Honduras, 2013

The Government of Honduras extends its warmest

congratulations to Mr. Ashe on his election to preside

over the proceedings of the General Assembly, and we

wish him every success.

I am grateful for the honour that the President of

Honduras conferred upon me by asking me to represent

him in this world forum. As we come to the close of our

term in office, we in the Administration of President

Porfirio Lobo Sosa note with satisfaction that we have

laid the foundation for national unity and reconciliation.

We have successfully overcome the severe political

crisis that affected Honduras during the previous

Government, and Honduras now looks forward to new

general elections in November.

The Government of President Lobo Sosa has

normalized relations with the international community.

We have secured ties of close cooperation with more than

a hundred friendly countries, restored foreign credit

and shown the world that we are a country that lives up

to its democratic and peaceful calling. Today, Honduras

is a member of the principal international and regional

organizations. Our membership in major forums has

given us access to new markets, opportunities for

investment and employment and helped to strengthen

our energy sector.

As part of the process of unity and reconciliation,

the President of the Republic created a Government

of National Integration, with the participation of all

the political parties that took part in the last electoral

process. Fortunately, that participation continues

today and will continue through the end of the present

constitutional term. Accordingly, I wish to mention that,

as part of the process of healing the wounds of the 2009

political crisis and building the future together, we have

successfully adopted by consensus a long-term country

vision and a national plan from which our Government

programme is derived. That shared vision is being

implemented through a major national agreement

for economic growth with social equity between the

Government of President Lobo Sosa, trade unions,

business owners, workers, farmers and civil society. I

believe that Honduras and the world should welcome

those efforts, together with the spirit of dialogue and

commitment of all sectors of Honduran society, which

have shown that collective interests come well before

individual interests.

Today, we are reaping the benefits of that major

national agreement. We have had successes in the small

and medium-sized enterprise sector, social protection

programmes, the establishment of a transparent budget

and foreign trade. Democratic participation has also

been strengthened because of the interaction of all

sectors in our economic and social council, which is

a forum that has made it possible for mechanisms for

dialogue and conflict prevention to work.

We are pleased to state that our Government will be

handing over to the incoming Administration a series of

principles that should serve as a basis for consolidating

social policies. Those principles were discussed

and agreed upon between the Government and civil

society in order to ensure a solid foundation and the

sustainability of social institutions in the country.

Our country and our democratic institutions have

suffered the onslaught of external aggression, which

has led to violence and insecurity. I am referring to

drug trafficking and various forms of transnational

organized crime. With all the measures adopted to

combat crime, last year the Government of President

Lobo Sosa was able to halt the rise of the homicide

rate, and this year we have seen a reduction in that

rate. That has been achieved through the adoption by

the National Congress of an entirely new legal and

institutional framework, which was lacking before. We

have undertaken a reform of the security and justice

system. For the first time, we have adopted procedures

to certify judicial officials, using confidence-testing

measures. We have also adopted a tax to strengthen

citizen safety. To the extent possible, we are providing

training for the security and defence institutions. We

have implemented a national policy to prevent violence

against children and youth, and we have promoted and

protected human rights.

And yet, while halting the spiral of violence is a

positive sign, it is insufficient, given the high level of

criminal activity that had been reached. Our commitment

to combat crime will be upheld until the very last day of

our mandate. However, it is very important to sustain

those efforts. The new Government will have to do so

with a firm hand. It will have to continue to strengthen

security and justice institutions, which is a medium- to

long-term task. Combating global crime requires a more

decisive and more effective international and regional

effort, in which drug-producing and drug-consuming

countries assume the shared and differentiated

responsibility that they bear in this wave of violence.

Today, I reaffirm Honduras’s commitment to the

Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the right to

life and the respect for human dignity. We recognize

that the protection of human rights is the very essence

of democracy. During our administration, we created

a Secretary of State for Justice and Human Rights

and strengthened the role of the Special Prosecutor

for Human Rights. We established institutions for

combating torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading

treatment, and we enacted a law combating human

trafficking and introducing a public human rights

policy and a national plan of action for human rights.

We now require presidential candidates to sign the

human rights pact.

It is fundamentally important to Honduras that

we continue working towards meeting the Millennium

Development Goals, with which we have made

significant progress. Food and nutrition security is a

national priority for President Porfirio Lobo Sosa’s

Government, and we have focused efforts to eradicate

hunger through various food and nutrition security

programmes targeting the most vulnerable people and

the neediest areas of the country.

Through its recognition of the multidimensional

and multisectoral nature of the food and nutrition

security issue, the Government of our Republic reduced

the population suffering from malnutrition by 21 per

cent between 2010 and 2012, meeting and exceeding its

target for the Millennium Development Goals. As an

example of our multisectoral approach and to ensure

the sustainability of our programmes, I am pleased to

announce the launch of a Government initiative, the

Partnership for the Dry Corridor. The Partnership,

which has the support of the international community,

targets those suffering from poverty and hunger in our

country’s most vulnerable area.

Concerning education, I should emphasize that

Honduras has seen a significant increase in the number

of 5-year-olds entering the pre-school system. It is

roughly triple what we expected. Our Government

has been deeply committed to reforming the national

education system. The new legal framework requires

a broad participatory process involving parents,

communities and teachers. The proposal that President

Lobo made here in the General Assembly last year,

when he said that classrooms must never be closed (see

A/67/PV.6, p. 49), has led to a considerable increase in

the number of school days for children in Honduras.

That has resulted in an improvement in the quality of

education, and as a nation we are very optimistic about

it.

As to gender equality and the empowerment of

women, we have made progress in implementing

a gender equality system, created with a view to

promoting, encouraging and institutionalizing gender-

equity policies and improving equality of opportunity

between men and women. With regard to the reduction

of under-five mortality and improving maternal health,

our Government approved a public policy for the holistic

development of infants and a comprehensive care

strategy for children in the community. The strategy

has been internationally recognized, because it has

improved maternal health conditions before, during and

after delivery and has thus lowered the mortality risk

and increased the number of births in medical centres.

Similarly, it is important to emphasize the efforts

we have made to reduce infant morbidity and mortality

associated with diseases that are preventable through

vaccination; our broad immunization programme has

achieved more than 90 per cent coverage for vaccines

required for children under the age of 2. With regard

respect to HIV/AIDS, our Government has increased

the national budget for prevention and care and has

financed almost 100 per cent of the antiretroviral

treatment.

Concerning the delimitation of maritime space

in the Pacific Ocean, and specifically the situation

in the Gulf of Fonseca, a historic bay that Honduras

shares in a co-sovereignty regime with El Salvador

and Nicaragua, my Government wishes to reiterate its

respect for the decision that the International Court of

Justice handed down on 11 September 1992. We also

affirm our commitment to including a comprehensive

cooperation agreement under the auspices of a

tri-national commission of coastal States, which

develops conservation and protection programmes for

the environment in the Gulf and the improvement of

living conditions for neighbouring communities. It is

an opportune moment to recall that it was in October

2012 that Honduras first asked the Security Council

to authorize the Secretary-General to provide all

necessary support for constituting that authority, and I

take this opportunity to repeat our request. I thank the

European Union for its cooperation in developing this

zone, which has great economic potential.

I would like to emphasize the importance that all

coastal States attach to the decisions of the International

Court of Justice. We wish to avoid making any territorial

or maritime claims that would distance us further from

the big picture, which is to make the Pacific Ocean and

the Gulf of Fonseca a zone of cooperation and peace.

But given the understanding and neighbourliness

we possess, we have concluded, based on equitable

principles, the necessary agreements regarding the

maritime impact on the Pacific Ocean. Honduras has

already made proposals that we are prepared to discuss

with our fraternal neighbours.

I wish to underscore the fact that our Government

has defined a strategy for a governmental transition

for 2013-2014, whose primary objective is to ensure

an orderly and structured handover, so as to avoid the

vacuums and delays in planning that have traditionally

accompanied a change of Government. It is essential

to ensure the sustainability of public policies beyond

the life of our Administration, so that we can achieve

long-term planning that benefits the Honduran people.

In November we will hold general elections with the

participation of nine political parties, including a strong

female presence in the election process. Honduras’s

electoral authorities, which function independently, are

making every possible effort to ensure that the general

elections are free and transparent. On behalf of the

people of Honduras, I would like to ask all friendly

nations to support our electoral process. All States are

welcome to witness it.

I hope sincerely that, during its sixty-eighth session,

the General Assembly will meet the expectations of

Member States, and I take this opportunity to express

my thanks, on behalf of the people and Government

of Honduras, for the solidarity that the international

community has shown to the Administration of

President Porfirio Lobo Sosa.