SECRETARY-GENERAL SAYS CRISIS OF GLOBALIZATION OFFERS OPPORTUNITY TO APPROACH WORLDWIDE PROBLEMS IN GLOBAL SPIRIT
Press Release
SG/SM/6706
SECRETARY-GENERAL SAYS CRISIS OF GLOBALIZATION OFFERS OPPORTUNITY TO APPROACH WORLDWIDE PROBLEMS IN GLOBAL SPIRIT
19980918 Industrialized Countries Must Shoulder Responsibilities, He Says at Close of High-Level General Assembly Dialogue on GlobalizationThe following is the text of the closing remarks made by Secretary- General Kofi Annan today to the General Assembly high-level dialogue on globalization:
There can be no subject more important than the one you have been discussing here for the past two days. Nor could your meeting be more timely. I am only sorry I was not able to be with you throughout the discussions. As you know, the dates of this meeting were fixed at short notice and I had long- standing engagements elsewhere which I felt I must respect.
But through my staff I have been following the proceedings closely. I congratulate you on getting down to the hard substance of your agenda and I am glad you have done so through informal panels with outside experts. That is one more example of fruitful interaction between States and non-State actors, which I hope the world is coming to see as a hallmark of the United Nations.
What started last year as an Asian crisis is now clearly becoming global. No part of the world is unaffected, though of course not all regions are affected in the same way. Indeed, not the least dangerous aspect of this crisis is that it threatens to further widen the gap between rich and poor, both within countries and at the global level.
In a sense, this is the first major crisis of globalization. But I am glad you have not wasted your time discussing how it should be blamed on globalization. That might be interesting for historians, but it would not be helpful for policy makers like you. Globalization is the dominant feature of our times and we have no prospect of reversing it, even if we wish to.
What we do have to do is devise ways of managing it better. We have somehow to maximize the benefits and to protect those who are in danger of becoming victims.
My good friend Ali Alatas, the Foreign Minister of Indonesia, put it exactly right when he told you that "rather than stifling globalization and further integration of the developing countries, we should explore how globalization can best serve all humankind and how its unpredictability can be redressed".
I know many developing countries are going through very difficult times this year. The temptation to retreat into nationalism or populism can be strong. But I am encouraged to see that, in almost every developing country, those false solutions are being rejected.
I noticed this especially at the summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in Durban, which I attended earlier this month. That summit produced an eloquent Declaration for the New Millennium, which said -- among other things -- that "the creation of a multilateral rules-based system is fundamentally an advance, but to be successful it must carry the endorsement of, and active participation by, developing countries".
Indeed, my friends, that must be the way forward. If something has been wrong, up to now, it is that developing countries have too often been passive rather than active participants in the search for a collective response to globalization.
In many of the bodies where decisions affecting the world economy are taken -- from the "Group of Seven" industrialized countries through the World Trade Organization to our sister, the Bretton Woods institutions in Washington -- the strongest voices are those of countries which have already achieved economic success.
None of those institutions is infallible -- nor would they claim to be - - but all have a great deal of wisdom to offer. One of my priorities since I became Secretary-General has been to forge closer working relations with them.
But the United Nations does have a unique and indispensable role to play. Our broad mandate, our near-universal membership and our ability to involve non-State actors, all make the United Nations uniquely well equipped to help forge a global response to a crisis which is global, not only in the geographical sense, but also in the range of issues that it raises. We have, I believe, a special responsibility to insist on the need for global solutions, based on global rules that are fair to all.
We also have a responsibility to ensure that nations do not react by turning away from each other, but by coming together to find solutions based on the founding principles which we all have in common. And we have a responsibility to insist that the interests of those hardest hit by the crisis are not forgotten.
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This year, according to our latest estimates, the cost to developing countries of the collapse in commodity prices is equivalent to roughly 8 per cent, and for Africa as much as 15 per cent, of the value of their 1997 exports.
Those figures imply terrible hardship for millions of individuals. Something must be done to bring them relief. The most obvious measures are those mentioned to you by the Deputy Secretary-General yesterday: increased flows of official aid, carefully targeted to meet the real needs of the poor; and swift action to reduce the debt burden on the poorest countries, which the crisis has made even more unsustainable.
The industrialized world, so far, has been relatively little affected. But, as its leaders are beginning to recognize, that state of affairs cannot continue indefinitely.
A week ago, Wim Duisenberg, the President of the new European Central Bank, warned that international financial turmoil will have "a dampening effect" on world growth. And on Monday, United States President Bill Clinton said that the future prosperity of the United States "depends on whether we can work with others to restore confidence, manage change, stabilize the financial system and spur robust global growth".
I very much welcome that statement, and the six-point programme which the President announced seems to me an important start. Certainly the crisis cannot be solved unless the industrialized nations shoulder their responsibilities and resolve to work with others to find solutions which take the interests of all countries into account.
If they do that, even this agonizing crisis may have some positive side- effects. It may be an opportunity for the world at last to approach global problems in a truly global spirit.
The United Nations stands ready to play its part, and your work over the last two days shows that we have an important contribution to make.
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