Sierra Leone, 2011

I am honoured to address the

Assembly once again. Let me, first of all, congratulate

the President on his election to his duties of directing

the affairs of the Assembly at its sixty-sixth session. I

would like to assure him of our full support and

cooperation throughout his tenure. And I commend his

predecessor, Mr. Joseph Deiss, for a job well done. We

appreciate the Secretary-General’s important

contribution to the work of the Organization and

congratulate him on his recent appointment to a second

term.

On behalf of the Government and people of

Sierra Leone, let me take this opportunity to welcome

the Republic of South Sudan, the newest Member of

the United Nations family and our continental

organization, the African Union. We congratulate them

on this achievement and wish them well.

Sierra Leone is a nation with a relatively small

territory and population, but our aspirations to

democracy, prosperity and international peace are as

big as any nation’s, and our commitment to those

ideals has been visibly demonstrated in the course of

our 50 years as an independent nation. We are proud of

the distinctive contributions we have made to the

United Nations over the past half-century in areas such

as decolonization; training and research; the

international civil service; disarmament and

non-proliferation, including small arms and light

weapons; peacemaking and peacekeeping; the

development of international law; and, currently,

reform of the Security Council.

It is worth mentioning that, soon after our

admission to the United Nations, we contributed a

small peacekeeping contingent to the United Nations

Operation in the Congo. Our commitment to

international peace is evidenced by our transformation

from a nation that received one of the largest ever

United Nations peacekeeping missions in the late

1990s to a country that today contributes troops and

police officers to peacekeeping missions in Darfur. We

have also developed a proposal to participate in the

African Union Mission in Somalia. At the same time,

we acknowledge with gratitude the enormous impact

that the United Nations family has had on the

maintenance of peace, governance and economic and

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social development in my country since our admission

to the Organization, 50 years ago.

In my capacity as Chair of the African Union

Committee of Ten Heads of State and Government on

the Reform of the United Nations Security Council, I

must emphasize that reform of the Council is urgently

required for the wider United Nations membership to

fully benefit from the Council’s purposes and primary

objective of maintaining international peace and

security. There is an increasing need for the Security

Council to be more representative, inclusive and

democratic, as well as for an improvement in its

working methods and its relations with the General

Assembly. The status quo is increasingly unacceptable

and has the potential to undermine the legitimacy,

effectiveness and efficiency of the Council’s work in

maintaining international peace and security.

It is therefore imperative that we reaffirm our

commitment to the standards and principles of this

noble Organization by generating the political will for

a reformed Security Council that would pave the way

for correcting the historical injustice done to Africa,

through the allocation during this session of two

permanent and five non-permanent seats to Africa, in

accordance with the United Nations Charter.

Since I addressed the Assembly last year, Sierra

Leone has continued to make steady progress,

particularly in the priority sectors outlined in my

Government’s agenda for change, namely, agriculture,

energy, infrastructure, health and education. Those five

sectors were purposely selected from many others

requiring transformation because we believe they can

have the greatest positive impact on the lives of our

people. We have done so against the background of the

unprecedented challenges facing our world today, such

as the rise in fuel and food prices, the global financial

crisis, and the chain of unending conflicts around the

world.

Inspired by the conviction that no goals, however

comprehensive or meaningful, can be achieved without

the sustained determination to implement them, I have

declared 2011 the year of implementation for Sierra

Leone. Accordingly, my Government has demonstrated

its commitment to that declaration. We are going to

ensure that every single Sierra Leonean benefits from

the dividends of our well-earned peace and democracy.

In spite of the many challenges that have impeded our

capacity to complete our projects, we are determined,

with the cooperation and support of our development

partners, to accelerate our country’s positive

transformation. It is my sincere hope that successful

implementation of the projects and programmes in the

Joint Vision of the United Nations Family for Sierra

Leone, which has been aligned with our agenda for

change, will enhance Sierra Leone’s efforts to attain

the Millennium Development Goals.

The economy of Sierra Leone, like many around

the world, is currently encountering budgetary

difficulties that can be traced to the global economic

meltdown. We are, however, optimistic about future

growth levels. We expect export levels to increase,

given our substantial investment in developing our

infrastructure and ongoing revamping of our mining,

agriculture and tourism sectors. We have also put in

place strong corrective measures to stabilize the fiscal

situation.

We have continued to build on progress achieved

in the area of peace consolidation. Our democratic

institutions, such as the National Electoral

Commission, the Political Parties Registration

Commission and the Anti-Corruption Commission,

have continued to make progress in carrying out their

respective mandates. We have also continued to build

on gains achieved in the areas of human rights, gender

equality and women’s empowerment.

The establishment of a Human Rights

Commission of Sierra Leone and the presentation of

our national report to the Universal Periodic Review

Working Group of the United Nations Human Rights

Council in May this year are clear manifestations of

our commitment to build a human rights regime that

respects international norms and practices. In June this

year, the International Coordinating Committee of

National Human Rights Institutions awarded an “A”

status accreditation to the Human Rights Commission

of Siena Leone in recognition of its achievements and

independence.

I have pledged my support and initiated processes

that will make women constitute at least 30 per cent of

elective offices in our country. As a State party to many

international human rights instruments we are

committed to their implementation and respect our

reporting obligations under the relevant conventions.

We have, for instance, just completed our sixth

periodic report to the Committee on the Elimination of

Discrimination against Women. We have ratified the

5 11-51191

United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons

with Disabilities and have commissioned a National

Action Plan for the implementation of Security Council

resolutions 1325 (2000) and 1820 (2008).

As we prepare for our 2012 presidential,

parliamentary and local council elections, we are

cognizant of the fact that it is our primary

responsibility to organize and provide the necessary

logistical requirements for this democratic process.

However, we need all necessary international

assistance in support of our commitment to ensure free,

fair and peaceful elections. In that regard, we have

continued to dialogue with all stakeholders including

the National Electoral Commission, the Political

Parties Registration Commission and political parties.

We remain committed to peace, security and

development, but the need to continue with national

capacity-building programmes in priority peacebuilding

thematic areas beyond the 2012 elections remains

critical.

Recently, peace and stability were not only

threatened but painfully disturbed by pockets of armed

conflict in the subregion of the Economic Community

of West African States, particularly in the Mano River

Union basin. However, we are encouraged by the

unfolding developments and prospects of relative peace

in our sister republics. At the same time, we are

concerned about the continued threats posed to peace

and stability by the illicit flow of small arms and light

weapons across our subregion. International

cooperation and assistance are necessary in order to

eradicate this menace. Sierra Leone, for its part,

recently launched a five-year action plan to expand the

scope of its activities concerning small arms and light

weapons.

Considering the prevailing incidence of violence

and armed conflict in various regions of the world, the

choice of the theme, “The role of mediation in the

settlement of disputes”, for this year’s general debate is

relevant and appropriate.

Of course, we are quite conscious of the

inevitability of disputes in the conduct of inter-State as

well as intra-State relations. But it is imperative to

respect the set of principles enshrined in Article 2 of

the Charter of the United Nations in our interactions

with each other. They include the sovereign equality of

all United Nations Members, the peaceful settlement of

disputes and the prohibition of the threat or use of

force.

Obviously, mediation remains the best

mechanism for the prevention and settlement of armed

conflicts. It should be utilized to the fullest extent

possible. Sierra Leone firmly believes that the United

Nations should make better use of Chapter VI of the

Charter, namely, measures for the peaceful settlement

of disputes.

We must also allow our discussion of the

mediation of disputes through peaceful means to move

towards the resolution of threats to the international

economic and financial systems. The greatest threat

today to the security of most individuals in most

societies stems from the non-resolution of issues

relating to excessive speculation in the most important

food crops of the world, the rising food and fuel prices

and the fact that the burden of sacrifice for our

recovery is increasingly placed on the shoulders of the

weak and the poor.

In most places in the world we are seeing the

rallying of the strong and powerful to protect their

indulgence and the rallying of young people, the weak

and the dispossessed to secure their very lives, their

dignity and humanity. The alternatives to the non-resolution

of those disputes are dire. We must act now to save the

world from the anger of the weak and the excessive

indulgence and repression perpetrated by the strong.

I would like to emphasize that international

cooperation in the peaceful settlement of disputes is the

life blood of our Organization. In all our deliberations,

from global warming to human trafficking, from the

threats of nuclear weapons to the scourge of abject

poverty, from communicable and non-communicable

diseases to ruthless natural disasters, and from the flow

of illicit drugs to the seemingly unending upheavals in

the financial markets, we should always remember that

we need each other. The world is too connected for the

consequences of failure to be localized.

The effects of poverty, disease, hunger and

desperation can no longer be boxed in and contained in

a corner of a city, or a country, region or continent. We

are on each other’s doorsteps, and we must continue to

build the structures for the peaceful resolution of our

conflicts.