Senegal, 2013

On behalf of the

Senegalese delegation, I would like to wish you, Sir, all

the best as President at the sixty-eighth session of the

General Assembly.

By focusing its debate on the post-2015

development agenda, the General Assembly reminds us

that there is not much time left before attainment of

the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is finally

evaluated. Despite progress after more than a decade

of implementing the MDGs, the magnitude of the

challenges is still overwhelming. In terms of access to

food, housing, education and healthcare, the daily lives of

nearly one billion people have barely improved. Women

continue to die in childbirth. Inequalities persist within

and between countries. The economic crisis continues

and environmental degradation is worsening. We need

to take concrete and resolute actions to transform our

collective ambitions into reality.

In the quest for sustainable development, a

conference on climate change in 2015 in Paris will

provides us with another opportunity to pull ourselves

together, by reversing the negative effects of climate

change on Earth, our common habitat.

Addressing the challenges of sustainable

development and building the future we want, in

the spirit of the Rio+20 Conference, require a more

sustained effort than the fight against poverty.

We should invest more in education, as the Global

Partnership for Education expects of us. We need to

modernize agriculture, make electricity accessible to

everybody and develop infrastructure to foster trade and

investment. These are the pillars that underpin growth

and prosperity. It is precisely this vision that the New

Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) seeks

to promote through its Programme for Infrastructure

Development in Africa (PIDA).

As part of that programme, 51 priority projects

have been identified and established throughout the

continent. Overall, they will cost $68 billion between

2012 and 2020. As Chairperson of NEPAD’s Orientation

Committee, I am pleased with the consensus that our

partners have built around PIDA, namely, the Group of

Twenty and the Group of Eight (G-8) and with Brazil,

Russia, India and China.

I also welcome the very strong signal which the

G-8, meeting in June in Lough Erne, sent concerning

the need for a concerted campaign against tax evasion

and other fraudulent practices affecting our economies.

We must now push ahead and launch the mechanisms

we have agreed on for improving transparency in

international transactions, including the mining

industry. This is the best way to support Africa’s efforts

to mobilize domestic resources in order to finance its

development.

Similarly, Senegal calls for the reform of

international economic and financial governance,

notably the terms for accessing credit and obtaining

financing for economic and social development

projects. Let us not pave the road to the future with

the instruments of the past. While plummeting official

development assistance no longer meets Africa’s needs,

the trend towards progress should lead us to explore

other innovative financing mechanisms available to

our countries. Africa is no longer a zone of turmoil

and humanitarian emergencies. Africa has become an

emerging centre of opportunities and investments for

innovative and mutually beneficial partnerships.

The world has changed; Africa has also changed.

Let us therefore change our paradigms and visions; let

us change the way we look at the continent.

Change is also needed for the reform of the Security

Council. The Council’s legitimacy is not derived

only from its status as the guarantor of the collective

security system; it is also and especially derived from

the representativeness that justifies its action in the

name of and on behalf of all Member States.

This time last year, Mali was doubly affected by

a coup and a terrorist attack reminiscent of a bygone

age. They were a source of great concern for us.

Senegal, which remains active within United Nations

Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission

in Mali, welcomes the restoration of the territorial

integrity and constitutional legality of Mali. We

congratulate the people of Mali and their political

leaders for that happy outcome. We strongly support

the national reconciliation efforts being made by the

Government in the spirit of the Ouagadougou Political

Agreement.

Today, while the armed groups have been

defeated, the terrorist threat to the Sahel has not yet

been definitively ended. It is only through ongoing,

coordinated and sufficiently deterrent action that we

will be able to address the emerging security challenges

on the African continent. It is urgent to make operational

the African rapid response force, proposed at the last

African Union summit.

In Guinea-Bissau, Senegal is supporting the

Government’s efforts to successfully carry out the

electoral process. We urge our partner countries and

institutions to pursue their support for the definitive

resolution of the Guinea-Bissau crisis through the

country’s economic recovery, the crucial reform of

the defence and security sector, and the fight against

illicit drug trafficking. We hope that similar attention

will be paid to the Central African Republic and to the

Democratic Republic of the Congo in the legitimate

aspiration to peace, stability and the preservation

of territorial integrity. Throughout Africa, we are

committed to upholding respect for the African Union

principles against anti-constitutional changes of

Government, regardless of the process used.

In regard to the Middle East, Senegal expresses its

deep concern over the untold suffering of the Syrian

population. We urge the Syrian Government to exercise

restraint and to comply with the Chemical Weapons

Convention in the control and destruction of its arsenal

of chemical weapons.

In its capacity as Chairman of the Committee on

the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian

People, Senegal is following the resumption of the

Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. It is a courageous

and responsible act because it translates the vision of

two States, Israel and Palestine, living within secure

and internationally recognized borders. We therefore

call for a halt to acts likely to affect that perspective,

notably the ongoing establishment of settlements on

Palestinian land by the Israeli Government.

On 24 September, Senegal joined other countries

in launching the international campaign for the fight

against sexual violence in armed conflict. Sexual

violence in conflict is an act of unbearable cruelty for

the victims and their families. It is a war crime and

a serious violation of human dignity and universal

conscience. In the name of our common humanity, it

is time to act to prevent and stop such horrors. It is

time to act so that victims will no longer feel alone in

their suffering, which destroys the very foundations of

society. It is time to act so that the perpetrators and

their accomplices in those crimes are tracked down

everywhere, prosecuted and punished in a manner

commensurate with the atrocities of their crimes.