Guyana, 1999

I am pleased to have this

opportunity, the first since my assumption of the presidency

of Guyana, to share with the Assembly some issues of

interest and concern to the Group of 77, which Guyana now

has the honour to chair.

A mere three months remain before mankind enters a

new millennium filled with great hopes. Whether those

hopes are realized will depend largely on the decisions we

take, as an organization of united peoples, on how we

collectively face the future. This fifty-fourth session of the

General Assembly therefore represents a crucial turning

point where we can follow either the high road to

enlightened multilateralism or the low road leading to

narrow self-interest.

I am confident that the Assembly will not fail to take

the right direction. As the Foreign Minister of Namibia, Mr.

President, you have given long and distinguished service to

your country, which, after a bitter struggle against apartheid

rule, stands as an independent and proud member of the

family of nations. On behalf of the Group of 77, I salute

Namibia and offer to you personally our warmest

congratulations and good wishes for a successful Assembly.

To your predecessor, Mr. Didier Opertti of Uruguay,

we offer our sincere appreciation for the guidance provided

to the Assembly over the past year.

A warm welcome is also extended to the three new

members of the United Nations — the Republic of Kiribati,

the Republic of Nauru and the Kingdom of Tonga.

And to our Secretary-General I wish to convey our

gratitude for his sustained stewardship of the Secretariat,

and more particularly for his report on the Organization's

work.

The challenges we must address this year are

formidable. Our world continues to be plagued by a

multiplicity of conflicts, both old and new, inter-State and

intra-State, that have not only imperilled global peace and

security but also sap our economic and social vitality.

Whether in Afghanistan, Kosovo, the Middle East or the

Great Lakes region of Africa — to name just a few conflict

zones — a heavy toll is being exacted on human life and

development. Equally disturbing is the apparent inability

of the world community to contain this increase in

tensions and conflicts.

The world Organization is continuously challenged

by the outbreak of internecine strife in one country after

another. Without a clear strategy, the United Nations can

do no more than muddle through these crises in the hope

that the warring factions will eventually see the virtues of

peace. In these distressing circumstances, it is not only

the parties to the conflict that are losers but also the

international community. As a result of the increasing

claims for peacemaking and peacekeeping operations,

developing countries are deprived of much needed

development resources and are politically weakened.

Gradually the United Nations must move forward into the

area of peace-building to obviate recidivism and to

reconstruct shattered societies. By helping to strengthen

democracy, government institutions and the rule of law,

as well as rebuilding the foundations for long-term

development, the Organization can help post-conflict

States to rebuild themselves.

The time may have come to revisit the United

Nations Agenda for Peace, as well as its Agenda for

Development, to see where deficiencies lie and what

could be done to remedy them.

The time has also come to strengthen the Security

Council, the organ primarily responsible for the

maintenance of international peace and security, so that it

may become more democratic, representative and

credible. Of course, the United Nations cannot do what

the parties to conflict are not prepared to do. Without a

true commitment to peace by all involved there can be

scant prospect of any lasting settlement. As we have seen

from recent developments in the Middle East, the parties

involved must show a strong will to resolve the conflict

through peaceful means. Only then can the United

Nations, using the instruments provided by its Charter,

serve to facilitate negotiations for a satisfactory outcome.

Accompanying these threats to international security

and stability are strong economic and social forces which

impact negatively on our countries. While globalization

and trade liberalization have benefited strong economies,

they have also exposed weaker States to marginalization

from the world economy. By opening the floodgates of

trade and finance, globalization has invariably wrought

havoc on small and weak economies, which can do

precious little to withstand its impact. Economic and

social misery have followed in its wake, exposing the

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particular vulnerabilities of small developing countries,

many of which are dependent on a single agricultural crop

— like bananas or sugar — for the livelihood of their

peoples.

At the regional meetings which have been held thus

far in preparation for the tenth session of the United

Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD

X) caution has been sounded against the worst excesses of

trade liberalization. Having benefited from the Tokyo and

Uruguay Rounds, the industrialized countries are anxious to

hold further negotiations — the mother of all rounds — for

free trade in the next millennium. Theoretically, developing

countries can also gain from increased liberalization.

However, since they are for the most part too weak to take

advantage of the new opportunities, they run the risk of

greater marginalization and, indeed, elimination from the

market place.

Fear of this eventuality is based not on uninformed

speculation, but on the harsh reality of experience. Past

negotiating rounds have yielded significant concessions to

developed economies, while offering relatively little to

developing countries in terms of opening up markets for

their own products. At bottom, the problem is one of an

imbalance in negotiating strength of its contracting parties,

resulting in more favourable outcomes for the strongest. Yet

the developing countries are being urged to enter into a new

round of negotiations, the millennium round, the result of

which is likely to be no different from that of the past

unless its agenda is balanced by issues of concern to the

developing countries.

To be able to enter the global marketplace, developing

countries should be assisted in the strengthening of their

productive capacities and in widening their access to export

markets. They need to be assured of stabilization in the

international financial and monetary system in order to

avoid the hazards of currency fluctuations. Equally

important, given the vast disparity which exists in the

economic capacities of countries, special and differential

treatment should be granted to developing countries in

accordance with the principles outlined in part IV of the

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the

GATT legislative clause of 1971.

Special consideration will have to be given to Africa,

the least developed countries and structurally weak

economies, in particular the small island developing States,

which are seriously disadvantaged in the area of trade. The

special session to review the Programme of Action with

regard to the sustainable development of small island

developing States, which will be held here in just a matter

of days, and the summit of the least developed countries

scheduled for the year 2001 should serve to generate new

initiatives to help these vulnerable States.

However, to benefit from the international trading

system developing countries must receive significant debt

relief and the necessary official development assistance to

boost the overall productive capability. Consequently, in

the face of rampant globalization, it is imperative that the

international community should come together to create

a modern development vision and strategy aimed at

bridging the dangerous division which now separates the

prosperous from the poor nations. This new approach

should be based on an international consensus on

development and on the rights and obligations of the

partners.

As the preparations undertaken this year for the

review of the summits held in Beijing, Cairo and

Copenhagen have shown, there is an increasing number

of people, the majority of them women and children,

living under adverse conditions caused by poverty.

Despite great strides in the fields of health and education

in the developed world, many developing countries

continue to be plagued by unequal and inadequate access

to education and health care, high infant and maternal

mortality, as well as lack of access to safe drinking water

and proper sanitation. Indeed, low levels of health have

inhibited the achievement of socially and economically

productive lives, not to mention the devastating social and

economic impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, as well as

malaria, on a number of developing countries, particularly

in Africa.

The Cologne initiative to expand the scope and

provision of relief for the heavily indebted poor countries

was a welcome step forward. Unfortunately, however, it

does not go far enough to alleviate the debt burden which

the developing countries still bear. Nothing short of the

cancellation of some of these countries' debts will be

sufficient to improve their circumstances to the point

where they can be active participants in the world

economy. The situation of many low-income countries

has been made even more acute by the rapid decline of

official development assistance in the wake of

globalization's spread and over reliance on the market to

promote development.

The financing of development must therefore be

placed on a more sound and predictable basis. The Group

of 77 therefore attaches the greatest importance to the

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holding of a high-level conference by the year 2001 to

address this pressing issue. We believe that if Member

States can address all aspects of the problem — particularly

those identified in the Secretary-General's report on

financing for development — we may yet find solutions

that are acceptable and effective. Crucial to the successful

outcome of the conference, however, is a general

acceptance of a more enlightened approach to international

development cooperation based on a genuine concept of

interdependence and partnership.

Indeed, there is an acute need for a new global agenda

with the objective of putting a human face on the

marketplace. Policies aimed merely at creating

unsustainable social safety nets are hardly lasting solutions.

The root causes of the structural and endemic problems of

the developing countries, which ultimately lead to global

instability, must be addressed.

For their part, the developing countries which

constitute the Group of 77 are committed to the search for

ways and means by which we can accelerate the

development process. Even before the conference on

financing for development, we shall meet in Havana, Cuba,

next year for the first ever South summit. The Summit is a

long-cherished idea whose time has finally come. It will

allow the South a special opportunity to examine the impact

which globalization continues to have on developing

countries, as well as the policies and strategies needed to

harness the process and make it more amenable to control.

In this context, North-South relations must be reviewed to

see how they may be enhanced and put on a new basis for

mutual trust and advantage.

Understandably, the central focus of the South Summit

must be the strengthening of the unity and solidarity of the

Group of 77 and the identification of concrete initiatives to

promote practical cooperation between members. We have

also agreed to devote our attention to the promulgation of

knowledge and technology in order, hopefully, to achieve

a quantum leap towards our development. This, after all, is

an area in which the South can boast of remarkable

advances and of many centres of excellence that can be

utilized for the dissemination of skills and technology

among the countries of the Group of 77. The North can, of

course, do much to facilitate these exchanges by providing

requisite financing and supplying appropriate technology

and knowledge that would make the developing countries

more self-reliant and at the same time more competitive in

the world economy.

Coming, as it does, in the early months of the new

millennium, the South summit will certainly provide an

indication of the direction for the future. In Havana we

hope to have in attendance our developed partners, which

significantly, are usually present at all of our important

deliberations as observers. Also expected to participate in

the event are other key players in the development

process, such as our non-governmental organizations and

representatives of the private sector. Together, through an

interactive dialogue, we hope to forge a programme of

action which will serve as a catalyst for the development

of our countries and our peoples. Indeed, if given the

chance, the South summit, I dare say, will prove to be an

inspiration for the Millennium Assembly and for a new

compact on human development for the twenty-first

century.

Speaking for Guyana, I wish to reaffirm our

Government's intention to continue working for the

creation of a new global human order aimed at the

eradication of poverty and the establishment of a just and

more humane system of international relations. Conceived

by our late President Cheddi Jagan, whose entire life was

dedicated to empowering the poor and the weak — not

only in his native Guyana, but throughout the world —

the outlines of this new order have been presented at

major international forums, including the World Summit

for Social Development, which was held in 1995 in

Denmark. All 14 heads of Government of the Caribbean

Community (CARICOM), along with other world leaders

and eminent personalities, have declared their full support

for the proposal and their commitment to its widest

promulgation. We will therefore seek at this session to

advance it for further consideration.

Although much is being made of the dawning of the

millennium, it is obviously too much to expect that it will

bring solutions to all of the world's problems. It can

provide, however, an auspicious opportunity for the

international community to reflect upon the past

achievements, its present challenges and future

aspirations. With a firm sense of purpose and resolve, let

us use this occasion to create a brave new world in which

all our peoples may hope to live in peace — free from

fear, poverty and want.