Samoa, 2008

The United Nations

embodies multilateralism. It is living testimony of the

intergovernmental process at work. Samoa’s

membership of the United Nations is grounded on the

promise of the hope, equality and justice the United

Nations offers the Member States, irrespective of their

economic, political or military strengths. Looking

back, our Organization has not lived up to the lofty

goals enshrined in its Charter. Its credibility has been

tarnished and undermined, and its performance

questioned at times.

Yet, those perceived failings of our Organization

are of our own making when we allow the vested

interests of a few to take precedence over the urgent

and deserving needs of the majority; when we accept

flawed perceptions that certain issues, States and

regions are more important than others, distorting the

world’s focus and the allocation of resources; when we

turn a blind eye and let the numerical superiority of

groups or the importance of some stakeholders

frustrate informed discussions of critical issues to score

points and achieve symbolic wins that help no one in

the long run; and when the long list of broken promises

and unfulfilled undertakings couched in eloquent yet

meaningless rhetoric creates frustration and mistrust

among Member States.

The end result is that if no one takes

responsibility, the future of the United Nations will be

in doubt and the cost to the world incalculable. We

have no one but ourselves to blame for any deficit in

the credibility of our Organization. What we urgently

need is a collective sense of trust and commitment to

its Charter. Only then will the United Nations remain

relevant and regain the confidence of our Members.

There is too much at stake for the world to just sit

idly by. Strong global leadership is at a premium.

Governments must yield not to vested interests and

expediency, but because it is the ethical and the just

thing to do.

That was my message from this rostrum last year,

and I am happy to restate it again today. No Member

State is too powerful or too small not to be part of the

solution of making the United Nations an agent of

change and a beacon of hope during these challenging

times. And no contribution is too trivial or unimportant

not to matter. For States in leadership positions, the

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ideal is to lead with humility, fairness and a kind heart.

The world expects nothing less. Leadership and

responsibility are, after all, one and the same.

Clearly, Member States can only do so much. We

need a committed Secretariat that is aware of and

sensitive to the needs of the people it serves. That is a

non-negotiable prerequisite. Samoa supports the

Secretary-General’s vision of creating a professional

career service that is flexible and mobile enough to

allow for quick and positive responses to the diverse

demands of Member States. The need for the United

Nations to deliver as one entity cannot be

overemphasized. It adds value and quality to the

process, eliminates waste, minimizes overlaps and

ensures that the scarce resources entrusted to its care

are used optimally to supplement Members States’

hard-earned efforts.

Right now our world is facing a difficult and

troubled time. As members of the global community,

our futures are inextricably linked. For Samoa, the

small size of our country, its isolation from the major

markets and permanent vulnerability to climate change

are factors beyond our control. Yet even as a least

developed small island nation that has made little or no

contribution to the causes of today’s crises, Samoa is

not shielded from their immediate negative impact and

long-term consequences.

Global crises, as we know from bitter experience

with global warming, energy and food prices, and now

with the mayhem in financial markets that threatens to

engulf the world, affect all our nations irrespective of

whether we contributed to those crises or not.

This is why, in spite of shortcomings in the

Organization, the United Nations remains the only

viable institution that draws all the nations of our

world together. However, the need to revitalize the

General Assembly and to reform the Security Council

has been obvious for many years. In the case of the

Security Council, as long as its current composition

and rules ignore today’s realities, it will continue to

struggle to effectively carry out its intended tasks, as

we have seen it do over many years.

Samoa remains firm in its position that the

permanent and non-permanent membership categories

of the Security Council should be expanded. Member

States with legitimate credentials should be encouraged to

stake their claims. Importantly, the intergovernmental

process should commence in earnest during the current

session to bring finality to an issue that has taxed

Members States’ patience and endurance for over a

decade and a half.

At the very minimum, the unanimous support of

the current permanent members of the Security Council

is a must. We hope, therefore, that candidate States and

permanent members will reach out to each other in

good faith and set aside the barriers that continue to

frustrate the reforms to the Security Council that we all

know must be made.

One observation that has been made over many

years is that there seems to be indifference, whether

intended or not, on the part of some of the leader

nations of our Organization towards small and

economically weak States, which, while they observe

good governance and practice sound economic

management, are nevertheless faced with the constant

struggle to sustain and maintain the hard-won gains on

those fronts.

Paradoxically, the only time those struggling

States get noticed is when they are tottering on the

brink or in the process of becoming failed States. By

then, the cost in salvage action and remedial

programmes is enormous. Therefore, the willingness of

leader nations to listen and to try and understand early

on the problems of States struggling to sustain good

governance and economic management would go a

long way towards creating effective partnerships,

deploying scarce resources efficiently, and engendering

goodwill and trust in the process.

Troubled spots around the world are on the rise,

including in our own Pacific region. Some are

occasioned by outside forces and influences, and others

through domestically induced factors. Notwithstanding

our differences, we all aspire to the same values in life.

Hence, we must heed the lessons of history and provide

appropriate encouragement and interventions to help

States restore good governance and abide by the

principles of democracy.

Yesterday’s high-level meeting on the

Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) was a timely

reminder, not of what we have achieved by the midway

point, but what decisive actions must be taken urgently

if the time-bound targets set at the dawn of the new

millennium are to be met. Samoa participated in the

recent Accra meeting on aid effectiveness, which

further refined the pathways to the MDGs review just

concluded and the International Conference on

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Financing for Development in Doha in November

2008.

Our strategic plan for 2008 to 2012 is a

comprehensive development framework linked to the

budget process for the implementation of the MDGs,

with strategic targeting of those goals on which we

have seen minimal progress through priority resource

allocation.

We are grateful to the Governments of the

People’s Republic of China and the United Kingdom

for their support through debt relief. Similarly, we want

to acknowledge the innovative partnerships in which

we are engaged with our development partners, both

old and new, giving us full ownership of the process in

our quest to achieve as many of the MDGs as we

possibly can.

In September 2007, during the 2007 South Pacific

Games in Samoa, my Government worked closely with

the United Nations system and others to promote the

achievement of the MDGs. One innovative way of

using sports as a vehicle to effect change in behaviour

and to relay development messages was the installation

of a solar-powered “MDG scoreboard” in front of a

Government building to monitor national progress

towards the MDGs.

Climate change continues to play a pivotal role in

the decisions of the leaders in our region. Our Pacific

Islands Forum meeting in August 2008 adopted the

Niue Declaration on Climate Change. Our Forum

communiqué, issued at the same summit, highlighted

the vulnerability of Pacific small island developing

States to the impacts of climate change. The European

Union and the Pacific Islands Forum Troika agreed last

week to work together to highlight the ongoing

vulnerability of Pacific islands to the impacts of sea-

level rise. Our representatives to the United Nations

are working with like-minded countries to bring to the

fore the security implications of climate change.

In total, those efforts and partnerships should

convince those in denial that climate change is real. Its

effects have already been felt by some of our Pacific

island States, and for some low-lying islands climate

change is an existential issue and their long-term

survivability is at stake.

Only through selfless and concerted efforts by all

countries, led by the major greenhouse gas emitters,

can we have a fighting chance of lessening the

destructive impact of climate change and enhancing the

chances of a credible post-Kyoto agreement beyond

2012. To reach that goal, the Bali Road Map — with its

four pillars of adaptation, mitigation, finance and

technology — should be supported both in word and in

deed.

The unpredictable weather patterns of recent

times, affecting all regions of the world, are a sober

reminder of our limitations as human beings against

the force of natural elements no matter how good and

technologically sound our preparations are. We need a

global response if we are to succeed. Samoa was

pleased, therefore, to see Australia take its place as a

State party to the Kyoto Protocol at the Bali meeting.

We remain optimistic that, either through a change of

heart or through new circumstances, other countries

will join the Kyoto Protocol to strengthen the

implementation regimes of the Convention.

I mentioned last year the offer of the United

Nations system to establish an inter-agency climate

change centre in our country for coordinated support to

Pacific island countries and regional organizations for

climate change mitigation, adaptation and disaster risk

reduction. Given the clear importance to the Pacific

region of the project, Samoa has allocated land — 16

acres in all — on which to locate the centre and awaits

the provision of the necessary resources by the United

Nations so that the facility, which is already public

knowledge in the region, can be constructed.

Samoa continues to support United Nations

peacekeeping efforts worldwide. Small as we are,

Samoan police continue to serve side by side with

officers from other countries in Liberia, the Sudan and

Timor-Leste as part of our ongoing commitment.

Within the Pacific region, our solidarity in confronting

the challenges facing our neighbours ensures a

guaranteed Samoan police presence in the Regional

Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands under the

umbrella of the Pacific Islands Forum.

A durable peace settlement in the Middle East

continues to elude us, but that does not constitute

grounds to be pessimistic. We should support every

effort to create conditions conducive to the creation of

an independent Palestinian State alongside a secure and

safe State of Israel.

Finally, those bent on creating fear and panic

throughout the world will stop at nothing to achieve

their aims. We must not be held hostage to their

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devious designs. Individually and collectively, we must

step up our efforts to combat the threat of international

terrorism in its many manifestations. No country can

succeed on its own. Only by working collaboratively

can we be successful.