Haiti, 2000

The

Republic of Haiti wishes to add its voice to all those

who have already congratulated Mr. Harri Holkeri of

Finland on his election to the presidency of the General

Assembly at its fifty-fifth session. We take this

opportunity also to pay tribute to Mr. Theo-Ben

Gurirab for the success with which he guided the work

of the fifty-fourth session.

I convey warm regards to the Secretary-General,

Mr. Kofi Annan, who has made a remarkable

contribution to enhancing the confidence placed in the

Organization.

The Republic of Haiti welcomes the admission of

Tuvalu to membership of the United Nations.

There is no question but that this session should

focus on how to implement the decisions taken by our

heads of State or Government during the Millennium

Summit with a view to forging a policy of effective

global cooperation for the twenty-first century. Despite

all the criticism one could legitimately level at the

Organization after 55 years, the United Nations system

remains the sole worldwide structure that can provide

collective solutions to the problems facing us in the

spheres of international security, the environment and

economic and social development.

The Organization is often found lacking in terms

of solutions to problems. But we know very well that

this lack of effectiveness is the result of several factors,

including a lack of resources and poor management of

those that are available, and overlap in the functions of

United Nations institutions and agencies. We think it is

important to continue to rationalize the functioning of

the Organization in order to secure the best results

from existing resources. We must remember that

entrusting the United Nations with a mandate without

providing it with the proper means for fulfilling it has

the inevitable and negative consequence of

undermining the Organization's credibility.

Last June in Geneva, we took stock of the

outcome of the Copenhagen World Summit for Social

Development. The assessment was very mixed, not to

say negative. The fact is that the Copenhagen

Declaration on Social Development and Programme of

Action were formulated in response to a world socio-

historical situation marked both by a widening gap

between North and South and by a distinct incongruity

between the positive economic aspects and the negative

social aspects of globalization. Social development

therefore gains in urgency as the process of

globalization accelerates.

In spite of all the political and economic

difficulties facing the Republic of Haiti, it has made

constant efforts to attain the goals of the Copenhagen

Summit, as witnessed by the seemingly minor but

actually important fact that between 1997 and 2000

Haiti's ranking in the United Nations Development

Programme human development index rose from 156

to 150. But we know that we are far from reaching

acceptable levels of social development. That is why

the Haitian Government continues to devote special

attention to implementing the Programme of Action for

the Least Developed Countries for the 1990s.

The Third United Nations Conference on the

Least Developed Countries will be held at Brussels in

May 2001. It will, inter alia, assess what has been done

to strengthen the human and institutional capacities of

the least developed countries. Unless these are

strengthened, it will be extremely difficult for least

developed countries fully to attain goals of the

Copenhagen Programme of Action.

Beyond its social aspects, the question of

development will be decisive for the peaceful future of

international relations. Statistics remind us daily that

the countries of the North and the countries of the

South are moving further apart as the changes brought

about by globalization continue swiftly. This situation

is politically, economically and ecologically dangerous

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for the stability of the international system; this could

lead in the long term to the spread of areas bereft of

law, to sudden migratory flows and to the continued

use of armed conflicts and violence as a way of

conducting relations between and within nations.

Haiti therefore welcomes the fact that a central

theme of next year's second high-level dialogue on

strengthening international economic cooperation for

development through partnership will be the

identification of ways to integrate developing countries

into the world economy in the twenty-first century.

The economy of the twenty-first century will

increasingly be based on new information technologies

and this will be an enormous challenge for the

developing countries. Because of this, maximizing

cultural resources and local genetic resources for

development and for preserving traditional knowledge

will become essential for sustainable development,

since it offers an appropriate legal framework to enable

countries of the South to preserve their intellectual

property rights to their genetic resources.

Implementation of a global policy for economic

development will have no really significant effect on

real development of the human being if the question of

peace is neglected. Peace and development are

interdependent and mutually reinforcing. The United

Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural

Organization's constitution states explicitly that “since

wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of

men that the defences of peace must be constructed”. It

is therefore essential that the concept and the practice

of peace become a real culture so as to enable societies

and individuals to develop and enrich themselves

through their cultural diversity. We welcome the

proclamation of 2001 as the “Year of Dialogue among

Civilizations”.

Social development and the worldwide

dissemination of a culture of peace are definitely basic

elements here. However, we think that it is important to

welcome the idea of integrating them into a wider

conceptual and operational dimension — the dimension

of human security which places the human being at the

very heart of international priorities. Far from harming

the interests of the nation-State, human security fully

meets its concerns. In fact, human security goes

beyond, formally speaking, the natural sphere of action

of nation-States to deal with transnational phenomena

such as the degradation of the environment, natural

disasters and international crime in all of its many

aspects which pose serious threats to the control over,

and managing of, national affairs. The great challenge

today is to work out and implement a programme for

human security that establishes, as a yardstick for its

success, its ability to release men and women in our

world from the slavery of poverty.

In our search for solutions to current problems,

we need to envisage the reform of our Organization

and, in particular, the reform of the Security Council

and the Economic and Social Council.

Questions of development are linked to questions

of international security and therefore neither of these

reforms should be neglected. After years of negotiation

and debate, it is time now for the international

community to reach a consensus on the

democratization of the Security Council to make it

better adapted to the new international realities. It

would also be an ideal time to give thought to a

thorough reassessment of the veto, which is no longer

in keeping with the current state of international

relations.

The attainment of these goals will make it

possible for our Organization to discharge its twofold

mission: guaranteeing peace among nations and

assisting the peoples of the earth to develop their

potential.

Likewise, the reform of the Economic and Social

Council is essential if we want to give the United

Nations the tools it needs to confront the challenges of

the twenty-first century. This reform should seek to

avoid or eliminate the functional overlapping of

programmes of action of the agencies of the United

Nations system, while developing a policy of

partnership for development. Accordingly, it is

essential to strengthen the functions of the Economic

and Social Council that relate to the coordination of

funds and programmes. The strengthening of the role

of, and the functioning of, the Economic and Social

Council is particularly crucial in this era of

globalization. Only the definition and implementation

at the multilateral level of coordinated plans of action

will make it possible to help, in a meaningful way, the

efforts of States to eradicate poverty and to establish a

solid basis for comprehensive sustainable development.

Our Organization is rightly called a universal

Organization. This is why the Republic of Haiti

welcomed enthusiastically our unanimous decision to

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admit Tuvalu as the 189th Member. It is only right that

the 9,000 inhabitants of that country be properly

represented in our world Organization.

Therefore the situation of the 23 million Chinese

of Taiwan is a matter of concern to us. We welcome the

fact that the dialogue-based approach continues to

prevail on both sides of the Straits of Taiwan. While we

wait for the dialogue to produce satisfactory results for

both sides, we think that the question of the

representation of these 23 million people deserves the

attention of the United Nations.

Allow me to conclude by referring to a few

figures. According to the latest report on development,

produced by the World Bank, one fifth of the world's

population, no less than 1.2 billion people, are living

on less than one dollar a day. One out of five children

die before reaching the age of five. The World Bank

tells us also that the 20 richest countries have an

average income which is 37 times higher than that of

the 20 poorest countries and this gap is twice what it

was 40 years ago.

And yet, these last 40 years were all decades

devoted to development by the international

community. There is, therefore, a problem here that I

would call the paradox of the twentieth century. Never

has humanity attained such a capacity to produce all

kinds of goods and riches, and yet never have there

been so many people unjustifiably going hungry.

The essential challenge today is for the twenty-

first century not to resemble the twentieth in this

respect. To make this happen, the mind-boggling

constant increase in scientific knowledge must be

properly harnessed to the fight against poverty in all of

its various manifestations.

The United Nations cannot spend another 55

years talking about development: it is time now, it is

high time to make development a reality. The entire

credibility of the Organization hinges on this issue

because, basically, development is another name for

peace.

Despite the many obstacles we face, Haiti hopes

that the community of States will manage to build in

this century and in this millennium a world where basic

needs will be met, where nature will be protected,

where the scourge of drugs and organized crime will be

controlled, with opportunities for all, with hopes for a

more promising future, in particular for young people

and for the disadvantaged.