Singapore, 2013

I warmly

congratulate Mr. John Ashe on his election as President

at the sixty-eighth session of the General Assembly and

wish him success during his term.

Over the past decade, the world has experienced a

string of crises. Development has slowed. Confidence

in the global economic system has been shaken. There

are signs of recovery, but growth remains anaemic and

uneven. Unemployment is high in many countries,

particularly among the young. That has exacerbated

problems by increasing poverty levels, widening

income gaps, adding to social instability and causing

public trust in Governments and institutions to decline.

Extreme poverty remains a major concern in many

parts of the world.

Violence and conflict are as great a threat to global

stability as poverty, and the international community

must respond firmly to them. In that regard, Singapore

welcomes the unanimous adoption of Security Council

resolution 2118 (2013) on the destruction of chemical

weapons in Syria. We strongly condemn the use of

chemical weapons under any circumstances, as it

constitutes a violation of international law. We remain

deeply concerned about the humanitarian situation in

Syria, and we hope that the “Geneva II” conference

will be convened promptly and will find a political

solution to end the conflict and violence. We also offer

condolences to the Government and the people of Kenya

over the brutal attacks in Westgate Mall, a painful

reminder of the need to remain vigilant against terror.

All countries must unite against violence and terror in

order to create an environment in which sustainable

development can be pursued.

The global ecosystem is under stress from

the transnational effects of human development

activities. Human progress has come at the expense

of the environment and the climate. Deforestation,

desertification of land and the transboundary pollution

of the sea, land and air degrade our quality of life and

threaten human civilization.

We cannot go on with business as usual. We need

to rethink and retool our economies and societies and

to place poverty eradication and sustainability at the

centre of our development agenda. The President’s

choice of “The post-2015 development agenda: setting

the stage” as the theme for the sixty-eighth session of

the General Assembly is therefore particularly timely.

The 1987 Brundtland report of the World Commission

on Environment and Development defined sustainable

development as development that meets the needs of

the present without compromising the ability of future

generations to meet their own needs. That should

remain our guiding principle as we negotiate the post-

2015 development agenda.

The United Nations has a critical role to play in the

evolution of the post-2015 development agenda. Only

the United Nations, with its universal membership and

access to global data, has the standing to establish a

new global development agenda that is inclusive,

effective and adaptable. The United Nations has

adopted an inclusive multi-stakeholder approach to

gather the views of Member States and harness the

energy of civil society. Several mechanisms have been

set up, including the High-level Political Forum, the

Open Working Group on Sustainable Development

Goals, in which Singapore is participating actively,

and the Working Group on Sustainable Development

Financing. We strongly encourage the United Nations

to demonstrate leadership and weave those strands of

discussion into a single, clear framework. That would

allow Member States to focus their attention and

prioritize their resources to meet critical challenges.

Singapore understands very well the importance

of poverty eradication and sustainable development

in securing a country’s future. When we became

independent, in 1965, we faced several challenges. To

uplift our population, which had only a small number

of skilled workers and graduates, the Government

focused on education and skills development. To create

jobs and alleviate poverty, we also gradually moved our

industries up the value chain towards higher-skilled,

innovation-focused sectors. Given Singapore’s land

and resource constraints, sustainable development was

a necessity, not just a slogan. At 700 square kilometres,

Singapore is slightly bigger than Manhattan but smaller

than the five boroughs of New York. To ensure that our

city-State remained liveable, we had to ensure that our

policies on housing, infrastructure, transport and the

environment were well integrated in a long-term and

holistic vision.

Over several decades, we have managed to pursue

growth while preserving a good living environment. For

instance, despite the country’s being densely populated

and highly urbanized, our greening efforts have resulted

in more than 50 per cent of Singapore being covered by

vegetation. The Singapore Botanic Gardens, founded in

the nineteenth century, is the only city botanic garden

in the world to include a tract of original, primary

rainforest. And despite our rapid development, we have

managed to preserve much of our biodiversity. One of

our nature reserves, Bukit Timah, contains more plant

species than the entire North American continent.

We have also developed creative solutions to

overcome some of our resource constraints. Take the

example of water: Singapore now imports slightly more

than 40 per cent of our water needs. To meet our drinking

and industrial needs, we use a variety of methods,

including collecting water through reservoirs, the

desalination of seawater, and cutting-edge membrane

technology to reclaim waste water into high-grade,

ultra-clean water, which we call “NEWater”. When

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visited Singapore in

March 2012, he was impressed enough by our water

management to make a toast with NEWater, rather

than wine, calling NEWater, “something far more

valuable — the elixir of life”.

Let me now turn to the post-2015 development

agenda and suggest three priority areas. First, we should

learn from the example of the Millennium Development

Goals. We should avoid being prescriptive. As each

country is unique, countries should be allowed to

exercise flexibility as to which goals they choose to

prioritize and how they will achieve them. The new

global development road map should have poverty

eradication and sustainable development at its centre

and should converge around a single, clear set of

practical and quantifiable goals. We should keep to

that outcomes-based approach and not forget that the

core purpose of the post-2015 development agenda is to

improve the lives of people. Today, 1.2 billion people

still live in extreme poverty. That is a staggering figure.

Secondly, we should emphasize urban management

and the intertwined issues of water and sanitation.

According to the United Nations Human Settlements

Programme, more than half of the world’s population

lives in urban areas. By 2050, 7 out of 10 people will

live in urban areas. Many cities are already under

strain. More than 2.5 billion people lack access to basic

sanitation, and another 800 million do not have safe

drinking water. Some 2,000 children die every day

from diarrhoea. The crisis will be exacerbated as more

people move to crowded cities, where the infrastructure

cannot grow fast enough to support them. Singapore

introduced a draft resolution in July, which was

adopted by the General Assembly (resolution 67/291),

to designate 19 November as World Toilet Day. We

hope that will encourage countries to take a close look

at how the nexus of urbanization, water and sanitation

can be better managed.

Thirdly, it is important for the views and concerns

of small States to be incorporated into the post-2015

development agenda. Small States make up more

than half of the United Nations membership; many,

especially small island developing States (SIDS), are

among the more vulnerable Members of the United

Nations family. Singapore identifies closely with the

urgent concerns of our fellow SIDS. The third SIDS

Conference, to be held in 2014, will be an important

milestone, and Singapore has participated actively

in all the preparatory meetings to date. At last year’s

inaugural Conference on Small Island Developing

States, which was organized by the Forum of Small

States (FOSS), Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon agreed

that small and vulnerable States deserved special

attention. Singapore will continue to work with the

members of FOSS to share the perspectives of small

States and ensure that our views are factored into the

evolution of the new global development road map.

Although we are a small country, we will continue

to play our part in assisting other countries in poverty

eradication and furthering the sustainable development

agenda. We established the Singapore Cooperation

Programme in 1992 to share our developmental

experience with our friends — our successes and our

failures alike. We believe that technical assistance

and capacity-building are more effective in creating

the right conditions for growth. More than 80,000

Government officials from 170 countries have received

training under the Programme in areas as diverse as

sustainable urban development, water management

and human-resource development. To support our

engagement in the post-2015 development agenda,

we will develop and customize new programmes on

sustainable development and climate change that meet

the needs of SIDS and least developed countries.

Singapore has also been working with other

Governments to promote sustainable development

internationally. In 2007, Singapore and China embarked

on a joint project to develop the Sino-Singapore

Tianjin Eco-city, which is envisioned as a city that

will be socially harmonious, environmentally friendly

and resource-efficient. That will become a model

for sustainable urbanization in China. By 2020,

the Eco-city is intended to be a low-carbon, green-

living environment approximately half the size of

Manhattan, housing around 350,000 people. Singapore

will continue to share its experience in sustainable

urbanization through Singapore-led events such as the

biennial Singapore International Water Week and the

World Cities Summit.

The only way to secure our collective future

is through poverty eradication and sustainable

development. The next two years will be critical for the

world as we embark on an ambitious journey to map out

the post-2015 agenda. The United Nations must play a

leading role, and we are fully committed to working

closely with other Member States to achieve that.