Mozambique, 2008

Mr. President,

we would like to join previous speakers in

congratulating you upon your election to the

presidency of the General Assembly at its sixty-third

session. We are confident that under your wise and

diligent leadership, our deliberations will be

successful. We take this opportunity to assure you of

our full collaboration and wish you success in the

discharge of your important responsibilities.

We wish to express our gratitude to your

predecessor, Srgjan Kerim of the former Yugoslav

Republic of Macedonia, for the pragmatism and

dynamism of his endeavours in conducting the work of

the sixty-second session. We also reiterate our

appreciation to the Secretary-General of the United

Nations, Mr. Ban Ki-moon, for his engagement in the

quest for peace, justice and solutions to the various

challenges faced by humanity.

We have witnessed an increasing number of new

and complex challenges. Among them, the food crisis

is one of my country’s main concerns owing to its

direct, immediate impact on the lives of our peoples.

The origin of this crisis may be linked to factors such

as climate change and the subsequent irregular rainfall

that affects agricultural productivity; desertification of

vast areas and droughts around the world; increased

demand for cereals; higher oil prices and the

consequent impact on the price of transportation and

other products such as agricultural raw materials; the

impact of trade liberalization and agricultural subsidies

in developed countries, which have led to a gradual

decline in agricultural production in developing

countries; and finally, the distortion of cereal prices

across the globe.

Once the causes of the crisis have been identified,

it becomes the responsibility of the international

community to implement relevant and necessary

solutions in a consistent and vigorous manner. Through

that process, the crisis can be transformed into an

opportunity to boost international partnerships and

develop our countries.

In that context it is important to emphasize that

international cooperation stimulates the revival of the

productivity of farmers in developing countries, thus

contributing to a speedy transformation of their current

subsistence farming practices into commercial

agriculture. Such cooperation includes improved access

to improved seeds and to fertilizers and pesticides,

investments in infrastructure for market accessibility

and water management. Accordingly, we reiterate the

need to implement the pertinent recommendations set

forth at the Conference of the Least Developed

Countries on the rules of the World Trade Organization

and the food crisis.

Likewise, we call for support for regional efforts

such as the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture

Development Programme in the framework of NEPAD,

and the ongoing work by the Southern African

Development Community, with a view to finding a

collective response to mitigate the impact of the food

crisis and to re-establish agriculture as the means to

ensure food supply and better conditions and quality of

life for the peoples of Southern Africa.

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Mozambique is vulnerable to natural disasters

and to the dynamics of the international prices of food

and fuel products. Those factors represent a major

threat to the implementation of the Government’s

socio-economic programmes. Despite the notable

progress that we have been registering for our

production of cassava and maize, we still import large

quantities of other food products. Therefore, any cereal

price fluctuation in the world immediately affects the

day-to-day lives of our people.

Mozambique is endowed with natural resources

which are favourable to mixed farming. However, the

shortage of financial resources and the weak banking

network in the rural zones, combined with the lack of

infrastructure and technology to secure the

development of commercial agriculture, have not

allowed us to scale up our production to the levels that

could meet the food needs of our population. The

situation is worsened by poor distribution and

marketing systems, making it difficult to distribute and

market the products from certain surplus zones to the

needy ones. Moreover, the cyclic natural disasters that

have struck us have resulted in losses of significant

plantation areas, causing the people of those areas to

live permanently in need. Those calamities have also

caused soil erosion and depletion and as a consequence

food insecurity and malnutrition affect our people.

Mr. Choquehuanca Céspedes (Bolivia), Vice-

President, took the Chair.

In order to address the food crisis, our

Government approved last June, a Food Production

Action Plan for the period 2008-2011. The programme

was designed as a mechanism to implement the Green

Revolution which we launched in 2007 and is goal-

oriented. We are aware that implementing the Action

Plan together with the Green Revolution will require

additional resources, and we are therefore appealing

for such additional resources for those programmes.

We acknowledge the positive effect of the Green

Revolution on the implementation of the MDGs, since

no one can think about tomorrow or about education or

about gender equality or the empowerment of women if

they are hungry.

In February 2008, we launched the Presidential

Initiative for women and children. At that time, several

meetings were held with health professionals, religious

and traditional leaders, women and youth. During those

meetings, which are being replicated at the local level,

it became clear that health issues permeate the MDGs.

Although the advances that we have recorded are

significant, they are not sufficient to have an impact on

the reduction of avoidable deaths in Mozambique.

Our assessments show that we could, for

instance, reduce maternal mortality by more than

50 per cent. We could achieve a decrease of 17 per cent

in child mortality. We could significantly facilitate

access to antiretroviral treatment and to treatment for

tuberculosis and malaria. We could, by 2010 have more

than 95 per cent of mothers and children sleeping

under insecticide-treated mosquito nets. However, in

order to achieve those dreams, we are dependent upon

an additional funding of $4 per capita a year for the

health sector, from now until 2010. Additionally, we

need $10 million more for mosquito nets. The $590

million needed to fill the deficit during the next seven

years could help us train and employ around 20,000

additional health workers. That amount would raise the

number of doctors by 119 per cent, the number of

nurses and of mothers with access to health care would

rise by 68 per cent.

Our dream is to prevent more avoidable deaths.

As we have indicated, we cannot realize that dream by

ourselves. We need the predictable, substantial and

long-term support of our partners to meet the needs

that I have just identified. We need an efficient health-

care system and coordinated support from our

international partners, which is a noble way to ensure

the achievement of MDG 8, which focuses on

developing a global partnership for development.

We therefore wish to take this opportunity to

commend and encourage the perseverance of the

international solidarity movement in helping Africa,

and Mozambique in particular, in the context of

women’s and children’s health with a view to fulfilling

all the commitments made at the Millennium Summit.

In numerous parts of the world, funds have been

solicited and initiatives undertaken in support of our

programmes. That interaction with our partners has led

to the building of the necessary consensus on priorities

and strategies to ensure sustainable development.

The world is changing and, along with all those

changes, new global challenges have arisen. The

United Nations is a universal institution with the

legitimacy and the mandate to debate strategies and

find solutions to such major challenges. Nevertheless,

structural reforms are needed in order to improve the

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Organization’s ability to overcome the current

challenges. In that regard, the reform process should be

pursued so that the United Nations can achieve greater

unity and improve its ability to provide appropriate

responses to the challenges ahead, which will require

us to strengthen multilateralism and promote

partnerships for peace, security and development

across the world.

In conclusion, we reiterate the importance of

international cooperation to secure the production of

sufficient and affordable food for all and to build a

viable consensus for United Nations reform.