Belize, 2010

Please permit me, Sir, on

behalf of the Belize delegation to congratulate you on

your election to the presidency of the sixty-fifth

session of the United Nations General Assembly. As

much as our peoples share common values of peace

and democracy, your country and my own could not be

more different. Switzerland is landlocked with a land

mass twice the size and a population 25 times that of

my coastal country. Belize has a $1 billion economy

and Switzerland has a $400 billion economy. Nominal

gross domestic product per capita in Switzerland is

estimated at $67,000, while in Belize that figure is

roughly $4,000.

I bring up the differences between Belize and

Switzerland because they are illustrative of the stark

differences that epitomize today’s world. We in this

Hall tout sovereign equality, but we experience social

and economic disparity on a daily basis, across the

globe. Inequality persists between nations and within

nations. Poverty proliferates in the midst of plenty.

In my own country, although real output per

capita grew over the past 10 years, so too did the

proportion of Belizeans living in poverty. In other words,

we experienced growth without the commensurate

development of our people.

Belize accepts that development is a matter of

national responsibility. However, our contemporary

reality now renders questions that were hitherto matters

of national concern, matters of global concern. As a

consequence of globalization, the management

capacity of a State has diminished. Our macroeconomic

policy and fiscal capacity cannot adequately address

the multiple exogenous shocks occasioned, inter alia,

by the triumvirate of the financial, food and fuel crises.

Adequate and appropriate international support at

this time is therefore critical if we are to avoid drifting

further and further away from the attainment of our

development goals. In that connection, developed

nations urgently need to make good their promise to

deliver 0.7 per cent of their GDP for official

development assistance (ODA).

For Belize, meaningful international support is

becoming increasingly harder to come by because of

our designation as a middle-income country. While we

continue to benefit from ODA and foreign direct

investment in our quest to further integrate Belize into

the global economy, for the most part expensive

foreign and local commercial debt has in fact fuelled

the country’s development strategy.

Thus, in the past 15 years, Belize has built up a

high level of public debt, with high-cost long-term

financing. The ratio of public debt to GDP grew

steadily, from about 27 per cent in 1995 to 70.3 per

cent in 2008, with a peak of 87 per cent in 2005. That

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debt-led strategy, which was the model of many other

countries, will surely become an unwelcome and

unwanted burden for our children.

Perennial debt-servicing obligations constrain my

Government’s capacity to increase social investments,

especially in those areas where they are most needed. It

is therefore not surprising that Belize finds itself off

track in meeting Millennium Development Goals

(MDGs) on poverty, hunger, education and the

empowerment of women. Considering the synergies

between Goals, slippage in one threatens the

achievement of others.

The terms of engagement between international

financial institutions and middle-income countries

must be revised if countries such as my own are to

break away from the vicious cycle of debt-led

development. While those terms will necessarily have

to provide for suitable risk-mitigation strategies, they

should not be so burdensome as to constrain our policy

space. They must respect the national ownership of our

development initiatives. International cooperation and

support therefore must complement, rather than dictate,

the way forward.

While Belize’s traditional donors have long

provided valuable assistance, for which we will always

be grateful, we are now benefiting from new modalities

of cooperation, which are yielding more direct and

immediate returns for our people. Belize’s cooperation

experience with Taiwan exemplifies a model of

cooperation based on partnership. With the help of the

Government of Taiwan, Belize has steadily developed

its capacity in agricultural research, aquaculture,

education and social-sector investment.

In the Latin American and Caribbean region,

cooperation has long been based on that approach.

Belize has benefited immensely from partnerships with

Cuba, Brazil, Mexico and Venezuela. Of special

significance is the cooperation in the health sector. In

fact, today the progress that we can claim on the

health-related MDGs is a testament, in part, to those

partnerships.

Beyond our hemispheric relations, we are forging

new partnerships. We recently received two years’

worth of emergency relief materials from the United

Arab Emirates, for which we are most appreciative,

given the frequency of hurricane visitations to our

shores in recent years. Through those partnerships,

Belize is being enabled to pursue its broader national

development objectives. Our experience is being

replicated the world over, as we see in other examples

of South-South cooperation. We need now to make

those partnerships the standard for global cooperation.

At the United Nations, we have long focused on

official development assistance as being synonymous

with global partnerships. That myopic view needs to be

broadened, and we must disabuse ourselves of the

donor-driven dialectic. The United Nations has the

responsibility to craft a new orientation, from a donor-

recipient culture to one of true partnership with mutual

respect.

As every speaker in this debate has emphasized,

in order for this institution to meet that challenge, it

must itself reform.

Current decision-making structures and

organization tend towards a North-South polarity. That

dynamic imperils cooperation and renders debate more

ceremony than meaningful dialogue. Over the 65 years

of the United Nations existence, our world has

changed. We are dealing with new realities. The

Organization is nearly universal, with 192 countries

represented here. The club of nuclear-power States has

expanded, and may yet continue to expand. Global

integration has deepened with technology, market

liberalization and the freer movement of capital. Our

interdependence has generated global systemic risks.

We need a United Nations that reflects more

equitable North-South representation and that can

effectively deliver. That means that the organs of the

United Nations must be reformed. The process of

decision-making must ensure coherence and be

inclusive. Above all, equity and justice must inform

our mechanisms for delivery. The reform we seek goes

much deeper than the changing of the guards; it is a

reform that would rebuild trust among each other and

confidence in the system.

Belize is crafting a twenty-first century vision for

a modern, green and sustainable economy predicated

on capacity-building, human dignity, human

development and innovation. Our Government is

working towards building domestic capital through

social investments, job creation, improved access to

credit and combating crime and violence.

To that end, we have launched project Restore

Belize, which encompasses a comprehensive anti-crime

initiative complemented by a socio-economic

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component aimed at restoring the social fabric of our

society through the provision of skills training,

continuing education for adults, infrastructure

development and fostering civic pride. We have

instituted school feeding programmes, subsidies for

students of secondary schools, seed programmes for

farmers and capitalization of our own development

finance corporation for onward lending to

entrepreneurs.

The Government has also undertaken a national

multiparty and multisectoral consultative process to

redefine our national development objectives in our

Horizon 2030 project. In addition, the Prime Minister

has established a council of science advisers to better

inform the Horizon 2030 process on the integration of

science and technology in the national development

agenda.

Belize is resolutely embracing its responsibility

for its national development. Our efforts are aimed

towards ensuring that we achieve the type of

development that genuinely affords all our people the

opportunity to realize their true potential with dignity.

To that end, we seek only empathy and partnership

from the United Nations, not charity.