Guyana, 2008

I join with those who have

spoken before me in congratulating General Assembly

President d’Escoto-Brockmann on his election to guide

the work of the Assembly at its sixty-third session.

As we meet this week, the global financial system

is confronting its sternest test in recent memory. The

current crisis is systemic in nature, historic in scale and

global in reach. It comes at a time when the world

economy is still wrestling with the most rapid

escalation, and the highest real levels ever recorded, in

the prices for fuel and food commodities. Together

with the world’s belated attention to the devastating

economic and social implications of climate change,

those developments define the agenda before global

institutions and national leaders today. They make the

theme for this year’s debate both timely and necessary.

Given the gravity and urgency of the issues

before us, we must be careful not to conduct this year’s

debate in the customary rhetorical manner. Instead, we

must resolve to translate the detailed analysis, lofty

statements and good intentions for which the Assembly

has become well known into concrete actions that the

current circumstances demand of us, and on which

history will judge us.

We must each, as countries approaching the

podium to speak, be prepared to account for the

pledges we have previously made. We must also be

bold enough to embark on a project to achieve real

change in the multilateral system. That change must be

based on mandates that are relevant, institutions that

are accountable and a context that is increasingly

reflective of integration and interconnectedness.

Indeed, I would urge that the theme of the next

General Assembly should emphasize accountability

and coherence of action on the part of the developed

world in matters related to aid, trade and development.

Often, when taken together, the policies of those

countries result in a significant net loss of welfare in

the developing world and run counter to their declared

intentions — for example, the achievement of the

Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015.

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An episode that manifested itself merely two

years ago as a moderate decline in the housing market

in some parts of the United States, and that evolved

into difficulties for that country’s sub-prime mortgage

market, has now grown into a rapidly deepening

systemic financial crisis of global proportions. Even if

they are not fully integrated into the global financial

system, small vulnerable economies such as Guyana

will bear the full effect of those developments as

demand for exports tightens, the cost of capital rises,

foreign direct investment becomes scarce and tourist

arrivals and migrant remittances decline. In short,

economic growth and poverty reduction efforts will

suffer a severe setback and the Millennium

Development Goals will become even more elusive.

At the same time, crude oil prices rose by 148 per

cent during the 18 months preceding July of this year.

In turn, that has contributed to increasing prices for

food commodities — in particular for such staples as

cereals — rising in some cases by more than 200 per

cent during the same period. While there have been

some signs in recent weeks of those increases tapering

off, and in some cases reversing marginally, the

outlook clearly suggests that high prices for energy and

food are here to stay.

Without a doubt, increased food prices provide an

important opportunity and incentive to farmers and

agricultural economies to increase production.

However, they also present grave implications for

access to food, in particular by the poor and, by

extension, for key nutrition and health indicators

among our populations.

The 2007 World Development Report shows that

growth generated by agriculture can be up to four times

more effective in reducing poverty than growth in other

sectors. Yet the share of agriculture in official

development assistance fell from 17 per cent in 1980 to

just 2.9 per cent in 2006. Agriculture must therefore be

given high priority in the international agenda as well

as in national budgets.

It is also urgently necessary for large developed

countries to re-examine ways in which current

inefficient and distortionary trade policies, in particular

subsidies that support inefficient domestic production

and tariffs that protect against more competitive

imports, can be restructured to reduce distortions in the

global marketplace.

Given the impact that persistently high food

prices into the future will have on the poor, the global

community must commit itself to designing and

funding appropriate safety nets to ensure improved

access to food and the maintenance of basic nutrition.

In recent times, the Assembly has been deeply

concerned about the consequences of climate change,

and rightly so. But future generations demand that that

concern be translated into rapid action. The climate

change challenge will not slow down to meet the pace

set by the United Nations. Our response must speed up

to meet the pace of climate change.

The facts are straightforward. If we are to avoid

catastrophic climate breakdown, we need to stabilize

annual greenhouse gas emissions at about the

equivalent of 2 tonnes of carbon dioxide per capita by

2050. Therefore, let the debate move on to how we

make that happen, and not stagnate on a paralysing fear

born from the magnitude of the problem.

There are some promising signs. The Kyoto

Protocol has resulted in the emergence of a $60 billion

carbon market, which is a welcome start. But although

common sense dictates that those financial flows

should be proportional to the problem being addressed,

the bulk of that money stays within the developed

world.

As a rainforest country, Guyana is particularly

aware that there is virtually no capital flowing to

address tropical deforestation — despite the fact that it

causes 20 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions and, as

analyses done by the Intergovernmental Panel on

Climate Change, Nicholas Stern and others have

highlighted, doing so is the most cost-effective

abatement solution. That is because the Kyoto Protocol

contains no significant incentives to slow the rate of

tropical deforestation.

As leaders, we must set a clear direction for our

negotiators as we send them to agree a post-Kyoto

climate agreement, one that asserts a sense of

proportionality in addressing the causes of climate

change and ensures that all major mitigation options

are pursued. We must also break the false debate that

suggests that countries must choose between

combating climate change and supporting national

development. Instead, we need to forge new high-

growth, low-carbon economies and make national

development supportive of progress towards global

emissions targets.

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Specifically, those of us who are leaders of

rainforest countries need to understand that we provide

services that are vital to the health of our planet and

that, when we seek capital flows to compensate for

that, we are not merely acting as passive poor countries

looking for aid: we are providing a critical component

of the climate solution and we should be leading the

design of mechanisms as we forge a post-Kyoto

climate agreement.

In Guyana, despite the fact that 85 per cent of our

people live below sea level and are already suffering

from changing weather patterns and rising water levels,

we do not want to just complain about climate change.

Instead, we want to partner with others to create a

solution. As part of that, we are ready to discuss

placing almost our entire rainforest in the service of the

world if the right economic incentives are created and

if that can be done in a way that neither trades

sovereignty over our forest nor restricts the legitimate

development aspirations of our people.

The African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP)

countries are currently negotiating an economic

partnership agreement with the European Union (EU).

That agreement may fundamentally affect development

in our societies and jeopardize our future negotiating

positions at the World Trade Organization (WTO). The

European Commission has threatened to impose tariffs

on our exports under the Generalized System of

Preferences if we do not sign agreements that reflect

the EU’s model of WTO compatibility, even though the

model includes issues that have been removed from the

WTO agenda — the so-called Singapore issues. Those

agreements will also seriously prejudice our

negotiations with other countries and may jeopardize

the future of our integration movement.

The exploitation of the EU’s superior negotiating

strength and the use of threats to get countries to sign

are, ironically, how the EU hopes to start this

partnership under the economic partnership agreement.

What is particularly irksome is that we are incessantly

lectured by the same group of countries to the effect

that national consultations and working with civil

society are essential hallmarks of good governance. Yet

when the same civil society opposes the economic

partnership agreement on the grounds that it is not

sufficiently developmental in nature, we are told to

ignore them — they are complainers. I wonder if the

leaders of those countries know, or care, what is being

done in their names. Even at this late hour, I wish to

plead with the EU leaders to review those agreements

before they irretrievably harm the good historic

relations that have existed between the ACP and the

EU.

That brings me to the matter of the much-needed

reform of our multilateral institutions, which has been

on the agenda for some time. However, it would be fair

to say that it has progressed slowly and its results have

been few and difficult to observe. I believe that the

reforms must be pursued along certain predefined

principles. First, the institutions must have new

mandates that are relevant to the current circumstances,

and they must have at their disposal tools to discharge

those mandates effectively. Secondly, the institutions

must have legitimacy and reflect an equitable

representation of their membership. Thirdly, in the

discharge of their functions, they must demonstrate

flexibility and responsiveness. Fourthly, they must

display the highest standards of accountability and

transparency.

As I mentioned earlier, I believe that limitations

in the mandate and functioning of the international

financial institutions were a contributory factor in the

current financial crisis. The mandate of the

International Monetary Fund should explicitly be the

preservation of systemic financial stability as a global

public good. In addition, the use of passive

surveillance as a general instrument and conditionality-

based lending among the more vulnerable members

have clearly proved to be ineffective. That is so not

least because the incentives associated with

conditionality-based lending are almost invariably

never applicable to countries of systemic importance,

and no mechanisms exist to encourage larger countries

to respond to policy advice.

Likewise, the World Bank should have a revised

mandate that focuses on certain key development

challenges, such as protection of the environment,

clean energy and certain aspects of poverty reduction,

instead of trying to address every development

challenge and undermining its own effectiveness. In

addition, more needs to be done to democratize the

institutions, to align the interests of the management

and staff with those of the countries they serve and to

make them more accountable to the membership.

Similarly, a more democratic and reformed

United Nations Organization will be better placed to

play a central role in the multilateral system in serving

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the interests of the international community as a whole,

whether in relation to its peace and security mandates,

the protection of fundamental rights or the promotion

of development.

Within the Commonwealth, heads of Government

have developed a set of principles and guidelines that

should underpin reform of the international

institutions. Among their recommendations is a call for

a conference along the lines of Bretton Woods to lead

the way in determining the future of the international

financial institutions. I trust that those principles and

guidelines will be fully embraced.

I wish this sixty-third session of the Assembly

every success.