Cape Verde, 2010

I

would like first of all to pay tribute to you, Sir, for

your election as President of the General Assembly at

its sixty-fifth session, and wish you every success as

you carry out your duties in that role. Cape Verde

offers you its full support.

I also appreciate the commitment of and the very

fruitful work carried out by his predecessor,

Ambassador Ali Abdussalam Treki, who was able to

lead the Assembly during its sixty-fourth session with

remarkable dynamism.

We confirm our support for the Secretary-

General, Mr. Ban Ki-moon, as he seeks to make the

United Nations system ever more effective in working

for the legitimate aspirations of the peoples of the

world to peace, dignity and progress.

Our theme this year is reaffirming the central role

of the United Nations in global governance. The points

which I shall develop relate to that theme, which is a

cross-cutting issue par excellence.

First of all, we have to save the planet. To do that

would seem self-evident — here everybody would

seem to agree — yet if one considers the negotiations

underway with reference to the United Nations

Framework Convention on Climate Change, there is a

tendency towards pessimism rather than optimism.

Scientists have for some time now shown that our

planet seriously risks not being able to provide for life

in all in its plenitude because of the consequences of

global warming. We know today that time to act

effectively is running out.

The participants at the Copenhagen Summit left

knowing that there was no time left for quibbling. We

said that last year here ourselves. Now is the time for

us to take concerted, coherent and systematic action, so

that we can substantially reduce greenhouse gas

emissions, slow down global warming and avoid a rise

in the sea level which could jeopardize vast coastal

regions of the world, and in particular the small island

developing States, which are particularly vulnerable

and suffer first-hand the consequences of increasingly

frequent and extreme inclement weather.

Cape Verde is a State of the Sahel. For a long

time, therefore, we have faced drought, desertification

and dramatic water scarcity. Those phenomena strongly

influence what we do to preserve the environment and

achieve human development.

We are seeking to adapt to and reduce the impact

of climate change, whether it be in the specific terms

of land reclamation and water conveyance or in the

development of renewable energy, all of which are part

of our national growth dynamics, alongside education,

health, employment, infrastructure and so on.

We are in process of implementing an ambitious

programme to use surface water by building dams and

reservoirs to support the modernization of agriculture,

the development of livestock farming and food

processing — all of which will help farmers

everywhere. Following the food crisis of two years

ago, , similar efforts were made in Africa and small

island developing States to help farmers make a profit,

help the economy make progress and help countries

face the challenges of climate change. Financing,

without which there would be many failures, projects

would be abandoned and obstacles would remain

insurmountable, was a key factor. So we need quickly

to set up the financing announced within the fast-track

framework. Time is running out.

We believe that the international community,

particularly the developed countries and large

emerging countries, must address the increased threat

to global security and the repercussions for everybody

of the devastating consequences of natural disasters

and must continue to support the specific dynamics

affecting the most vulnerable States with respect to

climate change in the areas of mitigation and

adaptation and help them minimize the risks

threatening them in the present situation, knowing that

some of them are already facing the problems of

population shifts and forced migration.

Solidarity is not a meaningless word for people

who live on islands. For some individuals, it is a

question of survival; for nations, it is a question of

their continued existence as peoples. Let us not offer

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up the weakest as sacrificial lambs, for tomorrow all of

us may be in a similar situation. Let us also not forget

that conflicts resulting from water scarcity on the

planet are foreseeable, which should be a major

concern that we must start tackling as of today.

We wish to reaffirm here that the ocean, which is

for our island country our vital environment, our

civilization and our inspiration, as well as our potential

for the future, must be protected and preserved. Just a

few days ago, with six coastal countries in West Africa

and Norway, we signed an agreement that will help us

collectively to better manage this huge common

potential and to keep watch over the protection of our

ocean interests. With the coastal States along the

Atlantic Ocean, particularly those in the southern

Atlantic, we confirm our resolve to make it an area for

trade and active solidarity, not unfair competition.

Instead of making the ocean just one more element to

be gobbled up by human greed, let us try to preserve its

unique value as a precious container of life and

guardian of the hopes of the planet.

We must protect and empower women. We firmly

believe that one of the major revolutions to be made in

our time is the one enabling women to truly become

full and equal partners with men in their shared quest

for progress. In Cape Verde, we have made substantial

gains in gender equality and equity, but there are still

major challenges. For example, in our current

Government consisting of 14 Ministers, eight of them

are women. The report on the Millennium

Development Goals (MDGs) for 2010 shows that Cape

Verde has achieved gender parity in primary and

secondary education. Indeed, in some cases, there are

more girls than boys in school.

Major investment in maternal and infant health

means that 98 per cent of births are in a hospital

environment with specialized assistants. Yet, 25 per

cent of women suffer from domestic abuse. In

Parliament and in local authorities, there are few

women participating. Poverty and unemployment affect

more women than men. We continue to work on this

issue, and we think we are going in the right direction.

UN Women, recently launched by Economic and

Social Council, is a universal entity charged principally

with overcoming the obstacles that prevented the four

formerly separate bodies working in the gender area

from responding more effectively to challenges in the

area of gender equality and the empowerment of

women.

UN Women is part of the effort to reform the

United Nations begun nearly two decades ago with a

view towards strengthening system-wide coherence.

We would like to congratulate Ms. Michelle Bachelet

and assure her of Cape Verde’s support in her new

duties to defend, promote and empower women. We

believe that the robustness of her mandate and her

potential role of catalyst for the new entity should

encourage donors to respond positively to meet its

funding needs.

We must continue to work for peace. The

evolving international situation with groups of States

coming together to discuss major regional and global

issues and to propose solutions is evidence of a trend

that, despite everything, is struggling to show its

efficiency and cannot seem to reduce the worry of

some and the doubts of others.

We continue to believe that the United Nations,

where each one of us has his or her place, can play a

truly effective part by ensuring going forward so that

its dynamism is maintained, its mission is clearly

defined, and we all share in the responsibilities and the

decision-making. It is our universal institution that

brings together the essential conditions for handling

the problems of the world and that has been endowed

with the necessary collective responsibility.

Accordingly, the huge mission of promoting and

ensuring better and more effective global governance is

a job that must be carried out by the United Nations.

World peace remains a distant goal, and the

hotbeds of tension, far from abating, persist, ever

closer. Conflicts weaken entire regions, creating

refugees and displaced persons by the millions,

paralysing economies, destroying infrastructure and

obliterating decades of work aimed at promoting

education, health and justice for the people. Sometimes

the very concept of the human being seems to be

vanishing, giving way to an era of modern slaves who

can be moulded and exploited at will. Women suffer

sexual violence, which has become a weapon of war,

and child soldiers are often deployed unscrupulously as

combatants by both sides.

The United Nations, in this arena as in others, is

still the central element, functioning as the collective

conscience of the community of nations, dedicated to

managing our communal actions and finding solutions

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of consensus and cooperation. In this light, the

revitalization of the United Nations seems a

requirement of our time, inviting the participation of

all.

Cape Verde has always favoured universal and

total disarmament. It wishes to help create a world

where fear of the other is replaced by the need to

cooperate with the other and a recognition of the other

as a necessary, complementary partner. We continue to

believe, for instance, in the future of talks between

Israel and the Palestinians, and we continue to hope

that we will see a Middle East with two independent

States living side by side in peace and security. But

restoring credibility to the Middle East peace process

requires, more than anything else, that the parties

honour their own obligations, which derive from their

commitments and from decisions and resolutions

agreed to here in the United Nations. From this point of

view, putting an end to hostilities in Gaza and on

Israeli soil, halting settlement in the occupied

territories, dismantling the wall and ending the

blockade seem to us incontrovertible imperatives. We

ardently hope that the new talks will bring us closer to

peace.

Organized crime is a scourge that my country is

fighting directly, with the support of many of our

partners. Drug traffickers now swarm into our West

African subregion, threatening the stability of our

countries and destroying our efforts towards regional

stability and peace for our peoples. A determined

battle, uniting producing nations, nations of transit and

consumer nations, must be vigorously and tirelessly

waged. We must not allow drugs to turn our children

into pariahs, the unfortunate victims of dirty money.

Human rights are at stake in that struggle for our

children to live and flourish free of the influence of

drugs, so that tomorrow they may become citizens of

the world.

At the beginning of the twenty-first century

things are evolving in all spheres — and especially in

international politics — because of circumstances and

events, but also because of the political will of the

most enlightened. Is it not time to put an end to

situations that are now obsolete vestiges of the cold

war and the Second World War, such as in the case of

Cuba? The isolation and blockade are sources of

tension and frustration and can hardly serve as the

basis for new hope. Generations are changing, attitudes

are evolving and the aspirations of the young are

different now. New generations have the right to a

future of peace, understanding and healthy exchange.

Let us show the wisdom to offer them a world worthy

of their dreams and aspirations.

We must innovate for the future. When we

became one of the eight pilot countries for the

Delivering as One experiment in 2006, we wanted, of

course, to benefit from positive impact of such a leap

forward in this way in our relations with the various

United Nations agencies. We also wanted to participate

in reforming the United Nations system, so that it

could better meet the demands of the world today.

Moreover, our Government believes that reform means

simplifying the well-known United Nations

bureaucracy. Today we are witnessing real progress and

clear mutual benefits. The funds allotted to our country

are increasing, the effectiveness of the various agencies

is improving, there is a real sense of ownership, and

there is also leadership by the Government and

dynamic synergy among all the parties involved —

pointing us ever forward on this path. The recent

meeting of the eight pilot countries in Hanoi was a

success, and we eagerly await new additions to the

family.

Since independence 35 years ago, Cape Verde has

made great strides in human development and has

become a middle-income country. Between 1990 and

2007 our human development index rose from 0.589 to

0.708. Per capita income, barely $300 per year at the

time of our independence, is now $3,041 per year.

School enrolment stands at 96 per cent. Illiteracy has

been reduced to 18.5 per cent, declining as much for

women as for men. We project 6 per cent growth for

the year 2010.

We have achieved much in education, health and

political participation thanks to our Government’s

policy aimed at eradicating poverty and achieving food

security and gender equality and equity. In the last

decade poverty has dropped from 49 per cent in 1989

to 36.7 per cent in 2002 to 26 per cent in 2007.

Estimates predict a poverty rate in 2010 of 24 per cent.

That progress is the result of investing in people.

Education and vocational training are the strategic axes

of our governance and take up over half of our State

budget. We have also invested in health and social

security. Moreover, the Government is following a

strategy of making the country an international service

provider, so that it can compete in the world economy

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and accelerate growth and job creation, thereby

increasing family income and significantly decreasing

poverty.

While we know that we must act quickly and

decisively to save the planet, we seem to drag our feet

when it comes to matching concrete actions to our

words. While we proclaim the virtues of equality

between men and women and gender parity — and

their positive effects on development and therefore on

peace and security — we still note that substantial

political will at the national level and a determined

drive at the international level are still needed to push

forward the fight to make women full partners in the

future of the world. If peace is everywhere considered

a fundamental, legitimate aspiration of peoples and

nations, and indeed a universal necessity, it is no less

true that it must be won every day, and that millions of

human beings wake to the sound of guns and wonder

every night if they will see the next morning or if their

family will still be alive. Peace can no longer be a

utopian dream or a fragile, always tentative reality, as

in the Middle East, Central Africa or other places in the

world.

In an increasingly interdependent and threatened

world, we need to give our collective energies a chance

and not seclude ourselves in a defeatist attitude of

isolation, bereft of any future. We must be innovative

in our ways of thinking, in our political ideas and in

our vision of the State. We must be innovative and

carry our innovation into our inter-State relations and

our defence of our own interests, so as to promote

equity and democracy in international relations,

promote a greater awareness of fair exchange and

justice in the relations of States and thereby foster

security for all, in a multilateralism driven by the

contributions of all members of the international

community, thus preserving the hope for peace all

around the world.

All the great revealed religions talk of hope and

compassion. Will those universal values be condemned

to remain the poor relations of international politics?

Let us make of their inspired message the bedrock of

our international relations. Let us make the individual

human the centre of our national concerns and our

global interests. That is the basis, it seems to me, of the

responsibility to protect that we proclaim here in this

Hall. Let us make that message a harbinger of the

future for our nations and our peoples, for now more

than ever our destinies are shared and tied to our

Mother Earth. Humankind is humankind’s best

medicine, an old African proverb tells us. We can be if

we want to be.