Tanzania, 2025

The Assembly will now hear an address by His Excellency Philip Isdor Mpongo, Vice President of the United Republic of Tanzania. I request protocol to escort His Excellency and invite him to address the Assembly. Madam President, Excellencies, Distinguished Delegates, This year we gather at a historic moment when we are commemorating 80 years since the founding of the UN, but in a somber mood. The theme of this general debate that is better together, 80 years and more for peace, development and human rights, reminds us that determined cooperation remains our best vehicle for addressing urgent global challenges of this century and beyond. Yet we are faced with chaos in the form of unilateralism with arrogance, barbaric wars, persistent poverty, injustice, pandemics, as well as an impending climate catastrophe. As we mark 80 years of the UN, we are called to rekindle the vision of its founders, anchored on two pillars. First, nations can overcome difficulties and accomplish more when they work together in solidarity. Second, peace is humanity's truest desire, which we must seek and pursue relentlessly on the basis of international law. By contrast, war is undesirable. It is a senseless path to resolving conflicts on which everybody loses, and its bitter fruits include unspeakable loss of innocent lives, too many orphans, widows and refugees, as well as wanton destruction. Yet the United Nations Charter has guided us through many challenges over the past 80 years, reminding us to uphold peace, justice, cooperation and dialogue to resolve conflicts. Today, as the world faces new tests, we must therefore hold firmly to these same principles, for it is only by respecting and living by the Charter that we can honour the past and build a safer and better future for all of us. Excellencies, the past eight decades also remind us that change is the only constant in our world. The challenges of today are not the same as those of yesterday, nor will they be the same tomorrow. Thus, for the UN to remain relevant and true to its noble mission, it must embrace change. Tanzania welcomes the UN-AIDS reform initiative unveiled in March this year, which seeks to enhance efficiency across the UN system and strengthen effectiveness. My country stresses the importance of upholding the principles of transparency, equity and objectivity in the process, so as to renew trust and foster inclusive global governance. We thank the Secretary-General for engaging member states in this endeavour. Nevertheless, Tanzania reiterates Africa's position on redressing the continent's under-representation in the Security Council and calls for admission of at least two permanent seats for Africa, with veto power, as articulated by the Ezulwini concessors. Tanzania also joined other countries of the Global South in demanding agent and comprehensive reform of the global financial system. While we support the outcomes of the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development, held in Seville, Spain, this year, we renew the call for scaling up long-term concessional financing, revising sovereign credit rating frameworks, and rethinking debt sustainability assessments, in order to unlock capital for investment in infrastructure, education, health and climate adaptation. We reiterate our demand for increased voice and representation of Africa in the governance structures of the IMF and the World Bank. These noble demands have gone unheeded for a very long time and must be addressed now. Excellencies, SDGs remain our common plan for a better world. Yet, with only five years left before 2030, it has been established that over 80% of the targets are off track, with progress on more than half of the goals being weak and insufficient. The big elephant in the room, suffocating progress, is an estimated financing gap of $4 trillion per annum. Nevertheless, Tanzania remains committed and has made strides in implementing the 2030 agenda, with overall performance estimated at 60%. Examples include SDG 3, where maternal mortality declined from 750 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2000 to 104 in 2022. For SDG 6, access to clean and safe water increased in both rural and urban areas from 32% and 55% in 2000 to 79.9% and 94% respectively by 2024. On affordable clean energy, SDG 7, the number of villages connected to electricity increased from 8,587 in 2000 to 12,318 in 2024. Only 15 villages remain without electricity. However, significant challenges remain, especially on environmental sustainability, that is SDGs 13, 14, and 15. Going forward, we urge the international community to strengthen collective response to climate change, seizing the opportunity presented by COP 30 in Belém, Brazil, prioritizing delivery on the pledges for climate action, including capitalization of the loss and damage fund. We call for increased long-term concession of financing, technology transfer, and fairer trade terms to complement our zeal in domestic revenue mobilization, reversing capital flight, and pursuit of win-win partnerships in the exploitation of our natural resources. I am glad to inform the Assembly that in June 2025, we launched the Tanzania Vision 2050 that articulates our long-term development aspirations and dovetails quite well with the SDGs agenda. Excellencies, peace is not a bonus. It is a prerequisite for socioeconomic development. We must therefore seek and pursue peace tirelessly. We commend the efforts of the UN Secretary General, world leaders, and organizations that are active in conflict mediation and resolution in countries and regions such as Eastern DRC, Sudan, Russia, Ukraine, and the Middle East. As we commemorate the Beijing Plus 30 and celebrate the progress made in promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women, we call for full involvement of women in the quest for peace. In this regard, I must say, Her Excellency Dr. Samia Sulu Hassan, the first woman president of Tanzania, has shown the way in articulating policies and actions that strengthen the role of women across all sectors of our society. Regionally and internationally, she has been a champion of peace, justice, security, and clean cookie. Tanzania, as a member of the African Union Peace and Security Council, and in our then role as chair of the SADC organ on politics, defense, and security cooperation over the past year, actively contributed to peace initiatives and supported measures to prevent and resolve conflicts. In this spirit, Tanzania announces its candidacy for a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council for the term 2029-2030, reaffirming our commitment to global peace and security. Excellencies, Tanzania opposes the continued imposition and proliferation of unilateral cohesive measures which undermine the principles of sovereign equality and peaceful coexistence enshrined in the UN Charter. Such measures, often applied without mandate of the Security Council, represent a form of economic aggression that disproportionately harms innocent civilians by depriving them of essential needs such as food, medicines, and capital goods. In this context, Tanzania reiterates its principled solidarity with nations, including Zimbabwe and Cuba, and the peoples who continue to endure the adverse effects of the long-standing economic embargo and sanctions. We stress that these embargoes and sanctions contravene international law. Similarly, Tanzania stands in solidarity with the people of Palestine and Sahrawi, who continue to be denied the fundamental rights of freedom, sovereignty, and self-determination. Tanzania also strongly condemns all forms of terrorism carried out within or across national borders. Madam President, Excellencies, and Distinguished Delegates, in his last speech to the United Nations General Assembly prior to retirement in 1985, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, the founding president of my country, articulated the principle that, and I quote, to be silent when we see danger, to refrain from attacking policies which are seen as contrary to the interests of peace and justice, to do these things would be to surrender our freedom and our dignity. That we shall never do, end of quote. Following the same principle, Tanzania considers unilateralism and misuse of military might as well as shameful incapacity of the international community and global powers to bring an end to bloodshed and horrific wars raging in many places around the world to be unacceptable. Similarly, Tanzania condemns the resurging use of the law of the jungle as a means of resolving conflicts as well as committing atrocities that cast shame on the whole of humanity, particularly extreme violence against children, women, the sick, and the elderly in conflict situations, as well as imperial attitudes including that of regarding Africa as a free mind to be exploited and ample land to be plundered. The hypocrisy and scandal of international companies, some of which are state-sponsored, to continue to prosper from the exploitation of Africa's natural wealth while causing or supporting conflicts should be brought to an end now. Instead, Africa needs win-win partnerships in the exploitation of our natural wealth. Tanzania also reminds the international community that increased military spending on research and manufacture of weapons for money is tragic and morally wrong. It obstructs the quest for peace in the world and takes away an enormous amount of resources that could have been used to propel sustainable development and prosperity for all humanity. I thank you. On behalf of the Assembly, I wish to thank the Vice President of the United Republic of Tanzania.