Philippines, 2000

The twentieth century

was one of great trials and great achievements. The

new century will be what we make of it. Whatever has

been won in the name of peace, the hunting season in

history is not quite over. Tension between nations has

not disappeared. Ethnic strife, religious extremism,

economic inequity and social injustice continue to fuel

conflict. Agents of terror and transnational criminals

strike everywhere.

Despite the new wealth of nations, 1.2 billion

people live on less than $1 a day. The 32 poorest

African countries do not earn much more than the

richest man on earth. And, despite the grinding poverty

of billions, the world spends $145 per capita on

military forces. We must do better — much better —

than this.

Our Organization received the needed impetus at

last week's Millennium Summit. That should not be

squandered. The fifty-fifth session of the General

Assembly must reflect the new global covenant for

peace and progress. As always, the United Nations

must be at the forefront of this great enterprise. We are

here to lead.

The Philippine delegation sees this Millennium

Assembly as a bridge to link three divides: those of the

past and the future; of experience and vision; and of

promise and fulfilment.

Fifty-five years ago our Organization arose from

the ashes of war. Some founding Member States were

very young, just recently set free from centuries of

colonial rule. All were still preoccupied with tasks of

rebuilding lives and neighbourhoods shattered by the

Great War. The ideological divide was to become

deeper and wider. The foundations for the walls and

curtains that defined an era were just being laid. For

the average person then a truly global community was

no more than an ideal, remote and all but removed

from the day-to-day lives of mostly rural, agricultural

populations.

Now we are all part of the global village.

Interdependence is a recognized and accepted fact.

“Globalization” is on the lips of everyone, sometimes

with scorn, at other times with affection, but always

with the discernment that it is the wave of the future.

Above all else, that future belongs to all the world's

people, to both the affluent and the destitute, to both

the strong and the weak. With everyone's direct

involvement in charting and realizing our common

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destiny, we open the door to the fullest flowering of

humanity's potential. We also affirm human dignity.

“Wiring” the world's cities into the information

grid of the twenty-first century is indeed one wise

investment we should be making today. But if anyone

were left out, if the “digital device” were but to echo

and perpetuate social injustice on a global scale, we

would not have moved far from where we started. The

past would simply repeat itself.

To empower people is to build our bridge to the

future. The world's leaders were therefore on the mark

when they enshrined freedom, equality, solidarity,

tolerance, respect for nature and shared responsibility

as the fundamental, people-empowering values of the

twenty-first century. Now, it is this Assembly's turn to

employ those values and take steps to achieve the

specific objectives set by the Summit for people

empowerment.

Let us buckle down to work and ensure that by

2015 all children will be able to complete primary

schooling and, beyond that date, that they have the

opportunities to pursue higher levels of education. For

let us face it, education is the best tool for protecting

human rights, promoting democracy and advancing

good governance.

But because a sound mind will work better in a

sound body, let us win the battle against disease,

including HIV/AIDS, which lays to waste millions in

the world's poorest regions. Let us take action to

drastically reduce maternal and under-five child

mortality from their horrendous current rates and to

achieve the lofty goals of the “Cities Without Slums”

initiative.

Let us invest in humanity. Let us launch in this

Assembly nothing short of a Marshall Plan for the

world's people. Let us build this human bridge to our

future, now.

The United Nations has both the experience and

the vision needed for success. Our Organization has

both the privilege and the duty to lead our world into

the future with confidence. We know how to do it.

To sustain the United Nations capacity to carry

out its tasks, deep institutional reforms must now take

place. A more energetic and financially stable world

Organization, led by a proactive General Assembly and

strengthened by a truly representative and transparent

Security Council, must now emerge.

For the new covenant on peace to prosper, the

United Nations must remain, without equivocation or

doubt, the first and last peacemaker and peacekeeper of

the world. It should also be the vanguard that

champions the rule of law in international as well as in

internal affairs.

Preventive diplomacy must be our principal tool

in warding off conflict. We must reduce the use of

force. But where we need to use it, as in self-defence or

under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, we

should be guided by international legal norms and

practice.

United Nations peacekeeping operations should

be prosecuted with clear and well-defined mandates,

adequate resources and strong international support

wherever they take place. The report of the Brahimi

Panel on United Nations Peace Operations deserves our

urgent and careful consideration.

More than ever, the United Nations must now

gather together the political will of all nations to bring

about the final stage of disarmament and the much-

awaited arrival of a nuclear-weapon-free world.

Towards this end, we must support the Secretary-

General's call to convene a conference on nuclear

dangers, actively participate in the 2001 small arms

conference, negotiate a comprehensive convention

against terrorism and progressively improve weapons

and arms budget transparency measures.

The central role of the United Nations does not

and should not stop at matters of international peace

and security. It should also be at the heart of our efforts

to promote prosperity for all. It should lead the charge

against poverty and the efforts to halve, by 2015, the

proportion of people whose income is less than one

dollar a day.

Along with the Bretton Woods institutions and

other multilateral organizations and fora, the United

Nations is well placed to make important contributions

to the reform of global economic and financial systems.

For our goal is not only to have a borderless world for

unfettered trade and investment. We should found a

global economic regime that builds productive

capacities, not income gaps; that promotes openness,

not corruption; that rewards enterprise, not greed.

In all these, partnerships with the private sector

and with civil society are indispensable. Every man,

women and child is our co-stakeholder and partner. For

what we are trying to build is a new global order where

human security goes beyond mere military security;

where law upholds human dignity and both people and

State uphold the law; and where political pluralism and

cultural diversity are requisite to the attainment of

common human objectives.

In other words, peace and prosperity must rest

more on human cooperation than on anything else. For

in this global village, cooperation is the only tenable

way to bridge experience and vision.

The United Nations Millennium Declaration

embodies our collective hope: the promise of a true

community of nations working together for a more

peaceful, prosperous and just world. We know that

between this promise and its fulfilment lies a tortuous

road, yet we must tread its length. In this journey, the

first and most important step we should take is to

remove the greatest source of danger and discord, that

is, underdevelopment. For if one is not free of want, he

cannot be free of fear.

In the developing world, the toll from decades of

turmoil and abject underdevelopment has been so

debilitating that only international relief can help some

of us back to our feet. Many of us may cry for safety

nets. But not even fish welcome life inside a net. What

we need is a new deal for the poor countries.

Development is particularly difficult for countries

saddled by mountains of crippling debt. Some 1.6

trillion dollars is now owed by developing countries,

several of which have to use up to 95 per cent of their

hard currency revenues to service debt. In the

meantime, development assistance is declining. This

year, grants to developing countries may total 40

billion US dollars — a mere half of what it was a

quarter century ago.

As earnest for our collective future, we should

have meaningful debt relief for the world's heavily

indebted poor countries immediately. Let us also see

the fulfilment of the promises of overseas development

assistance (ODA) made three decades ago. Further

steps must be taken at the third United Nations

Conference on the Least Developed Countries next

year. We must ensure its success to help our brothers

and sisters in Africa, in landlocked developing

countries, in nations particularly vulnerable to natural

disasters and in least developed countries in all regions

of the world. At this Assembly, we should do our

utmost to guarantee that all preparations necessary for

the success of this conference are made.

We must also redeem the pledge of our leaders to

make every effort to ensure the success of the high-

level international and intergovernmental event on

financing for development in 2001. By investing this

event with the active participation, goodwill and

expertise of all stakeholders, including the private

sector, from the preparatory stages to the plan's

implementation, we may yet achieve what several

United Nations Development Decades have not.

The world's people took heart from the boldness

of spirit and resolve our leaders expressed in the

United Nations Millennium Declaration. They were

reassured that we intend to take the world into the

future as partners and not as adversaries. They wished

for clear direction from our leaders, and they received

it. Now, they look to us in this Millennium Assembly

for concrete action. Let us rise to the challenge and

build the bridges to peace and prosperity for all the

united nations.