all countries — developed and developing — there are concerns about the commitment of others to the long- term global partnership we need. Many developing countries question whether the international community will commit to the scale of financial transfers that all major analyses agree are needed.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“That is why, last year, I called for a new Bretton Woods-type conference at which all the countries in this Hall would help to create that architecture. The second crisis that I wish to mention is that of climate change. This week, there has been much talk about the urgency of tackling climate change. Thanks to the vision exhibited by the Secretary-General and the work of leaders and citizens from countries across the world, the level of understanding about the nature of the climate challenge is increasingly clear. But we need to move beyond simply understanding the challenge. We need to work as a global community to shape a solution that is in the interests of all countries, and many of the building blocks that will enable us to do this have been identified.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“This needs to be corrected urgently if we are to avoid the perception that there is an absence of concern at the global level for the needs of smaller countries. My fear is that, as the crisis abates, so too will the will to change the global financial architecture. Therefore, we are advocating urgent action in this area, and we are also saying that this solution — a new global financial architecture — must involve smaller countries in its articulation. Our fear is that, if we continue along the same path, we will have a new architecture that caters only to the concerns of the large countries — now expanded to the Group of 20 — and that the smaller countries will not see their concerns reflected in it.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“The case is therefore compelling for the global community to relieve and restructure the debt of these heavily indebted vulnerable small countries, including those that were not previously considered for debt relief because of their income levels, but whose debt ratios are clearly unsustainable by any standard. The case is equally compelling for new additional flows of development assistance to be delivered to these countries by both multilateral and bilateral development partners. Despite injections of large amounts of additional resources into some of the multilateral institutions and the approval of new facilities by those institutions, very little has actually materialized in terms of additionality in disbursements to smaller States.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“That has manifested itself both through depressed prices for primary exported commodities, such as bauxite, and through depressed demand for services, such as tourism. The result has been losses in export and foreign currency earnings, with attendant dislocation of exchange rates and Government revenues, exacerbating an already tenuous fiscal and debt situation and causing the loss of jobs and welfare and a reversal of gains previously made against poverty. Even as we seek long-term solutions to bolster the resilience of our economies, the need for relief and support is immediate. The capacity of the small countries of the Caribbean to respond with 09-52425 12 countercyclical measures is virtually non-existent, with no available fiscal space and levels of indebtedness that are among the highest in the world.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“I extend our gratitude to the Secretary-General for continuing to spearhead the work of the United Nations at a time when our membership is beset by historic challenges. I am told that it is only what one says from the rostrum that is reflected in the record of the meeting. I hope that perhaps in the future, we can change the system. If we do so, we may be able to say more without spending a lot of time at the rostrum. So I shall circulate the full text of my speech and focus on only two areas that I think are important at this point in time. The first has to do with the financial crisis and its impact on the Caribbean, and the second concerns the climate change crisis. In the case of the prevailing financial crisis, the small, vulnerable economies of the Caribbean have had to bear the brunt of global recession.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“Similarly, a more democratic and reformed United Nations Organization will be better placed to play a central role in the multilateral system in serving 25 08-51606 the interests of the international community as a whole, whether in relation to its peace and security mandates, the protection of fundamental rights or the promotion of development. Within the Commonwealth, heads of Government have developed a set of principles and guidelines that should underpin reform of the international institutions. Among their recommendations is a call for a conference along the lines of Bretton Woods to lead the way in determining the future of the international financial institutions. I trust that those principles and guidelines will be fully embraced. I wish this sixty-third session of the Assembly every success.”
2008-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 63 (2008)
“Likewise, the World Bank should have a revised mandate that focuses on certain key development challenges, such as protection of the environment, clean energy and certain aspects of poverty reduction, instead of trying to address every development challenge and undermining its own effectiveness. In addition, more needs to be done to democratize the institutions, to align the interests of the management and staff with those of the countries they serve and to make them more accountable to the membership.”
2008-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 63 (2008)
“As I mentioned earlier, I believe that limitations in the mandate and functioning of the international financial institutions were a contributory factor in the current financial crisis. The mandate of the International Monetary Fund should explicitly be the preservation of systemic financial stability as a global public good. In addition, the use of passive surveillance as a general instrument and conditionality- based lending among the more vulnerable members have clearly proved to be ineffective. That is so not least because the incentives associated with conditionality-based lending are almost invariably never applicable to countries of systemic importance, and no mechanisms exist to encourage larger countries to respond to policy advice.”
2008-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 63 (2008)