Namibia, 2003

Mr. President, my

delegation congratulates you on your assumption of

this high office. We are confident that, given your vast

experience and consummate diplomatic skill, you will

be able to successfully manage the proceedings of this

session of the General Assembly. I also wish to express

our appreciation for the excellent and effective manner

in which your predecessor, Mr. Jan Kavan, conducted

the work of the fifty-seventh session. In the same vein,

I would like to commend the Secretary-General for his

efforts to strengthen the role of the United Nations in

resolving the world’s burning issues.

Allow me also to pay tribute to the international

workers who have recently given their lives in service

to the United Nations in Iraq. In particular, we reiterate

our condolences to the Secretary-General and the

Organization for the tragic death of Sergio Vieira de

Mello, that outstanding servant of the United Nations.

As we condemn terrorism and violence in all their

forms and manifestations, we honour the memory of

Anna Lindh, the slain Foreign Minister of Sweden,

who dedicated her life to the pursuit of peace,

development and social progress.

We appear here before this Assembly every year

to renew our vow to the United Nations as the main

guarantor of international peace and security. The

speeches that we deliver here are a distilled expression

of our collective passion for and conviction about the

ideals that the United Nations stands for.

Yet, at times, as was the case with the war on

Iraq, the United Nations gets sidelined and the unique

legitimacy of its authority undermined through

unilateral actions. Such actions produced a general

feeling of fear and uncertainty, especially among the

small and weak nations of the world. This is why the

central theme that runs through nearly all the speeches

at this session is the call for a return to multilateral

dialogue, persuasion and collective action as the only

appropriate approach to resolving the many conflicts

facing the international community. Being a small

country, Namibia echoes this call. Multilateralism must

be the basis of global security, if smaller countries are

not to feel that they are at the mercy of stronger ones.

But, as recent events have demonstrated, big Powers,

like the smaller ones, also need a multilateral

framework as a more reassuring environment for the

execution of foreign policy.

We cannot fail to re-emphasize the inseparable

link between international security and economic

development. Therefore, the Organization must uphold

the commitments made in the field of economic

development, especially the important pledges made at

the Millennium Summit and contained in the

Millennium Declaration.

In that Declaration, world leaders committed

themselves to help lift half of the world’s poor out of

misery and deprivation by the year 2015. We are

talking here of 1.5 billion people around the world who

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are today victims of abject poverty and 800 million

who are starving. Still more, we are talking about the

900 million adults worldwide who are illiterate.

The tragedy is that this human misery is acquiring

deepening and broadening dimensions at a time when

human ingenuity is ever enlarging the horizons of

possibilities of doing away with this terrible scourge of

extreme poverty and deprivation. Clearly, therefore, the

implementation of the Millennium Declaration is a race

against time. Failure to act now, and to do so with a

sense of urgency, will mean that we, especially the rich

of this world, have failed to rise to the moral and

political challenge, which is to protect that most sacred

of all human rights, the right to life.

Namibia is fully committed to the implementation

of the Millennium Declaration. To this end, we allocate

23 per cent of our annual national budget to education

and 15 per cent to health. In this commitment to invest

in our people, we have proceeded from the premise that

a fundamental way to address the problem of poverty is

to improve the productive competitiveness of our

economy, and that improving that competitiveness is

dependant on the rapid increase in the knowledge,

skills and capacities of the people, with a view to

empowering them to be able to escape from the trap of

poverty. Skills in the field of information technology

are a critical element of our human resources

development programme.

The other urgent challenge, spelled out in the

Millennium Declaration, is the fight against the AIDS

pandemic. Namibia is devoting considerable resources

and attention to this seemingly daunting battle to

contain the spread and limit the impact of this epidemic

on our society. In this effort, we are working with other

countries, relevant United Nations agencies, the private

sector and members of civil society. In the context of

this battle, the plight of AIDS orphans is given priority.

However, there is a need for more generous

contributions to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS,

Tuberculosis and Malaria.

In the pursuit of Millennium Development Goals,

Namibia is, furthermore, working closely with its

partners in the Southern African Development

Community (SADC) to implement a number of key

regional projects. One of these is a major power

project, involving the power utilities of Angola,

Botswana, the Democratic Republic of the Congo,

South Africa and Namibia.

Similarly, Namibia, together with Angola,

Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe, has embarked on

one of the world’s largest regional wildlife

conservation and tourism development projects. The

geographical scope of this area cuts across the

territories of all five countries and covers

approximately 278,000 square kilometres.

We would like, therefore, to reassure the

Secretary-General that Namibia has, indeed, started in

earnest on the implementation of the Millennium

Declaration and is staying the course. However, as I

said earlier, there is still a great need for additional

resources so that we can intensify our efforts aimed at

development and poverty eradication.

For more than a decade now, the overwhelming

majority of Member States, including Namibia, have

been calling for the reform of the institutions of the

Organization, especially the Security Council.

At the time of the founding of the United Nations

in 1945, the Organization consisted of only 51 Member

States. That number has now grown to 191 sovereign

States. But the structure of the United Nations has

remained in some respects unchanged.

The Security Council needs to become

democratic and more representative — allowing other

regions and States to be represented. There is a broad

consensus that by making it a democratic body, and

more representative, we would give the Security

Council greater legitimacy and that that, in turn, would

mean more effective United Nations machinery.

This call for reform is in line with the principle of

democratic governance so often demanded of the

developing countries by, among others, some of the

Powers that occupy permanent seats in the Security

Council.

We welcome the fact that the Secretary-General

has taken on board the reform of the United Nations,

and that it is one of the higher priorities on his agenda.

We have noted with great interest his plan to set up a

panel of eminent personalities to look into the reform

process and recommend ways of effecting such a

reform.

One of the issues that underlines the need for the

urgent reform of the Security Council is the pathetic

inability of that organ to bring the authority of the

United Nations to bear on the situation in the Middle

East. The unrelenting carnage that is taking place in

that region has not compelled the Powers that be to

accept the fact that that situation constitutes a threat to

international peace and security. Because of a lack of

political will in the Security Council, there has been no

ability to act collectively to put a stop to the carnage.

The continued occupation of the Palestinian

territory exacerbates frustration and despair among the

Palestinians. It follows, therefore, that the end of the

occupation and the establishment of a Palestinian State,

existing side by side with Israel, is key to peace and

stability in that region.

The implementation of the Security Council’s

plan for Western Sahara would have closed the chapter

on decolonization in Africa. The right of the people of

Western Sahara to self-determination and independence

is a Charter obligation that we cannot shirk.

We hail the efforts of the Economic Community

of West African States in Liberia and welcome the

establishment of the United Nations Mission in that

country. Guided by our commitment to African

solidarity and given the resolve of the African Union to

contribute to the maintenance of international peace

and security, Namibia has decided to contribute troops

to the United Nations Mission in Liberia.

Geographic proximity is not a matter of choice.

We abhor the continued imposition of the United States

embargo against the people of Cuba, and call on the

international community to demand the immediate

lifting of that embargo.

In conclusion, I would like to stress the vital

importance of international cooperation by all

stakeholders in our effort to realize the Millennium

Development Goals. In order to reduce the scourge of

poverty and underdevelopment, developing countries

need access to the markets of developed countries.

There is, therefore, an urgent need to overcome

the impasse which has developed as result of the

failure of the World Trade Organization Ministerial

Conference at Cancún. We need to emphasize that

urgent need. We call on the developed countries to

demonstrate a spirit of compromise in line with their

undertakings at the Millennium Summit.

Furthermore the implementation of the decisions

taken at the Monterrey Conference on Financing for

Development must not be allowed to become a dead

letter. The promise made by world leaders at the

Millennium Summit to give globalization a human face

should also be given practical expression.

In short, the vision of a bright and prosperity-

enhancing new Millennium must not be allowed to

become a mirage or a dream that could not be realized.