Kenya, 2009

I should like to

congratulate the President on the singular honour of

having been chosen for the presidency of the United

Nations General Assembly at its sixty-fourth session. I

would like to assure him of my delegation’s fullest

support as he undertakes his momentous responsibility

to unite Member States in pursuing the common goal

of a more humane, secure, united and prosperous

world.

There was a time recently when that elusive goal

finally appeared within reach, but multiple new

challenges have coalesced to render the goal even more

distant. It is therefore most encouraging that the world

is turning to the United Nations to find a common,

global path to resolving the most intractable difficulties

facing humanity. There is a clear recognition emerging

that together we can all rise, but that separately, we can

only sink.

There was a time when the powerful disdained

this institution’s ability to be a unifying player. That is

now changing, and in this regard, I would like to

commend the President of the United States, who holds

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a very special place in the hearts of Africans, Kenyans

in particular, for having on Wednesday so eloquently

indicated the centrality of the United Nations in

charting common solutions.

In order to better equip the United Nations for

meeting these challenges, we must continue to press

for reform in the Organization. The Security Council,

in particular, must be enlarged and made more

democratic and representative of current day reality.

Part of the enlargement must include permanent, veto-

bearing seats for Africa.

The world can no longer continue to marginalize

a continent that is home to nearly one billion people.

That is wrong in principle, but even more, it is wrong

in practice. We cannot find sustainable solutions to our

challenges when such a large part of humanity is given

so little voice and role in that quest for peace.

The world is now acutely aware that the quest for

peace begins with ensuring the survival of the planet.

I would, therefore, like to thank Secretary-General

Ban Ki-moon for having convened the high-level

meeting on climate change, which has put that issue

squarely onto the world’s centre stage. There is no

issue that so clearly unites the population of the entire

world as climate change does.

Regrettably, the far-sighted decision at the 2005

United Nations World Summit to explore the

possibility of a more coherent institutional framework

for international environmental governance has not

borne any fruit. This is particularly unacceptable now

when climate change is indeed the most pressing

challenge of our times. We therefore call for the

upgrading of the United Nations Environmental

Programme (UNEP) in Nairobi, so that it can become

the central environmental institution handling the

numerous conventions.

We have noted with regret the emergence of

multiple centres dealing with environmental issues.

That dissipates their impact and sometimes even leads

to contradictory actions. The United Nations Office in

Nairobi should now be elevated to the same level

United Nations Offices in Geneva and Vienna to enable

it to provide comprehensive support to all Member

States and organizations struggling to adjust to a new

paradigm of a sustainable and dynamic green economy.

Without that, the lives of billions will be

imperilled. Already, as the Secretary-General pointed

out on Wednesday, another 100 million people may fall

below the poverty line this year owing to climate

change setbacks. Markets may be bouncing back, but

incomes and jobs are not. These developments do not

augur well for the future.

I regret to say that my own country is emblematic

of the woes unleashed by years of rampant excesses in

the global and local mismanagement of our

environment. The melting of the famed ice caps of

Mt. Kenya and nearby Mt. Kilimanjaro, the destruction

of vast swathes of our once beautiful forests, the drying

of fast-flowing rivers, the intensifying cycles of

drought and floods, the spread of malaria to highland

regions as temperatures rise — these are all

consequences of human action within and outside our

borders. And so the solution also must also entail

action on both fronts.

The greater challenge for us, I am afraid, is the

external one. We, like the rest of Africa, produce only a

tiny proportion of the emissions that are rapidly

warming the planet and wreaking havoc with our

capacity to produce adequate amounts of food and

energy and husband sustainable water supplies. Our

economies are in disarray. We are victims of the richer

world’s acts and omissions, and therefore we need

large amounts of funds in assistance and private-sector

investment to reverse the course of events. The world

community must agree on concrete actions in

Copenhagen.

But we in Kenya are not interested in playing the

blame game or waiting for international action to

materialize. We have already begun to make very tough

political decisions to reverse the ravages. Our

immediate goal is to fully restore our largest water

tower, the famed Mau Forest complex, as well as

Kenya’s other four water towers, and are embarking on

a huge reforestation drive to plant seven billion trees,

which will restore the carbon-taming sinks that once

made us self-sufficient in food and energy. We are also

undertaking a crash programme designed to rapidly

shift energy production to green technologies that use

assets in which we are naturally rich — wind and sun,

but most important of all, geothermal energy, which

could more than double our current energy production

within the next four years.

For all of these programmes, we are mobilizing

local resources, but we will need significant assistance

and investment to succeed in our goal of achieving

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self-sufficiency in a green way. The rich nations have

recognized that their own self-interest is served in

promoting such green commitments in developing

countries, but the existing mechanisms through which

they can support such programmes need to be refined

and made more effective in quickly releasing

resources.

We therefore support British Prime Minister

Gordon Brown’s proposal for a $100 billion facility,

and at the same time urge that the $20 billion pledged

by the Group of Eight (G-8) for enhanced food

production be speedily mobilized and disbursed. We

need immediate assistance in feeding the 10 million

Kenyans who are now living in hunger and will

otherwise face starvation shortly. Just last week we

declared this situation a national disaster requiring

$500 million to rectify, of which $250 million will be

mobilized from our own resources, while we urgently

appeal to our development partners to furnish the other

$250 million.

Tens of thousands of livestock animals have died.

This devastation is the result primarily of climate

change. We have had droughts before, but they now

recur much more frequently and with greater severity.

One drought year is difficult enough, but the rains have

now failed us for the past four consecutive seasons.

I appeal to our well-wishers, who are many, to assist us

in this dire emergency. To mitigate the suffering, we

have carried out a massive mobilization — including of

the military — in providing relief and in drilling

boreholes and transporting water to areas in acute need.

I am very proud to say that despite the terrible

post-election violence and the subsequent multiple

reverses that made reconciliation and reconstruction

even more difficult, our people have shown an

extraordinary maturity and resilience in rising to

unprecedented challenges. We were able to overcome

the bitterness over the election with an accord that we

signed with the help of the African Union and the

mediation of Kofi Annan, as well as with the support of

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who personally

visited Kenya at the height of the crisis — for which

we are deeply grateful.

Let me now turn to an area where peace does not

prevail and which is a source of immense concern to

the entire international community — and that is

Somalia. As its immediate neighbour and with a large

population of Kenyan Somalis, we have done more

than any other country to assist Somalia in overcoming

its divisions and conflicts. No one is more eager than

we are to help defeat the forces of extremism in

Somalia, which have so much sway because of the help

of external elements. The continuing inflow of

refugees, small arms and light weapons from Somalia

is the major source of insecurity in our country.

The latest setback resulting from that insecurity is

disruption through piracy against international trade in

one of the busiest sea routes in the world. Despite the

risks incurred by doing so, Kenya has offered facilities

for the detention and prosecution of suspected pirates,

as part of our international obligation to promote

peace. We have also offered to host a United Nations-

organized conference in Kenya on how to coordinate

and more effectively deal with the scourge of piracy. In

return, we ask the international community to

recognize our many sacrifices and assist us in dealing

with our major refugee and security burdens.

The Intergovernmental Authority on Development

(IGAD) and the African Union have recommended to

the United Nations Security Council that it impose a no-

fly zone and a blockade of airports and seaports held by

insurgents so as to prevent the influx of arms. Kenya

fully supports their position. It is now incumbent upon

the United Nations Security Council to take decisive

action to forestall further anarchy in Somalia.

To succeed in the quest for peace in Somalia, we

must recognize that the present focus primarily on the

use of force has not led to any curbing of extremism.

Indeed, the security and humanitarian crises are worse

than ever. We must therefore take a more

comprehensive approach in tackling the extremists —

an approach that includes encouraging the Transitional

Federal Government to much more aggressively pursue

its commitment to a more inclusive political process,

by bringing into the Government all forces that eschew

violence. Such outreach to all moderates can succeed

only with much greater international support. It is

regrettable that many pledges made at the Brussels

donors conference have yet to be honoured. I call upon

all those who have not honoured their pledges to do so

immediately.

Turning back to the global economic crisis, it is

now recognized that one of its principal causes is the

weakness of the international financial system. We

should strengthen and promote effective multilateralism

with the United Nations at the centre. We need to reform

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the international financial governance institutions, so

that they can prevent crises and develop more effective

and equitable responses to them.

The ideals and principles of the United Nations

are, today more than ever, the surest hope for a more

prosperous and equitable world. Multilateralism in this

globalized age is the only sure way to ensure that

peace, development and unity prevail at a time when

the world is riven with so many divisions. We need a

genuine partnership among all nations and peoples, so

that everyone feels that he or she is a critical

stakeholder in national and international decision-

making.

Finally, within democratic nations, each person’s

vote is equal to those of all others, regardless of their

power or wealth. That is the principle that must finally

be applied to the workings of the entire international

system.