Indonesia, 2010

First I congratulate

you, Sir, on your assuming the presidency of the

General Assembly at its sixty-fifth session. I am sure

that under your able leadership our deliberations will

be fruitful. Let me also commend your predecessor,

Mr. Ali Abdussalam Treki, for the wisdom with which

he guided the Assembly at its previous session.

The theme of our session, “Reaffirming the

central role of the United Nations in global

governance”, is both timely and well chosen. As we

enter the second decade of the twenty-first century,

humankind faces a multitude of challenges, challenges

that are complex, multifaceted and transnational;

challenges that defy national solutions alone; indeed,

challenges that demand international cooperation.

Those are precisely challenges of the type that the

United Nations is potentially best equipped to meet.

Such a central role for the United Nations derives,

above all, from its near universal membership — a

representative United Nations. It derives also from its

effectiveness, its capacity to deliver results: an

effective United Nations that is capable of delivering

peace and security worldwide; a United Nations that

equally serves the interest of all nations, developed and

developing, large and small; a United Nations that

provides a robust institutional support for efforts to

achieve prosperity and equitable development for all; a

United Nations that advocates not only political and

civil rights, but also economic and social rights, to all

people around the world; a United Nations that promotes

democracy and justice; in short, a United Nations that

can play a central role in global governance.

A United Nations that is at the forefront in

addressing global challenges requires that we, its

Members, must move together in cooperative action:

countries of the North and South, East and West,

developed and developing. We must each contribute to

the resolution of problems and not simply accentuate

divisions, for there is no monopoly of wisdom amongst

any one of us.

Each Member State can contribute to meeting the

challenges to the international community. Therefore,

our Organization, the United Nations, must have the

wherewithal, the means, to ensure that the full problem-

solving potential of every nation is unleashed. Therein

rests the importance of reform of the United Nations.

The Security Council must better reflect the

contemporary world, not that of 1945. A more

representative Council would be a more effective

Council.

The General Assembly must be revitalized. A

more efficient Assembly is a more effective Assembly.

The Economic and Social Council must be made

more relevant, in accordance with its Charter-mandated

responsibilities.

Not least, the full potential of the Secretariat must

be harvested. Its structure and organization must be

effective and efficient and made more cohesive.

The central role of the United Nations in global

governance is due not only to its capacity to reform, to

enhance its representative character, but also to its

ability to deliver in overcoming contemporary global

challenges, to deliver on its Charter-provided purposes,

or, as the Charter eloquently puts it in paragraph 4 of

Article 1, “To be a centre for harmonizing the actions

of nations”.

As a Member State, Indonesia will do its part. We

shall continue to contribute to United Nations

peacekeeping efforts. We shall also strive to ensure that

the recent positive momentum on the issue of

disarmament is maintained. Therefore, Indonesia is on

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track to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban

Treaty.

Indonesia will also work tirelessly to ensure that

the United Nations continues to discharge its historic

responsibilities on the question of Palestine. Thus we

welcome and support the resumption of direct

negotiations between Israel and Palestine. This is a

precious opportunity for Palestine and Israel to find

solutions on all final status issues.

We therefore strongly deplore the decision by the

Israeli Government not to extend the moratorium on

the building of settlements in the occupied territory.

Such a decision does not in any way contribute to a

climate conducive for the direct negotiations.

We will continue to contribute to the capacity-

building of Palestine, to support the Palestinian people

in preparing for the day when they finally exercise

their right of sovereignty.

Today’s global threat to security demands more

effective global action. The United Nations must do its

part to promote global cooperation to address

non-traditional security threats: terrorism, people

smuggling, drug trafficking, piracy and money

laundering, to cite just a few.

The United Nations must also contribute to

achieving common prosperity, to make a better world

for all. We support the strengthening of the United

Nations frameworks for the attainment of equitable and

sustainable development. The Rio Declaration, the

Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and the

Johannesburg Plan of Implementation have been the

multilateral linchpin of this.

We welcome the renewed commitment of all

Member States to meet the MDGs by 2015. We need to

strengthen genuine partnership to deliver on these

promises and to turn hope into reality.

The challenges we face in attaining equitable and

sustainable development are compounded by the real

and imminent threat of climate change. Addressing

climate change is therefore essential. Accordingly, the

United Nations should ensure that the sixteenth

Conference of the Parties to the United Nations

Framework Convention on Climate Change, to be held

in Mexico, results in a consensus agreement that

effectively addresses climate change. It should build on

the Copenhagen Accord and the progress made in the

two Working Groups in the fifteenth Conference.

We also look forward to the 2012 United Nations

Conference on Sustainable Development as an

opportunity to enhance coordination, synergy and

coherence in efforts, including within the United Nations

system, to address challenges to sustainable development.

We need to strengthen the capacity of the United

Nations to deal with a complex array of natural

disasters, including the delivery of international

humanitarian assistance.

We attach great importance to the review process

of the Human Rights Council in 2011. We need to

ensure that the Council can truly support all countries,

developed and developing, to promote cooperation in

the field of human rights.

And, not least, we need to see the United Nations

contribute effectively to the promotion of tolerance and

mutual respect among cultures, religions, faiths and

civilizations.

We, the Members of the United Nations, must

promote better synergy between the United Nations

and regional organizations and initiatives. Many global

problems become more manageable if there are

simultaneous efforts to address them at the regional

level. That is why Indonesia continues to promote the

strengthening of cooperation between the United

Nations and the Association of Southeast Asian

Nations (ASEAN).

Before the end of this year an ASEAN-United

Nations summit will be held in Viet Nam. Meanwhile,

the countries of ASEAN and other countries in the

larger Asia-Pacific region are building a regional

architecture that will bring about and sustain dynamic

equilibrium in the region. ASEAN will, of course, be

the driving force in the building of this architecture.

While the promotion of democracy is a global

concern, we are also vigorously promoting democratic

values in our own region, through ASEAN and beyond.

In 2008, Indonesia launched the Bali Democracy Forum,

the only intergovernmental forum on political

development in Asia. In doing so, we created an inclusive

platform for sharing experiences and best practices and

giving mutual support in the development of democracy

in the region. This December, we will hold the third Bali

Democracy Forum, this time on the theme of “Democracy

and the promotion of peace and stability”.

We in Indonesia cherish our democratic

transformation. As the world’s third largest democracy,

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Indonesia is proof that Islam, democracy and

modernization can go hand in hand. But democracy is

not something that can be achieved once and for all

time. It is an endless journey, an unremitting process. It

must keep evolving to remain capable of addressing

new challenges. That is why we keep fine-tuning our

political institutions, so that they become more

effective in serving the people.

The same is true of the United Nations. It needs

continuous reform, so that it serves all nations,

developed and developing; so that it will be a more

effective instrument of humankind; so that it will

deliver peace and the dividends of peace. It is now time

to make the United Nations deliver.