Trinidad and Tobago, 2014

I would like to thank and congratulate Mr. John Ashe of

Antigua and Barbuda, who during his time as President

laid the foundation and established the conditions

for formulating a new development agenda geared

to influencing the sustainable development of the

members of the General Assembly.

I would also like to congratulate the new President

on his election to the presidency of the Assembly

at its sixty-ninth session. His tenure comes at a time

when the global family is facing very serious threats

from the Ebola virus and from what I call the terrorist

virus, threats that demand that we all marshal our

human, financial and other resources in a global

partnership aimed at combating these modern plagues.

The President’s tenure also comes as we are about to

commence the second phase of our formulation of the

post-2015 development agenda. I am confident, as I am

sure we all are, that he will administer and lead with

distinction.

Today it is a privilege for me to share with the

Assembly the perspectives of the Government of

Trinidad and Tobago on our priorities for delivering

on and implementing a transformative post-2015

development agenda, according to the President’s

aptly selected theme. Last year we considered how

we would set the stage for the process to be launched

during this sixty-ninth session on finalizing the post-

2015 development agenda. I noted then that when we

adopted the Millennium Declaration (resolution 55/2)

and introduced the Millennium Development Goals

(MDGs), a new chapter opened for the United Nations

(see A/68/PV.10). That chapter would see the United

Nations positioned as a vehicle for assisting developing

countries, especially the most vulnerable, in their

efforts to reduce poverty and hunger, and for providing

an environment that would enable States to develop

their economies and thus help their people rise out of

persistent poverty.

Measures must now be put in place to spur a

proactive rather than reactive approach to the issue of

development in this transformative post-2015 agenda.

With the experience of the challenges and lessons

encountered in the past 14 years in the implementation

of the MDGs, we are now at a critical juncture in

putting into operation the elements we agreed to at

the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable

Development (Rio+20) so that they will constitute the

future we want. The current model was built on what

we agreed to at the Millennium Summit, but in some

ways it has fallen short of the expectations of many

developing countries.

However, the Government and people of Trinidad

and Tobago have been able to achieve this objective

because it formed an integral part of our 2011 medium-

term policy framework, through which we incorporated

and aligned the MDGs and their targets with Trinidad

and Tobago’s medium-term national priorities.

Consequently, some of the goals, targets and indicators

were modified in the light of Trinidad and Tobago’s

unique development circumstances and its achievement

of several of the MDGs. That approach resulted in,

for example, modified targets for education, including

achieving universal early-childhood education and a

60 per cent participation rate in tertiary education.

However, I am delighted to say that we have

surpassed many of our own targets, as well as some

of the MDGs. So in Trinidad and Tobago we now

have universal free primary- and secondary-school

education, and, as I said, we have surpassed our target

of 60 per cent in the tertiary sector and have 65 per

cent participation. That too is free. I am also pleased

to underscore that my country is well poised to achieve

70 per cent of the 43 targets across the eight goals that

are considered relevant to the national context. That

percentage consists of 42 per cent of targets that have

already been met and 28 per cent that are likely to be

met by 2015. So we say that with good success, and

lessons learned, we know what we still have to work on.

I now turn to a short discussion of the Caribbean

Community (CARICOM). Trinidad and Tobago, as part

of the CARICOM region and the global community,

welcomes the outcomes of the various milestones in

the process we have achieved to date. As a member of

CARICOM, we have been an active participant in the

Open Working Group on the Sustainable Development

Goals. We have therefore been witness to the sweeping

and unprecedented global participation and interest in

that process and its outcome. As a collective effort,

the crafting of the sustainable development goals

undoubtedly captured a spirit of openness, inclusiveness

and partnership, all of which underpin this new phase

of policy design and implementation. Along with the

report of the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts

on Sustainable Development Financing (A/69/315), the

17 goals adopted in July form a solid foundation.

It is my respectful view that in delivering on and

implementing a transformative post-2015 development

agenda we must and should prioritize key issues for this

session of the General Assembly. I have identified four

such priorities. The first, I believe, is for us to renew

our commitment to achieving the MDGs. Even in the

one year we have left, with more dedicated effort we

can make further advances on our original objectives.

As the MDG Gap Task Force Report, 2014: The State

of the Global Partnership for Development highlights,

although progress has been made in some areas, the

gains must be accelerated and in some areas a renewed

effort is needed to close the glaring gaps that still exist.

Some of those gaps are in important areas such as

access to affordable essential medicines, and in long-

term debt sustainability, particularly for small States,

which is an essential element of the global partnership

for sustainable development. Implementation will be a

key measure of our commitment to the aspirations for

the post-2015 development agenda.

The second priority is operationalizing “The

future we want” (resolution 66/288, annex). In the

Rio+20 Conference in 2012, we agreed on many of

the foundation elements for the post-2015 development

agenda. Coming out of that, we now have several

key documents to further inform and guide us on

the way forward. We have, for example, the report of

the Secretary-General’s High-level Panel on Global

Sustainability (A/66/700); the sustainable development

goals; the report of the Intergovernmental Committee

of Experts on Sustainable Development Financing; the

outcomes of the structured dialogues on a technology

facilitation mechanism (see resolution 68/310), and

the 10-year framework of programmes on sustainable

consumption and production.

“The future we want” also outlines some key

emerging challenges that we need to urgently address in

the context of the post-2015 development agenda. Some

of those issues, as the Assembly will recall, include

non-communicable diseases, the increasing urgency

to address climate change, and the imperative of

addressing the needs of marginalized groups, including

women, youth, children and persons living with

disabilities. Those are the building blocks of the future

we want to form the basis of the post-2015 development

agenda. Together with the institutional support of the

high-level political forum on sustainable development,

the reformed Economic and Social Council and the

United Nations Environmental Assembly, we have a

solid foundation for fashioning a global partnership

in support of poverty eradication through sustainable

development.

We look forward to the Secretary-General’s

synthesized report, which should place all of those

elements in the context of a fully integrated post-2015

development agenda and give due consideration to the

needs of countries in special situations, including small

island developing States, least developed countries,

landlocked developing countries and Africa. As a

specialized conference mandated in “The future

we want”, the outcome document (A/CONF.223/3,

annex) of the recently concluded Third International

Conference on Small Island Developing States — the

Small Island Developing States Accelerated Modalities

of Action — should also be appropriately addressed in

the upcoming Secretary-General’s report.

The third priority is for us to revitalize the global

partnership in support of sustainable development. The

8 August 2014 draft report of the Intergovernmental

Committee of Experts on Sustainable Development

Financing has highlighted that current financing

and investment patterns will not deliver sustainable

development. In fact, it goes on to say that

“[w]hile design and implementation of policies

will be on the national level, achieving sustainable

development will require international support and

cooperation”.

Those are the core prerequisites for a global partnership

in support of sustainable development. However, in

order make such a partnership meaningful, it is my

respectful view that it must also include the following

four particular elements.

First, it must include reform in the international

financial institutions, targeting on systemic failures

and focusing on building resilience that can sustain

growth in open and vulnerable economies.

Secondly, it must include the successful completion

of the Doha Round of trade negotiations, which will

ensure that the rules of trade and commerce do not

continue to operate so as to slow, impede or negate

development gains and aspirations in our very small

and vulnerable economies. I note that the third

International Conference on Financing for Development

is scheduled to take place in July 2015. That will be

critically important to ensuring that a meaningful

and effective global partnership for development will

become a reality for the implementation of the post-

2015 development agenda.

Thirdly, on the point of a revitalized global

partnership in support of sustainable development, I

wish to strongly reiterate the support of Trinidad and

Tobago for an end to the economic embargo against

Cuba. The perpetuation of those measures against

a developing country undermines our collective

aspirations for a post-2015 development agenda in

which no one should be left behind.

Fourthly, our priority should be for us to address

the mitigation gap for achieving the target of below

2 or 1.5˚C target for limiting the increase in global

greenhouse gas emissions and achieving an ambitious,

legally binding agreement on climate change in 2015

to be applied from 2020. That agreement should set

the world on track to achieving carbon neutrality by

2070, and by so doing ensure that the global climate

will support the sustainable development of present as

well as future generations.

Our collective action on climate change should

take into account the survival of the most vulnerable

States in particular, such as our small island developing

States, as the front line of increasingly severe impacts

of climate change. It should also be firmly rooted in the

principle of common but differentiated responsibilities,

recognizing that developing countries’ finance needs

for mitigation and adaptation to climate change cannot

be met exclusively from domestic resources, given the

competing demands on public finance. I believe that

every Head of Government and every Head of State

would recognize those competing interests in their own

nation States.

It is therefore essential to put the Green Climate

Fund into force early. It is my hope that the partnerships

and announcements made at the United Nations Climate

Summit 2014 on Tuesday, 23 September, will serve to

catalyse more ambitious action on climate change in the

near as well as in the long-term and build the momentum

necessary for a successful Conference of the Parties to

the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate

Change, to be held in Lima in December and in Paris

in 2015.

Those are the elements of the global framework,

which should occupy our full attention and commitment

over the course of the sixty-ninth session of the General

Assembly. Those elements will be supported by critical

enabling actions at the regional and national levels.

For us in the context of the Caribbean Community, we

have been doing our part as a subregion of small island

and low-lying developing States to foster regional

integration in support of the sustainable development

of all of our peoples. CARICOM Heads of State and

Government have agreed on the vision of

“a Caribbean community that is integrated, inclusive

and resilient; driven by knowledge, excellence,

innovation and productivity; a community where

every citizen is secure and has the opportunity

to realize his or her potential with guaranteed

human rights and social justice; and contributes

to and shares in, its economic, social and cultural

prosperity. A community which can be a unified

and competitive force in the global arena”.

That vision is the collective ambition of the States

members of CARICOM, agreed in the context of a

strategic framework plan for period 2015-2019. That

plan will come through the implementation of six

integrated strategic priorities, which include building

economic, social, environmental and technological

resilience through a coordinated foreign policy and

research and development innovation.

In support of the implementation of those six

priorities, CARICOM Heads of State and Government

have called for a post-2015 development agenda that

will work in tandem with what we are discussing at

the sixty-ninth session of the General Assembly and

needs to focus on the eradication of poverty as a central

pillar, the adoption of a people-centred approach

through an intergovernmentally agreed agenda, and

an agenda that incorporates broader measures and

appropriate approaches and criteria to complement

the gross domestic product per capita as a measure

of development. Importantly, those broader measures

must foster an enabling global policy environment that

is more conducive to the achievement of development

objectives and affords greater policy coherence across

institutions, including those in the areas of trade,

finance, environment and development.

Those regional initiatives in support of advancing

the sustainable development of the people of CARICOM

are being designed and implemented in the context

of a broader strategy for mitigating the vulnerability

inherent in countries as small and open as ours, In

the context of a limited and narrow resource base,

the focus is on nurturing and developing our human

resources through an emphasis on innovation and

entrepreneurship. It is an approach that focuses on the

full realization of the human rights to development and

a life of dignity.

Consistent with this approach, I turn to another

matter close to our hearts in the region as we continue

to advance the global cause of truth, justice and

reconciliation, within the context of reparatory justice

for the victims and the descendants of the trans-Atlantic

slave trade. As a region we are determined to engage

in reparatory dialogue with the former slave-owning

European nations in order to address the living legacies

of these crimes. This is a critically vital element of the

socioeconomic development aspirations of the region as

the victims of these crimes and their descendants were

left in a state of social, psychological, economic and

cultural deprivation. In addition, they have been left

in a state of disenfranchisement that has ensured their

suffering and debilitation to this day, and from which

only reparatory action can alleviate their suffering.

I hold that sustainable development cannot be

achieved in an environment where people are denied

their basic rights to live free from fear, with daily

deprivation of the necessities of life due to the ravages

of war and other types of instability. It is for these

reasons that Trinidad and Tobago is concerned by the

developments in Ukraine and other parts of the globe,

which have caused pain and suffering to hundreds of

innocent victims. They too must be allowed to live

freely.

At the same time, we note with grave concern

the continued failure to find a lasting solution to the

decades-old Arab-Israeli conflict, which has caused

tremendous loss of life and destruction of property in

the Gaza Strip, and has left emotional and psychological

scars on those almost 2,000 families who lost loved

ones. Trinidad and Tobago remains committed to the

negotiation of the two-State solution as the preferred

means to bring lasting peace to the region so that the

people of Palestine, so long denied their rightful place in

the international community, can live in larger freedom

with their Israeli brothers and sisters. To that end, we

call for the implementation of all relevant Security

Council resolutions geared towards the resolution of the

conflict and the lifting of the illegal embargo imposed

on the Palestinian people since 2005.

Likewise, as co-sponsors of Security Council

resolution 2178 (2014), on threats to international

peace and security caused by terrorists acts, adopted

at Wednesday’s summit, we remain optimistic that

the resolution may serve as a catalyst for greater

international cooperation in the fight against terrorism.

We in Trinidad and Tobago have been the victim of

terrorists in 1990, when there was an attempted coup

against the newly elected Government by terrorists and

extremists. Members will agree that this new terrorist

phenomenon could be dubbed a terrorism “virus” as it is

spreading throughout the global family. The Assembly

will agree that terrorism has been undermining, and

continues to undermine, the sovereignty, territorial

integrity and peace and security of the peoples of the

Middle East and further afield.

Members of the Assembly will also recall that, in

my inaugural address to this body in September 2010

(see A/65/PV.20), I indicated that the time was right

for the adoption of a treaty to regulate the international

trade in conventional arms. That has now come to be

history with the adoption of the Arms Trade Treaty

(ATT); after yesterday’s High-level Treaty Event, it

now has the requisite number of States parties for its

entry into force, which is likely to be on 25 December

of this year. We are very happy about that.

The entry into force of the ATT will require States

parties to make important decisions to implement

the provisions of the Treaty at the First Conference

of States Parties, which is likely to be convened by

mid-2015. One of these decisions is on the location

of the ATT secretariat. Over a year ago, my country

announced its candidature to have the ATT secretariat

located in Port of Spain. That bid has been endorsed

by all 14 CARICOM States and has so far received the

support from a number of States from diverse regions.

The hosting of this important body in a region which

is disproportionately affected by the illicit trade in

small arms and light weapons and its association with

other trans-boundary crimes, such as drug trafficking,

would be a significant development. It will assist in the

full and effective implementation of the Treaty, and

contribute to the reduction, if not the elimination, of

illegal weapons in the hands of criminals whose actions

continue to threaten the sustainable development of our

region.

The Government of Trinidad and Tobago is

committed to providing the necessary resources to

host the secretariat, and this has been transmitted to

all Members of the United Nations. I call once more

on all those States which have not yet announced their

support for our candidature to do so and to ensure that

the principle of equitable geographic distribution in the

location of major global bodies is observed. No country

or region, in my respectful view, must continue to have

a monopoly in hosting important institutions which are

established for the benefit of all.

Trinidad and Tobago is satisfied that, among the

17 sustainable development goals adopted by the

General Assembly on 10 September, goal 3 ensures

healthy lives and promotes well-being for all ages.

The health and well-being of our people are critical

to ensuring productive lifestyles which are critical

to sustainable economic development, growth and

achieving a transformative past-2015 development

agenda. Health and well-being are one of the 10 thematic

areas of development identified by the Government of

Trinidad and Tobago.

It will be recalled that CARICOM, of which we

are a member, was largely responsible for calling

the attention of the General Assembly to the need

to adopt a resolution to focus attention of the effects

of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) as a major

contributor to human mortality. Nevertheless, while

we continue to make strides in tackling the incidence

of NCDs, we are cognizant of the need to combat the

spread of infectious diseases within our region and in

different regions, which threaten the survival of people

in many nations.

Security Council resolution 2177 (2014), which

was co-sponsored by Trinidad and Tobago, garnered

unanimous support, including that of the Secretary-

General, for dealing with the Ebola virus. We

congratulate the Secretary-General. Members pledged

to take action at the global and regional levels to combat

the spread of Ebola to supplement the United Nations

Mission for Ebola Emergency Response. Trinidad

and Tobago remains committed to playing our part in

eradicating infectious diseases undermining the health

and well-being of our people.

It is for this reason that, prior to the adoption of

resolution 2177 (2014), on Ebola, as Prime Minister of

Trinidad and Tobago I wrote to the Secretary-General

of CARICOM requesting that a meeting of States

members of the Community be convened to discuss and

agree on sustainable policy responses at the national

and regional levels alike concerning public health

issues, including Chikungunya and the Ebola virus.

Finally, the Assembly can rest assured of the support

of the Government of Trinidad and Tobago in assisting

the United Nations family in shaping a transformative

post-2015 development agenda. Our support will come

not only through our representation in the various organs

of this global institution but also by continuing to adopt

policies at the national level geared towards putting

people at the centre of all developmental objectives.

I say once again: any development agenda which

alienates people or places them at the periphery and not

the centre will not bring sustainable development and

will be doomed to failure. Such failure stands against

the commitment we have all made and the purposes we

are serving at the Assembly. Our work is cut out — for

all of us, together in global partnership, to achieve the

goals that we have set ourselves.