Senegal, 2005

It is a

pleasure for me to express on behalf of my delegation

warm congratulations on the outstanding election, of

the President to lead the sixtieth regular session of the

General Assembly of the United Nations. I see the

selection as a tribute to his excellent qualities as a

diplomat without equal and recognition of the tireless

commitment of Sweden to the noble causes of our

Organization. He may be sure that in the discharge of

his lofty mission, Senegal’s support is completely

understood.

Allow me to take this opportunity to say how

much we have appreciated the commitment and the

flair that his predecessor, my friend and brother, His

Excellency the Minister of State Jean Ping, discharged

his mandate at a decisive point in the existence of the

United Nations. Whatever the results of the

negotiations under way for a just and in-depth reform

of our Organization, our brother Jean Ping will have

given the most of himself, and we all owe him

gratitude and respect.

I should also like here to pay tribute to the

unfailing dedication to the causes of our Organization

displayed by His Excellency Mr. Kofi Annan, the

Secretary-General of the United Nations, a dedication

that was recently reflected in his excellent and timely

initiative to submit to Member States a substantial

number of proposals aimed at ensuring the rebirth of

the United Nations and making it possible to envisage

a new dawn for multilateralism.

This year’s general debate has been symbolic and

strategic in nature in that it is being held following the

High-level Plenary Meeting, which mobilized all of our

leaders and was an expression of the will of all of the

Member States to make the necessary adjustments for a

revitalization of the founding values of the United

Nations and for a better consideration of the aspiration

of all peoples.

This is a crucial meeting carrying as it does

within it the great hopes of the disadvantaged

populations of the world, victims of endemic

underdevelopment. The major results of this summit, in

my view, are an expression of the faith of the

international community in spirit and solidarity,

interdependence and international cooperation, the

raison d’être of the United Nations, at a time when our

societies are faced with an increasingly complex

international environment characterized by a

globalization that is still not being clearly defined.

Although there are signposts, the road before us

is still long, and so great is the lag behind of many

developing countries, particularly on the African

continent, in achieving the Millennium Development

13

Goals, that billions of men and women around the

world should be helped to free themselves from

difficulties and from exclusion and despair so they can

fully enjoy the dividends of peace and security.

This is why my delegation strongly hopes that

this act of faith will be translated into tangible actions

and into results that are palpable for all. This is

precisely what the Secretary-General invited us to

consider in highlighting in his report of last March the

indivisibility of the three pillars of development,

security and human rights.

Therefore, we must all act. For us, a developing

country, acting means implementing strategies that will

be beneficial for development, supported by clear-

sighted policies of good governance and the rule of law

including all sectors of society. And for the developed

countries this means scrupulously honouring the

commitments undertaken in terms of resolving the

question of debt, promoting a just and equitable trade

and improving the volume and quality of aid

mechanisms.

By the historic decisions that it is calling for, the

agenda established by the summit confirms eloquently

the firmness of the commitments of heads of State and

Government to focus on fighting for development,

whose ultimate goal is the harmonious integration of

developing countries in the globalization process.

However, the heavy interdependence of the world

economy and the demands for peace naturally call for a

real global partnership, which includes a sharing of

responsibilities and takes into account the specific

needs of developing countries.

Nevertheless, the desired increase in assistance to

developing countries is not a sufficient condition for

them to have lasting inclusion in the globalization

process. We also need to rationalize this assistance and

to improve the delivery mechanisms. Indeed, despite

the recent measures of debt cancellation for certain

African countries and the Heavily Indebted Poor

Countries Debt Initiative, the debt burden continues to

hamper any improvement in the economies of

developing countries, which now find themselves in

perpetual dependence on donors.

Clearly, Africa is falling further and further

behind the objectives of the Millennium Development

Goals and will continue to do so if its debt burden is

not drastically alleviated. Since the mechanisms

planned for bringing the continent out of debt have not

yet borne fruit, we should, apart from the partial

measures which we should welcome, envisage bolder

and more durable solutions.

Based on this concern, the African ministers of

finance met to discuss the strategy for debt reduction in

Africa in May of this year in Dakar, under the aegis of

the African Union. This was in preparation for a

conference during which the President of the Republic

of Senegal, His Excellency Abdoulaye Wade, proposed

to the African Union that it conduct an “x-ray” of

African debt.

The economic recovery of the developing

countries is all the more delayed in that they continue,

helplessly, to be buffeted by an unfair and unbalanced

world trade environment due to protectionist policies

and export subsidies which distort the whole idea of

competitiveness and divert trade from the objective of

development. This contributes to making producers in

the poor countries more vulnerable and explains the

high hopes that we place in the next World Trade

Organization Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong in

order to conclude the Doha cycle for development and

design a multilateral trade system that is non-

discriminatory and equitable for all. We welcome the

particular attention being given increasingly to dealing

with the specific needs of Africa in the international

development agenda.

Unfortunately, we cannot fail to deplore the fact

that, paradoxically, the New Partnership for Africa’s

Development (NEPAD), adopted by this Assembly,

continues to suffer from a deficit in implementation

due partly to internal inertia and to slow multilateral

support, particularly in terms of financial

disbursements.

I would like here once again to make a serious

appeal to States and to the agencies of the United

Nations system, including the Bretton Woods

institutions, to make concrete their commitments to

help Africa implement NEPAD — this ambitious

programme of development.

One of the priority sectors of this programme

remains that of information and communication

technology. In this respect I should like to welcome the

creation — following the first phase of the World

Summit on the Information Society — of a digital

solidarity fund. This Fund, a proposal of President

Wade, rapidly became an initiative of the African

Union and was adopted in March 2005 by the

14

international community in Geneva. It is aimed at

helping the countries of the South to bridge their

digital divide with the North and to promote

sustainable development. I should like here to repeat

Senegal’s invitation to States, local groups, heads of

companies and civil society to contribute in cash and in

kind to this fund.

The many initiatives to be taken in the next few

weeks and months should not let us lose sight of the

battle that we must wage at the worldwide, regional

and national levels to defeat pandemics of infectious

diseases such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and

polio, which are decimating our populations. As

regards HIV/AIDS, the Government of Senegal, which

devotes more than one-tenth of its budget to health,

will continue through bold actions based on

information, education, awareness campaigns,

prevention and subsidies to fight pandemics tirelessly.

However, the encouraging results achieved by

several countries, including Senegal, which has

managed to keep the prevalence rate of HIV/AIDS at

one of the lowest levels in the continent, cannot be

consolidated without substantial and consistent support

from international partners. Allow me to remind the

General Assembly of the good news announced just a

few weeks ago of the prevalence rate in my country

falling from 1.7 per cent to 0.7 per cent.

I would also like to invite the international

community to support Africa in its fight against

drepanocytosis — otherwise known as sickle cell

anaemia — which has become a public health problem

in several countries. This disease, apart from the

suffering that it inflicts on the populations, is an

obstacle to development in that it makes sufferers

unable to work. For that reason the Summit of Heads

of State and Government of the African Union, held in

Sirte from 2 to 5 July, adopted a decision supporting

the inclusion of genetic drepanocytosis on the list of

priorities for public health. I would thus invite the

Assembly to join this battle against drepanocytosis.

Equally vital is the willingness of our external

partners to commit themselves with Africa to finding a

solution to the situation of its agriculture, which

continues to suffer from an environment that is

increasingly hostile to the flourishing of design

capacities and to transfers of technology central to

their development. This is the thrust of the initiative of

the Dakar Agricultural Forum, launched by President

Wade, the first meeting of which was held in February

2005 in Dakar on the topic “The world agricultural

divide: opening up prospects for agricultural areas in

development”.

This Forum was an opportunity for a productive

exchange of views and ideas among officials in the

sector, representatives of professional organizations,

non-governmental organizations, multinational

companies, scientists and academics from all

continents. The Forum considered the possibilities of

partnerships in order to reduce the agricultural divide

between North and South by using science and the

transfer of technology, and discussed successful

agricultural experiments submitted and presented at

Dakar by experts from several countries. By initiating

this project in Dakar, the Government of Senegal

sought to stimulate thought on an original concept of

development, taking into account the political,

technical and sociological constraints peculiar to the

countries of the South.

Another challenge that has a negative impact on

agriculture is desertification, which affects nearly one

third of the African continent. There was a meeting of

experts from more than 30 countries in Dakar from

26 to 29 July to discuss this problem. That meeting was

held on the initiative of President Wade, in accordance

with a mandate from his African peers, to consider

developing the Sahara and its boundaries in the Sahel.

As President Wade said, it is a question of “having a

good, hard look at the Sahara” and thinking about the

creation of a High Authority of the Sahara based on the

American model of the Tennessee Valley Authority,

which was a successful example of integrated

development.

We should like here to invite the international

community, which decided to proclaim 2006 as the

International Year of Deserts and Desertification, to

participate in this important work of constructing what

has been called by President Wade and his brother and

friend, President Olusegun Obasanjo, the “Great Green

Wall of Africa”, to slow the advance of the desert. As

President Wade has said, “Either the desert or the

human being — one will have to disappear.” We hope

that it will be the desert.

Certainly, the struggle to promote development

should go hand in hand with another fight, that for a

world where peace, security and the scrupulous respect

of human rights and individual freedoms reigns. This is

15

why my country fully supports the important

conclusions of the outcome document of the High-level

Plenary Meeting, relating in particular to the

revitalization of the work of the General Assembly, the

restructuring of the Security Council, the creation of a

Peacebuilding Commission and of a Human Rights

Council, and also the adoption of the fundamental

principle of the responsibility to protect.

From this rostrum, the President of Senegal, on

the question of the expansion of the Security Council,

recently made a strong appeal that, first, the historic

injustice done to Africa — the only region of the world

missing from the group of permanent members of the

Security Council — be redressed. Certainly, our

continent would like at the end of the process to

receive two permanent seats in the Council, two thirds

of whose agenda, unfortunately, is devoted to Africa.

However, the proposal of Senegal — a country that

defends the spirit of compromise with other interest

groups — to put Africa at the beginning and at the end

of the expansion of the Security Council, deserves the

attention of the entire international community.

There is no doubt that the full implementation of

the conclusions of the High-level Plenary Meeting will

make it possible for our Organization to connect better

to the realities of this new century. However, the fine

prospects that have been opened up by the Meeting

should not make us forget the serious impact of the

painful situations to which our world has been a

helpless observer for many years. I would just mention

three such situations: the disturbing deadlock in

negotiations in the area of disarmament, in particular

nuclear disarmament; terrorism; and the bogging down

and lack of headway in the peace process in the Middle

East.

It is not yet too late for the “argument of

power” — and nuclear power, which I have just set out

here — to yield to the “power of argument” of shared

peace, so that weapons of mass destruction — nuclear,

chemical or biological — can be definitively banned.

As regards terrorism, the recent attacks on

London and on Sharm el-Sheikh are painful reminders

of the persistence of an evil that can only be eliminated

through determined and decisive mobilization by the

international community. This response is all the more

timely since the terrorist hydra attacks the sanctity of

life, defies all reason and undermines the foundations

of the rights and freedoms of the individual. It is the

view of Senegal that, quite frankly, there is no cause

sufficiently just or sufficiently good to justify the use

of terrorism and the massacre of women, children and

innocent civilians.

Last but not least, the Middle East continues to

send us daily images of a seemingly endless tragedy

for the Palestinian people. We note the reluctance of

the occupying Power, Israel, to respect the spirit and

the letter of the road map, which has been seen in the

recent settlements established in “Greater Jerusalem”,

accompanied by destruction of houses belonging to

Palestinians and the refusal to give them authorization

to reunite their families. And we see it once again in

the Israeli plan to link East Jerusalem with the

settlement of Ma’aleh Adumim in the West Bank.

The international community must redouble its

efforts and vigilance to put an end to the harsh actions

against the Palestinians including the construction of

the separation wall and the settlements, and take

measures to enable both parties to work to conclude

rapidly a mutually advantageous peace.

In advocating justice, it seems inconceivable that

the Republic of China on Taiwan, with its 23 million

inhabitants and its impressive economic dynamism,

should be kept out of the United Nations.

Thus, we express the hope that, finally, peace will

reign in all regions of the world, particularly in Africa.

This is why we welcome the fact that countries such as

Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, Liberia or Burundi,

despite conflict, are emerging from crisis and

embarking on the path to reconciliation and

reconstruction.

I would like to add just one last word on Guinea-

Bissau. For us, Guinea-Bissau has met its commitments

as regards the international community, proving its

maturity and its attachment and dedication to peace. It

is thus for the international community to accompany

this process now under way in Bissau. To that end, the

meeting of donors planned for November should be

held without conditions and should lead to substantial

material and financial support so as to help the people

of Guinea-Bissau continue to take charge of their

destiny.

I should like to conclude on this point and pay

warm tribute to Mr. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, Secretary

General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference,

for his restructuring efforts to make the OIC a modern

16

and effective organization more capable of strengthening

cooperation within the Islamic Oumah and contributing

to the fight against underdevelopment.

In this noble fight, my country, Senegal, remains

more determined than ever to work with all of its

partners in order to bring about a fairer, more peaceful

and more prosperous world.