South Africa, 2008

My

delegation and I join in expressing our congratulations

to you, Father Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, on your

election as President of the General Assembly at its

sixty-third session, and we hope you have a very

successful and rewarding term at the helm of this body.

We express our gratitude to His Excellency Mr. Srgjan

Kerim for the excellent work done during his tenure as

President of the Assembly at its sixty-second session.

Once again, we have come to this body to

reaffirm the need for what we have always called for:

the implementation of all the promises and pledges that

we have made before. The focus of the sixty-third

session of the General Assembly is on the global food

crisis, climate change and reform of the United

Nations. The confluence of the food, fuel and financial

crises, as well as the effects of climate change, pose the

real threat that they will undermine the progress made

by developing countries in the struggle against poverty

and underdevelopment.

During the Millennium Summit, held in 2000, our

heads of State and Government adopted a Declaration

(resolution 55/2) that communicated a message of hope

and a vision of a better world. Included in the

Declaration was an important section on the special

needs of Africa. In paragraph 24 of the Declaration, the

leaders stated that they would

“spare no effort to promote democracy and

strengthen the rule of law, as well as respect for

all internationally recognized human rights and

fundamental freedoms, including the right to

development”.

African and many other, developing countries

have indeed taken responsibility for promoting

democracy, good governance, peace and stability and

human rights. They are also hard at work rolling back

the frontiers of poverty and underdevelopment. But,

despite those strides, it is clear that many in

sub-Saharan Africa will not achieve the Millennium

Development Goals (MDGs). Part of the reason is that

the global partnership for development on which the

achievement of the MDGs was predicated has not been

fully implemented. Despite the lofty ideas expressed at

previous sessions of the Assembly, we continue to fall

short in meeting our commitments to implement that

partnership, in particular in the areas of trade, aid and

debt relief.

We express the fervent hope that the high-level

meetings organized by yourself, Mr. President, and the

Secretary-General, on Africa’s development needs and

on the MDGs, have served not only as important

reminders of the challenges we face, but also as a

catalyst that will cause the world to feel a greater sense

of urgency.

The necessary resources exist in the world to

achieve the MDGs. We need to summon the necessary

political will and compassion. So we join the sister

countries of our continent in calling for massive

resource transfers through development assistance,

investment, trade, technology transfers and human

resource development. These will ensure that African

and other developing countries are able to successfully

adapt to the devastating impact of climate change and

achieve the MDGs.

However, in order to accelerate the achievement

of all the Millennium Development Goals, much more

attention needs to be focused on Goal 3, regarding the

empowerment of women. Women need to be at the

centre of development as agents of change, socially,

economically and politically.

08-53141 12

Billions of the people of the world, whom we are

privileged to represent in the Assembly, have cast their

eyes on this gathering of leaders. They have done so

because they have hope that this leadership will take

the required measures in order to address poverty and

underdevelopment. We dare not fail them.

The food crisis has to be addressed in the short

and medium terms. The Green Revolution that has

been launched by the African Union needs partnerships

in order to succeed. In addition, support for the New

Partnership for Africa’s Development will be a major

contributor to the struggle against poverty and

underdevelopment. In that context, allow me, Mr.

President, to quote from your own statement to the

General Assembly with regard to that socio-economic

programme as well as the role of our immediate former

President, Thabo Mbeki:

“During his presidency of the rainbow nation,

spanning nearly a decade, he, along [with] other

African leaders, championed the vision of

NEPAD we still pursue today. When the affluent

listen to Africa and partner with it, that vision is

within reach. To quote NEPAD’s founding

document: `In fulfilling its promise, this agenda

must give hope to the emaciated African child

that the twenty-first century is indeed Africa’s

century.’” (, p. 3)

The Doha Development Round has stalled despite

seven years of negotiations. We are convinced that

trade and increased market access will make a major

contribution to the achievement of the MDGs. In that

regard, it is our submission that the Doha Round of

trade negotiations should not be allowed to die, but

must remain focused on development, as originally

envisaged.

In recent years, we have all witnessed the

devastating effects of climate change, especially on

island States. Hurricanes have become more frequent

and more vicious, together with droughts, floods and

unpredictable extreme weather patterns in the rest of

the world. Of course, climate change requires an urgent

response. Given the agreement in Bali last year on a

road map for negotiations, it is our hope that the

negotiations, to be completed in Copenhagen in 2009,

will necessarily set the stage for more concerted action

by all countries to address climate change and all its

manifestations, with the developed countries taking the

lead. South Africa commits itself to approaching the

preparations for Copenhagen constructively and with a

view to reaching an agreement that is ambitious,

balanced and inclusive.

We join the many leaders of the world who have

expressed their support for fundamental reform of the

system of global governance, including the United

Nations and the Bretton Woods institutions. It is

important to understand that the critical issues facing

the world today — the current financial, food and

energy crises — cannot be addressed effectively when

so many countries and regions of the world are left out

of the key decision-making processes of important

institutions of global governance. South Africa stands

ready to work with other members of the United

Nations to advance the goal of reform.

Equally, the reform of the Security Council need

not be re-emphasized. We reiterate our view that a

reformed Security Council would have more legitimacy

and that its decisions would have more credibility. We

welcome the recent decision (decision 62/557) to

launch in the General Assembly inter-governmental

negotiations on Security Council reform, to discuss

plans for expanding the Security Council in both the

non-permanent and permanent categories. It is of

course a travesty of justice that Africa, which

constitutes a large portion of the work of the Council,

is not represented in the permanent category. Unless

the ideals of freedom, justice and equality become the

character of the United Nations, including the Security

Council, the dominant will continue to dictate to the

dominated, while the dreams of the dominated will

forever be deferred.

In December this year, my country will complete

its tenure as a non-permanent member of the Security

Council. We have indeed been privileged to serve the

peoples of Africa and the world in that capacity; it has

been a historic first for us as a young democracy. In

that capacity, we were indeed honoured to contribute

meaningfully to global efforts to create peace and

stability in all regions of the world. Accordingly, we

express the humble gratitude of the people of our

country to the general membership of the United

Nations for the trust placed in us in helping the world

discharge this mandate.

During our tenure, the Security Council also

focused on the important question of enhancing the

relationship between the United Nations and regional

organizations, in particular the African Union (AU).

13 08-53141

We were honoured to be able to contribute to that

work. We congratulate the Secretary-General on

appointing an African Union-United Nations panel of

distinguished persons whose mandate is to explore

financing modalities for AU-led peacekeeping

missions.

Peace continues to evade the Middle East. South

Africa participated in the Annapolis Conference in

2007 with great expectations and hopes that progress

would indeed be made to advance the goal of peace in

that region. We will continue to support all

international efforts to help the peoples of Palestine

and Israel in their endeavour to find a lasting and

peaceful solution to their challenges, leading to the

establishment of a viable Palestinian State, coexisting

side by side with the State of Israel, within secure

borders. We understand full well the pain, suffering

and agony that conflict brings to bear on the lives of

ordinary people, particularly women and children.

Those ordinary souls continue to cry out to this

Assembly of the world, as they have done in the past,

to help bring an end to the conflict.

South Africa will continue to work with the sister

peoples of the Democratic Republic of the Congo,

Burundi and Côte d’Ivoire in their efforts to

consolidate peace and democracy in their respective

countries. With regard to Zimbabwe, the Assembly

must certainly be aware of the recent developments led

by our former President Thabo Mbeki in his capacity as

the Southern African Development Community

(SADC) facilitator, which culminated in the signing of

an agreement between the main political protagonists

in the country. We hope that the leadership of

Zimbabwe win soon finalize aspects of that agreement

to make possible the formation of a new Government

that will help lay the groundwork to address the

political and economic challenges facing their country.

SADC, the African Union and the facilitator stand as

guarantors of the agreement. We call on the

international community to spare neither strength nor

effort in lending a hand to the people of Zimbabwe as

they embark on the difficult path of reconciliation and

reconstruction.

Equally, the situations in Somalia and the Sudan,

and especially in Darfur, remain matters of great

concern. South Africa will continue to do whatever it

can, both bilaterally and in the context of the African

Union and the United Nations, to help the peoples of

Sudan and Somalia find peace among themselves.

We remain concerned about the impasse on the

question of Western Sahara. South Africa is committed

to seeking a just, mutually acceptable and lasting

solution to that problem.

This year also marks the sixtieth anniversary of

the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human

Rights. During the past six decades, the Declaration

has remained the key standard for human rights, justice

and dignity. We should therefore use this anniversary

period to strengthen our resolve to defend human

rights. South Africa has also had the honour to be

reviewed under the Universal Periodic Review

mechanism of the new Human Rights Council. We

were also honoured with the appointment of our own

Justice Navi Pillai to lead that very important

international institution.

Mr. Siles Alvarado (Bolivia), Vice-President, took

the Chair.

We wish to reiterate our belief in the centrality of

the United Nations. In the Millennium Declaration, we

reaffirmed that the United Nations “is the

indispensable common house of the entire human

family, through which we will seek to realize our

universal aspirations for peace, cooperation and

development” (resolution 55/2, para. 32). Leading

South Africa’s delegation to the Millennium Summit

was our former President, Thabo Mbeki, who reminded

the Assembly that

“Billions among the living struggle to survive in

conditions of poverty, deprivation and

underdevelopment ... as offensive to everything

humane as anything we decry about the second

millennium.” (A/55/PV.5, p. 18)

It is that understanding that has correctly

informed the engagement of successive leaders of our

democratic State with this body over the years. In that

regard, we are touched and humbled by the kind

comments made in the Assembly by the various heads

of State or Government and heads of delegation,

directed at our immediate former President, Thabo

Mbeki. We most certainly shall, through our

Government, convey those sentiments to that noble son

of our people and our continent, and citizen of the

world.

Accordingly, from this rostrum may I also

express our sincere gratitude to the general

membership of the United Nations for the support that

08-53141 14

former President Mbeki and our country received over

the past nine-and-a-half years of his stewardship of our

country. As the leadership of our country is passed on,

we confirm that South Africa, under the guidance of

President Kgalema Motlanthe, shall indeed continue to

be a trusted and dependable partner in the common

endeavour to strengthen our institutions of

multilateralism, starting from the correct premise that

multilateralism remains the only hope in addressing the

challenges facing humanity today, whether they be

terrorism, threats to human rights, peace and stability

or, of course, the central struggle against poverty and

underdevelopment.