Saint Kitts and Nevis, 2005

My

Government supports the report of the Secretary-

General, which reaffirms development, peace, security

and human rights as fundamental to the well-being of

any modern State. The Government of Saint Kitts and

Nevis steadfastly contends that there is an inherent link

between poverty reduction, the promotion of human

rights, economic development, security and good

governance.

Regrettably, the tendency has been to separate

them, in favour of what some call political imperatives.

I daresay policies do not and cannot exist in a vacuum.

Politics is about people, and therefore national,

regional or even international organizational policies

must be about people. There is stark evidence of this.

The political landscape reveals clear indications

of the interconnectedness of the phenomena of poverty

eradication, security, economic development and

governance. The task of governance is becoming

increasingly difficult in the face of growing

unemployment, deepening poverty, escalating energy

prices and a mounting cost of living. As a

consequence, we have witnessed social dislocations

and civil disquiet. The fruits of globalization still do

not grow among the worldís poorest, who have become

further marginalized and blame their Governments,

which, despite their best efforts, are often relegated to

the margins of political discourse and economic

activities.

Some citizens have become more vocal and more

open in their distrust of Government policies that fail

to deliver the promises of democracy and

globalization, fail to reduce poverty and unemployment

and fail to improve their standard of living. The

economic and political rift between rich and poor

nations is steadily becoming a deeper divide as

mistrust continues to characterize relations between the

developed and the developing countries.

Understandably, small countries ó despite

limited and diminishing resources ó are expected to

participate equally in the fight against the social

scourges that confront us. But that dramatically

reduces our ability to make new and necessary

investments in socio-economic development. It is

within that context that we urge Member nations to

substantively support the Millennium Development

Goals. We also urge them to partner with us,

recognizing our vulnerabilities to natural disasters and

other external economic factors, and recognizing the

need for preferred and differential treatment in trade

and access to markets in developed countries. We urge

developed countries to implement policies that do not

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undermine our efforts or reverse the gains that we in

small developing countries have made. We call for

equity and for a willingness to live and let live.

Despite overwhelming odds, however, the

Government of Saint Kitts and Nevis stands ready to

do its share. At the base of our efforts and policies is

the fundamental importance of strengthening the rights

of the child. We believe that promoting the rights of the

child goes to the heart of full and effective protection

of human rights. We also firmly believe that by making

sure every child in Saint Kitts and Nevis has access to

primary and secondary education, to potable water and

to health care, we are creating healthier, better adjusted

and productive adults whose rights will have been

nourished and enshrined in the policy orientation and

development agenda of our proud country.

It is generally accepted that the right to

development is also a fundamental right that national

Governments have a primary responsibility to ensure.

Long before the Millennium Development Goals were

formally elaborated and adopted by the community of

nations, that fundamental right was emphatically

understood by the Government and the people of Saint

Kitts and Nevis. As a point of reference, in this year's

Human Development Report issued by the United

Nations Development Programme, Saint Kitts and

Nevis was ranked 49 out of 177 countries on the

Human Development Index ó the second-highest

ranking in the Caribbean region and, indeed, among the

highest in the Latin American and Caribbean region.

The report reflects the reality in Saint Kitts and Nevis,

where there is an adult literacy rate of 97.8 per cent, a

life expectancy rate of 70 years - which needs upward

revision - and a combined primary, secondary and

tertiary school enrolment ratio of 89 per cent. The

report underscores our commitment to gender equality,

starting with current parity in enrolment levels among

girls and boys in school at both the primary and the

secondary levels. The report also confirms 98 per cent

access to safe water and sanitation. In the field of

health, it notes a 99 per cent rate of immunization of

infants against tuberculosis and measles in Saint Kitts

and Nevis.

The Pan-Caribbean Partnership to combat

HIV/AIDS (PANCAP), established by the Caribbean

Community (CARICOM), has proved to be a useful

and pragmatic vehicle for collective action and results.

In Saint Kitts and Nevis, our own fight against

HIV/AIDS uses that particular model. PANCAP has

distinguished itself and has been identified as a best-

practice model. We are therefore now pursuing policies

aimed at universal access to treatment and care and at

ending discrimination and the stigmatization of those

persons affected by HIV/AIDS, while at the same time

continuing our public education initiatives on

preventing the spread of the virus.

A per capita income of more than $7,000 places

us squarely among upper-middle-income countries. We

thank the United Nations for recognizing our efforts,

which are the result of policies engineered to ensure

the development of the individual despite the obstacles

that we face as a small economy. They also reflect the

commitment of my Government to ensuring the

protection of the rights of our children and their role in

our countryís future.

That, however, is only one side of the coin. The

achievements to which I referred come at an enormous

cost - a cost that represents an enormous burden - to

our people. The past decade has been particularly

difficult for Saint Kitts and Nevis. Our small island

State continues to be especially vulnerable to natural

disasters, external economic fluctuations and policies

biased against small economies such as ours. My

country has experienced back-to-back hurricanes,

landslides and floods, at a cost of more than half a

billion dollars. We have been forced to direct more and

more of our scarce resources towards recovery and

away from development.

The experience throughout the Caribbean region

is very similar. It was just in July this year that our

sister CARICOM nation of Grenada again suffered

serious devastation, caused by Hurricane Emily, on the

back of last year's devastation brought by Hurricane

Ivan. The Maldives, another small island sister nation,

has made pleas for a delay in the process set in motion

for its graduation from the list of least developed

countries, owing to the tsunami. We specifically

support the Maldives' request.

In addition to the cost of recovery, escalating

high prices and the cost of food imports, Saint Kitts

and Nevis, as an emerging tourist destination, has

faced the prohibitively high cost of implementing

supplementary security measures since 11 September

2001. To further compound that grave situation, the

recent rulings of the World Trade Organization relative

to trade preferences have dealt a most significant blow

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to small economies in the Caribbean and therefore

threaten to unravel their economic base.

In the case of my country, after centuries of sugar

production and sales to the European market - which

have been a cornerstone of our economic support and

our social stability - we have been forced to close that

industry, which finally succumbed to continuous losses

and escalating debts. Saint Kitts and Nevis can no

longer compete profitably in a world market that is

characterized by engineered low prices for sugar and

by the unfair trading practices of some countries. That

has severe implications in terms of unemployment,

social dislocation, psychological distress and the

dramatic loss of urgently needed foreign-exchange

earnings.

We have tried to prepare for such an eventuality

through a process of economic diversification, but

support from the international community has not been

forthcoming. The cost of borrowing, the removal of

grant financing from the menus of international

financial institutions and the annual recovery costs

from catastrophic hurricanes have become more and

more onerous. Creative legal policy initiatives,

especially in the international financial services sector,

have been challenged and undermined by some

developed countries.

In an attempt to fulfil the Millennium

Development Goals by 2015, my Government has also

pursued policies to stimulate and facilitate private-

sector-led growth by investing in physical

infrastructure and human resource development. But

we need international political and economic support.

The Secretary-General underscored that threats to

peace and security represent different things to

different countries. If we intend to promote collective

security, there must be an appreciation of and

sensitivity to this diversity among countries. In the

same way, we are called upon to aid in the fight against

terrorism, drug trafficking, transnational organized

crime and other scourges that threaten international

peace and security in the more advanced countries. It is

not unreasonable, therefore, to expect reciprocity of

support in fighting the almost intractable problems that

confront small States. To address these urgent

challenges, we call on the international community to

support and contribute to the full, timely and effective

implementation of the Mauritius Strategy for further

implementation of the Programme of Action for the

Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing

States, which we consider a very important mechanism

for achieving the Millennium Development Goals.

My Government was heartened by the Secretary-

General's proposal for the establishment of a Human

Rights Council. We also support effective change in the

United Nations, which also means that the Security

Council must evolve to reflect current world realities.

The United Nations must also play a more enhanced

role in development, and the concerns of small island

developing States must be given greater attention

within this Organization. Small States can offer best-

practice models and creative ideas from which the

international debate on development, peace, security

and human rights could benefit.

We encourage greater transparency in the

deliberations of critical organs of the Organization and

greater opportunities for small States to be represented

in the decision-making processes of these organs.

The people of Taiwan continue to be excluded

from the brotherhood of nations, which was created to

represent the hopes and aspirations of all peoples. My

Government reiterates its call for the people of the

Republic of China, Taiwan, to be consulted, effectively

represented and invited to participate in the critical

debates on world peace, human security, development

and human rights. I believe that we would have failed

to promote human rights effectively if, through

political exclusion, generations of people are relegated

to the margins of such important issues and the forums

that facilitate their discussion.

I remain cautiously optimistic about the future.

On the one hand, Governments have rededicated

themselves to the struggle to build a world free from

want and fear and with the freedom to live with

dignity. In addition, we are poised to reform the United

Nations in the hope that it can play a more effective

role in this ever-changing world.

However, the tenor of last week's summit

suggests a strong possibility that some developed

countries may yet renege on those commitments, which

could further erode developing countries' efforts to

eradicate extreme poverty, generate employment,

promote human security and narrow the development

gap between richer and poorer countries.

We still have an opportunity for an enhanced

global partnership to turn commitments into action and

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secure a future for our children, a future that is free

from want of the basic necessities, free from fear of

violence with guarantees of protection of the right to

live in dignity. Only then will we build and reinforce

the foundation of democracy, enhance collective

security and jumpstart a process where globalization

becomes a vehicle for change among all of the world's

peoples.