Senegal, 2010

The

delegation of Senegal welcomes the election of

Mr. Joseph Deiss to lead the General Assembly at its

sixty-fifth session. We are aware of his personal

qualities and are confident that his presidency will bear

the hallmark of his country’s traditional neutrality. I

warmly congratulate him and wish him every success.

I would also like to pay homage to Mr. Ali

Abdussalam Treki for his outstanding work in guiding

the work of the Assembly’s sixty-fourth session. I also

express our great gratitude to our Secretary-General,

Ban Ki-moon, for his tireless devotion to his delicate

task in the service of our common ideals.

The state of the world has improved little since

the Assembly’s last session. We continue to face the

same urgent issues: the ongoing economic crisis and

continued environmental degradation. Unfortunately,

with regard to the latter, the Copenhagen Conference

was unable to provide a satisfactory response — not

because of a lack of will, but rather because the

question has been inappropriately framed, as I said at

that meeting. To that list we must add persistent issues

such as transnational organized crime, international

terrorism and illicit drug trafficking.

As we meet here to consider and act together on

those major challenges, we are giving hope to our

people with regard to finding concerted answers to

those many and complex problems, which no country

can face alone. It is therefore altogether fitting that we

turn to the world Organization to find a collective

response, or at least to exchange experiences.

The theme of the Assembly’s sixty-fifth

session — “Reaffirming the central role of the United

Nations in global governance” — is therefore quite

timely. Perhaps we ourselves have been tardy in

launching this debate. In my view, it is not a matter of

determining whether the Organization has contributed

to improving global governance, but rather a question

of how to make its efforts more useful and effective in

the face of the unprecedented upheavals that the world

has experienced in recent years.

International relations have accelerated

considerably in a very short time. Much of what was

taken as certain is no longer true and accepted notions

have been shaken. What we call the established order

has been turned on its head by the emergence of new

forces arising from globalization and economic

competition.

The changes that have taken place call for a new

state of mind and another way of perceiving and

managing world affairs by adapting the system to the

new realities of the twenty-first century. Are we

prepared to define a new world order in which Africa

and emerging Powers fully play the role that the

ongoing changes are conferring upon them? The

answers we provide on those issues will depend, at

least in part, on the role of the Organization in global

governance.

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After 65 years of existence, the United Nations

system continues to bear the legacy of a bygone

historical era, with the Charter of the United Nations

itself bearing post-war stigmas and colonial prejudices.

For instance, the Charter still refers to the idea of an

enemy State, in the sense of a Power defeated in war.

Also, Article 38 of the Statute of the International

Court of Justice refers to general principles of law

recognized by civilized nations — as if uncivilized

nations still existed. In themselves, such anachronisms

from another time demonstrate the need to reform the

system.

Moreover, the nature of the issues now addressed

by the Organization has become quite diverse, just as

its composition and the volume of is work have

increased considerably, while some of its mechanisms,

including that for collective security, have remained

nearly unchanged.

In 1945 the Organization had 51 Members; today

it has 192. The composition of the Security Council, a

body which is supposed to reflect the will of Member

States, has been altered only once, in 1965, when the

number of seats increased from 11 to 15 with the

inclusion of additional non-permanent seats. And

17 years since we began negotiations on the Council’s

reform, there are still no prospects for consensus.

Maintaining the status quo at all costs means

ignoring the radical changes that have taken place in

the world, thereby making the Council susceptible to

greater mistrust, defiance and criticism. That inertia

may prove to be dangerous owing to the lack of

representation, legitimacy and credibility that could

result. If today many of the Council’s decisions are

being called into question and not properly

implemented, it is because they are perceived by the

great majority of Member States as being more

expressions of national interest than the carrying out of

a mandate on behalf of the community of nations.

I am not personally in agreement with the

eminent observer of the United Nations who has

written that “the organization of the Security Council

belongs to the nineteenth century”. I believe that it

bears the hallmark of our times, but it needs to be

improved and delivered of its shortcomings.

How can we preserve a credible role in global

governance for the Organization if Africa — which

makes up more than a fourth of its Members and

accounts for more than 70 per cent of the issues on the

agenda — does not have a permanent seat on the

Security Council? Several years ago in this Hall, in

order to put an end to that anomaly and to right an

historic injustice, Senegal proposed that —

independent of the ongoing reform, which will take

time, given that it began 17 years ago — Africa be

given a permanent seat with veto power.

Meanwhile, the same grievances that have been

levelled against the Security Council have also been

raised with regard to international criminal justice.

Twelve years ago, the common need for international

criminal justice that was universal, permanent and

neutral led to the establishment of the International

Criminal Court (ICC) to complement national

jurisdictions in punishing and preventing the most

serious crimes.

Because Senegal has faith in the ideals of peace

and justice for all, it reiterates its commitment to the

Court. It was the first country to ratify its Statute, on

2 February 1999. Nevertheless, the Court will never be

credible if the President of the Sudan is the only one to

be pursued, with suspect eagerness.

While the setting up of the ICC represents a

significant advance in the fight against impunity, it is

in its practice that the Court itself will be judged. And

for that practice to be free of suspicion and

questioning, we must ensure that it reflects the

principles agreed by the United Nations with regard to

human rights: universality, objectivity, non-selectivity

and impartiality. On the basis of those principles, the

Court should deal with all situations within its

jurisdiction in the same way, whoever the perpetrators

and whatever their nationality.

Given the deep and multifaceted crisis, global

economic governance remains a pertinent issue.

Consultative frameworks such as the Group of Eight

(G-8) and the Group of Twenty (G-20) are trying to

address it in order to lay the foundations for a new

world order. Those efforts are praiseworthy.

Today, there are a number of us who would like

to establish an independent circle of very high-level

specialists so as to put ourselves upstream of the G-8

and the G-20 and to provide heads of State and

Government with our thinking on the topics that they

are considering. We would even like to go beyond the

technical nature and address more fundamental issues.

The job of setting all that up has been entrusted to me,

and I am dedicating myself to the task.

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With regard to the unchecked increase in the

price of oil, which penalizes non-producing countries, I

have already proposed a mechanism that would make it

possible to bring together the corporate superprofits,

the income of producing countries and the surcharges

on non-producing countries, to serve as the basis for a

policy which I call “oil against poverty”, using a fund

financed by the contributions of the first two

categories, which share the oil revenues.

In order to parry the fierce rise in agricultural

prices, I suggest that we consider that issue again at a

conference in Dakar — the second Dakar Agricultural

Fair. We propose a mechanism that fully integrates

producers in order to establish world governance of

agricultural prices, taking into account the interests of

producers and consumers. That will be the aim of the

conference, which will be held in our capital in January

and February 2011.

In the same spirit, we continue to contribute to

efforts to protect the environment, in particular in the

context of the project to build the Great Green Wall. It

is a barrier of trees the length of the Sahel-Saharan

region, from Dakar to Djibouti, 7,000 kilometres long

by 15 kilometres wide, and that project is already being

implemented. It has earned us the support of the Global

Environment Facility, which has granted the countries

involved the sum of $119 million.

With regard to the Millennium Development

Goals (MDGs), the assessment that the Assembly’s

High-level Plenary Meeting has just made clearly

shows that, despite our progress, we must remain

mobilized in order to meet the agreed commitments by

the 2015 deadline.

In Senegal, thanks to the national assessment that

we carried out last May, we have gauged the work to

be done by 2015. Our main conclusion is that a

quantitative approach that sees development only in

terms of money is insufficient. We must show more

creativity and more imagination in our own country.

For its part, Senegal has implemented the following

innovations.

First is the GOANA Strategy — the Great

Agricultural Offensive for Food and Abundance, which

enabled us to go from an importer of food products in

2008 to self-sufficiency and even net exporter in 2010.

We have introduced the Neighbourhood

Godmother initiative, which empowers women in the

fight against maternal and child mortality so as to

speed up implementation of the MDGs related to

health. It is based on the sociology of our African

societies. In every neighbourhood or village, there is

always a woman who is the focus of all the others, and,

by giving her a role, we empower her to watch over the

pregnant women and attend to them, even at the child’s

birth. That requires only very little equipment, such as

a mobile phone. That supervision, we believe, will

make it possible to reduce maternal and child mortality.

Next is the Modern Daras initiative — daras

means studying in Arabic — which introduces the

teaching of Arabic, French and English and vocational

training in madrasas in order to progress towards the

complete disappearance of those students who graduate

from madrasas very learned and able to recite the

Koran, but who are jobless. That initiative is supported

by Senegal’s religious leaders. And we simply think

that it is possible to provide children with spiritual

training and further education at the same time. We

have introduced Christian and Muslim religious

education into schools.

Another initiative is the scheme to allocate 40 per

cent of the national budget to education and training in

order to ensure sufficient quality human resources, able

to take up the challenge of development. If I am not

mistaken, Senegal is the only country to have agreed to

that sacrifice — to put 40 per cent of the budget into

education.

The Bac Minus One initiative means that we take

the young people who have failed the baccalaureate

examination and have them help school teachers

promote primary education, in order to address the

criterion of universal primary education.

Naturally, we have launched a policy to promote

rural women. Today there are facilities that enable

them to retain the added value that was previously in

the hands of factories and producers, that is to say,

those who control the money.

We have also proposed a new definition of

poverty, which is not the fact of having less than $1 a

day. Poverty is a combination of deficiencies, such as

in housing, decent food, access to school and health

care. We are dealing with that by creating villages in

which all those fundamental needs can be met.

The Assembly knows about the Digital Solidarity

Fund initiative, which we launched a few years ago to

15 10-54959

help bridge the digital divide between developed

countries and underdeveloped countries.

I would also like to report that we have launched

the Eco-villages Strategy, which involves converting

traditional villages to energy self-sufficiency by using

clean energy such as solar or wind in order to lessen

the degradation of our environment.

Lastly, the initiative for complete equality

between men and women in Senegal in all fully or

partially elected bodies is a way for us to marshal

women’s abilities, which are fully acknowledged. The

law of March 2010 fully assimilates women into the

nation’s decision-making circles. I think that we should

perhaps stop talking about the advancement of women.

We must raise women to the decision-making level,

which will happen at the same time and on the basis of

equality with men.

I could continue, but those examples are enough

to demonstrate the pressing need for innovation.

In my capacity as current Chair of the

Organization of the Islamic Conference I must once

again draw the attention of the international

community to the resurgence of Islamophobia in

certain sectors. In recent years outbursts of

Islamophobia, as if in a process of escalation and

provocation, have multiplied: profanations of tombs

and of the Holy Koran, hate speech and blasphemous

caricatures. All these incidents in fact give expansive

proof of the small-mindedness, ignorance and

intellectual and moral bankruptcy of their authors. On

behalf of the Islamic umma, I strongly denounce and

condemn these irresponsible and absurd acts. In any

case, with regard to the Holy Koran, God himself has

made himself infallible protector of his holy word, as it

is said, “Surely We have revealed the Reminder and We

will most surely be its guardian” (The Holy Koran,

XV:9).

I would like everyone to understand that Islam

and Muslims are no one’s enemy. Islam is a religion of

the golden mean, which teaches moderation, which

exhorts us to do good, which preaches respect for

diversity and peaceful coexistence among peoples,

whatever their religion. Still today it is in strict

observance of these rules that nearly 2.5 billion

Muslims throughout the world practice their faith. If

there is a tiny minority that descends to violence in the

name of the Koran, we say: No, that is in keeping

neither with the letter nor the spirit of the Koran.

I reaffirm the openness of the Islamic umma to

dialogue and joint effort. In the face of extremists of all

sides, who want to take religions and believers hostage,

I invite world leaders, opinion-makers, men, women

and young people to join us to converse, explain,

inform and educate, to promote the choice of wisdom,

knowledge, reason, logic and doing good against

obscurantism and confrontation. I hope that from that

choice will come mutual understanding and peaceful

coexistence between peoples, civilizations and

cultures, respecting each other’s beliefs and diversity.

At Dakar, we have organized the Conference of

African Ulema, a group of Islamic scholars who are

responding to those who want to use our religion for

political ends. That African conference will culminate

in a conference of all the countries of the umma, to be

held in Medina, Saudi Arabia.

Right now I direct my hope towards the

establishment of a Palestinian State with

internationally recognized borders. That is why I

support President Obama’s initiative on Palestinian-

Israeli dialogue and renew my long-standing support

for the legitimate demand of the Palestinian people for

a sovereign, independent and viable State. We support

the vision of a Palestinian State that will be a full

member of the United Nations, which has been

promised here by President Obama.

Faced with the tragedy that has struck the Haitian

people, Senegal has joined its efforts with those of the

international community to provide emergency

assistance. In October we will be receiving some

160 Haitian students who wish to study in Senegal, and

next year we expect to be hosting Haitian families.

From this rostrum I appeal to all, and in particular to

African heads of State, to help Haiti. Those who want

to host students should speak to us: I have sent

commission to Haiti, and I have tasked a minister to be

in charge of Haitian affairs. We have a roster of 3,000

young people who have been chosen by university

teachers, about whom we have all the necessary

information, including health information.

In Africa, Senegal notes with satisfaction the

progress of our brother people of Côte d’Ivoire towards

national reconciliation and the upcoming holding of

elections in peace and calm. In Guinea, another

neighbour of Senegal, where I have visited many times

to help normalize the situation, I salute the efforts of

the facilitator, President Blaise Compaoré. I invite once

10-54959 16

again all Guinean stakeholders, in particular the two

candidates in the second round, to complete the

electoral process, so that there can be a permanent

return to constitutional order, in national peace and

harmony — which are essential conditions for

development.

Senegal is also pleased with the progress made by

the Niger to re-establish the country’s political

institutions. Guinea-Bissau, another neighbour of ours,

has made significant progress since its election last

year of President Malam Bacai Sanhá. But its

democratic institutions remain fragile and therefore

need more resolute support from the international

community. In line with the conclusions of the

extraordinary summit of the Economic Community of

West African States held on 17 September, Senegal is

prepared to take part in the efforts of our regional

organization for the establishment of a programme for

security and defence sector reform in Guinea-Bissau.

In the Sudan, Senegal remains committed to the

African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in

Darfur. We hope that the referendum on self-

determination of the south will be held in the best

conditions possible in order to prevent a domino effect

that would be harmful to the whole of Africa. Perhaps a

group of heads of State could help to work towards that

goal.

I would like to conclude by recalling that Senegal

will host, from 10 to 31 December, the third World

Festival of Black Arts, after the first two, which were

held in Dakar in 1966 and Lagos in 1977. This

gathering is a reaffirmation of the artistic, cultural and

intellectual identity of the black world, and it carries a

message of openness, dialogue and fraternity from

Africa and its diaspora to the whole of humanity, for

the respect of all cultures and civilizations. All are

cordially invited.