UNITED NATIONS REFORM WILL GIVE PRIORITY, RESOURCES TO DEVELOPMENT, SECRETARY-GENERAL TELLS NON-ALIGNED FOREIGN MINISTERS
Press Release
SG/SM/6336
UNITED NATIONS REFORM WILL GIVE PRIORITY, RESOURCES TO DEVELOPMENT, SECRETARY-GENERAL TELLS NON-ALIGNED FOREIGN MINISTERS
19970925 Following is the text of a statement by Secretary-General Kofi Annan at a meeting today of the Foreign Ministers of the Non-Aligned Movement:Thank you, Mr. President, for your strong statement of support for a reformed and renewed United Nations. The backing of the Non-Aligned Movement for our common reform effort is crucial to our success.
Growing up in Ghana, the Non-Aligned Movement has always symbolized for me the struggle for justice, liberty and development. For this reason, your support is a special source of encouragement, and I thank you.
You have all come to the United Nations at a time of special promise and accelerating change. Our vision of the future is clearer, our aspirations better defined, our commitment to change unparalleled. In every one of your speeches to the General Assembly, you have asserted the need for reform and the wish to see it happen now.
When I was given the honour of addressing the Assembly on Monday, I urged that this be known as the reform Assembly.
As I stand before you today, I know that I speak to the group of nations which is most supportive of multilateral action through the United Nations, and which has the most to gain from the successful implementation of my reform proposals.
Why? Because a reformed United Nations will be able to be a more effective United Nations. Because a reformed United Nations will be a more relevant United Nations in the eyes of the world. Because a reformed United Nations will be more able to help the peoples for whom you speak, and more capable of assuring their peace and advancing their development.
The Non-Aligned Movement, representing two thirds of the Members of the United Nations, is the voice of the poor and the disadvantaged, of those afflicted by war and those under threat of violence -- the peoples for whom, above all, the United Nations exists.
Responding to their needs, you have -- individually and collectively -- made the United Nations truly an instrument of their betterment and the expression of their hopes.
In peacekeeping, your citizens and soldiers have served courageously to halt conflicts, secure the peace, and reconstruct societies scarred by war and internal strife.
In disarmament, you have called for the defusing of the dangerous nuclear stand-off that once threatened the world. And with the end of the cold war, you have persisted in your struggle for a world free of military conflict and the threat of nuclear destruction.
In the economic and social fields, you have, with the Group of 77, refocused our agenda to emphasize development as the cornerstone of all that we seek to achieve at the United Nations.
To honour your peoples and serve them as best we possibly can, we must reform the United Nations. Throughout the preparation of my reform plan, and as recently as last week, I met the five regional groups and the Group of 77 to pool our efforts and answer your questions.
In all our discussions, I was reaffirmed in my faith in reform and of the need to see implementation begin. That is why I urge that you consider the reforms in an integrated manner and as a package. That is why I ask that my reform package be dealt with and decided upon as early as possible. That is why I call on you to consider the package and respond to it at the political level.
A reformed United Nations will restore the General Assembly to its proper role as the democratic, universal expression of global demands.
It will tackle more effectively the ills no one nation can defeat on its own -- the degradation of our environment, the trade in arms and illegal drugs and transnational crime, and the plague of disease and malnutrition.
Above all, it will be able, finally, to give the cause of development the priority, the resources and the commitment that it needs and so truly deserves.
Today, more than ever, development is the crucible of all that we do and all that we seek. Indeed, there is no aspect of the work of the United Nations that does not ensure and enhance development.
Peace leads to development. Human rights permit development. Democracy nurtures development. Good governance sustains development.
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A reformed United Nations will bring back into our fold those countries which have sometimes distanced themselves from our collective efforts, to help create a United Nations that is truly united in pursuing these vital endeavours.
So a reformed United Nations will be able, finally, to unite all our hopes and aspirations and make them reality for all the peoples of the world.
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