SECRETARY-GENERAL LAUDS PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN UNITED NATIONS AND NEW YORK, NOTING SHARED CONCERNS AND ASPIRATIONS IN ERA OF GLOBALIZATION

11 December 1998

Press Release
SG/SM/6833
HQ/591

SECRETARY-GENERAL LAUDS PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN UNITED NATIONS AND NEW YORK, NOTING SHARED CONCERNS AND ASPIRATIONS IN ERA OF GLOBALIZATION

19981211 Conference on City Economy Is Told of Mutual Self-Interest; Local Traditions Harmonize with Goals of World Organization in Many Areas

This is the text of an address by Secretary-General Kofi Annan at New York University today to the fourth annual conference on the New York City Economy:

It gives me pleasure to join you today for this conference on the New York City economy. It feels especially good for the United Nations to participate in an event hosted by New York City.

I attach great importance to the New York-United Nations partnership. You have a place in our work, and we have a place in yours. We are your neighbours and partners. We are good for the city's economy. We help give the city's streets their international flavour. And we are an important piece of the skyline.

We even have Yankee fever. During a trip to Japan in October some of my staff were not at all upset when they were told that, for reasons of protocol, they could not participate in certain meetings. I must admit I found that a bit strange. When have you ever heard of a bureaucrat not wanting to attend a meeting? But when I emerged from the talks and stepped into the waiting room, I realized what was happening. The World Series was on TV.

As for myself, as a resident for many years now, I am what E.B. White, in his classic essay, "Here Is New York", called the third type of New Yorker: not a native, not a commuter, but a "person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something". That something is the noble mission of worldwide peace and development set out in the United Nations Charter.

In pursuing that mission, the United Nations and New York City are natural partners. We both stand for the power of diversity. New York is the home of Lady Liberty, while the United Nations is the torch bearer for human

rights. Your "Big Apple", and our "Blue Helmets", are important symbols known throughout the world. You are the city that never sleeps; we are the Organization that never sleeps. Around the world, around the clock, New York City and the United Nations are in constant demand.

Today that partnership is more important than ever. Of all the many reasons that New York is a world capital, perhaps most significant, in an age of globalization, is Wall Street. Wall Street is the heartbeat of the global economy and a powerhouse of job creation and growth. It is a leading barometer of our hopes and fears. The repercussions of even its slightest moves can be felt in nearly every city, town and village on earth.

But let us not underestimate another reason that New York City is looked to for world leadership: the presence here of the United Nations, the world Organization. Security Council meetings keep the city in the spotlight. There are also our debates and decisions on issues ranging from poverty and environmental degradation to protecting children from deadly disease and aiding victims of natural disasters such as Hurricane Mitch. Our work is made up of nothing less than the leading economic and social challenges of our day.

Until recently, Wall Street and the United Nations have gone about their business separately. Today, as a result of globalization and especially the global financial and economic crisis of the past 18 months, the global economy and the global polity are increasingly entwined. This is a world in which no country, and no city, can isolate itself. All of us are affected by what our fellow men and women are doing and thinking, wherever they may live.

Globalization draws us closer together. It offers many of us unprecedented opportunities, the chance to enjoy things our grandparents -- and even kings of old -- could not dream of. It brings some of us, at least, a better quality of life.

Unfortunately, its effect so far has been anything but uniform. What started last year as an Asian financial crisis has now clearly become a global economic crisis.

I believe it is not only economic, but social and political as well. Thousands upon thousands of people continue to lose their jobs every day, setting off a chain reaction of real hardship and potential instability. In a sense, this is the first major crisis of globalization. Globalization is the dominant feature of our times. We do not wish to reverse it, nor could we. But we do have to devise ways of managing it better. We have somehow to maximize the benefits while addressing its unpredictability.

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Wall Street, of course, has an indispensable role to play in shaping this new era. So does the United Nations. Our broad mandate, near-universal membership and worldwide reach all make the Organization 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 wide range of challenges it presents.

The United Nations has a special responsibility to insist on the need for global solutions, based on global rules that are fair to all. We have a responsibility to ensure that nations do not react by turning away from each other, but by coming together to ensure stability, confidence and growth. And we have a responsibility to see to it that the interests of those hardest hit by the crisis are not forgotten. We must build a bridge between the Dow Jones Index and the Human Development Index of the United Nations.

And so New York City and the United Nations must work together as never before. There is certainly no overestimating what New York brings to this relationship. Day in and day out, the Organization draws great strength from the intellectual, cultural and financial riches for which the city is a magnet.

That's what you do for us. But we also do a lot for you. Consider the range of work and our expertise. We promote democracy and literacy. We fight corruption and drugs. That much is well known.

You might be surprised, however, to learn just how much the United Nations family does to encourage investment and trade. We protect copyrights. We help governments open their markets, write business-friendly legislation and ensure regulatory consistency.

In areas such as aviation, shipping, telecommunications and customs procedures, we set the technical standards that make international transactions possible. This is the vital "soft infrastructure" of the global economy.

Globalization has been with us for a long time now, of course. But never before has it seemed to offer, at the same time, such terrific potential and such terrible risk. That dichotomy has been the backdrop for United Nations conferences held throughout the 1990s on issues such as human rights, population and women's rights, and it forms the backdrop for this conference as well. Indeed, this gathering reminds me very much of discussions we had at one big United Nations conference two years ago, and are having in preparation for another gathering to be held here in New York in two years' time.

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Two years ago, representatives of more than 170 countries got together in Istanbul for the "city summit". New Yorkers were there in force, talking about infrastructure, about social problems such as homelessness and crime, and about finding ways to improve public administration in order to deliver the services people expect and pay taxes for.

City Summit documents and agreements now form the basis for a course on urbanization in developing countries taught here at New York University by the Robert Wagner School of Public Service. City officials are also taking the lessons of the City Summit to heart. Police Commissioner Safir recently lent his expertise to United Nations Member States as part of our global "safer cities" initiative.

And Comptroller Hevesi has taken a good look at the future needs of New York City and produced an exhaustive report detailing the repairs and investments necessary to keep the city's schools, roads, hospitals and other essentials in good working order. He anticipates a funding shortfall over the next decade of nearly $40 billion. Here, too, the United Nations is pleased to do its part: every year, we contribute $2.2 billion to the city's economy.

Two years from now, the United Nations is planning to hold a Millennium Assembly -- a special session of the General Assembly at which Heads of State from around the world will come together to articulate a vision for the United Nations in the new global era. New York City has always been a master at reinventing itself, adapting to new local and global realities. We, too, are heeding the winds of change.

In the past year-and-a-half, we have carried out the most extensive reforms in United Nations history -- a top-to-bottom overhaul of the bureaucracy, our procedures, our staff. But all the reforms in the world would be meaningless without agreement on our direction and priorities, and that is what the Millennium Assembly is all about.

I can hear your minds working already, and yes, this does promise to bring the mother of all gridlock alerts.

But if you recall, the fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations went off without a hitch, thanks to the cooperation of New Yorkers as well as "New York's finest". The millennium may be an accident of the calendar. But it is also a compelling symbol of our hopes for an era of peace and prosperity, and I expect New Yorkers will want to be there at ground zero.

I have great faith in the United Nations-New York partnership. You can count on me to do my utmost to see that the United Nations continues working for New York. I hope I can count on you, in turn, to help us: to support us

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in Washington on the chronic and debilitating problem of United States arrears; to continue the great tradition of New York philanthropy by considering United Nations agencies and causes in your plans for giving; and in the broadest sense to continue being a powerful voice for all people, which is New York City at its vibrant and multicultural best.

This conference has set its eyes on the future, but this is also the time of year for retrospection. Nineteen-ninety-eight has been a year of anniversaries. Just yesterday we commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the day before that the fiftieth anniversary of the Genocide Convention.

New York City, for its part, has celebrated the expansion of its borders in 1898, a move that consolidated the metropolis and catapulted it forward to a century of great achievements. Happy birthday, New York. Then, as now, there was great enthusiasm about the city's prospects. In 1868, for example, a guide to the city contained the following passage: "New York, like the world it represents, is steadily though slowly growing better ... The City ... is destined, doubtless before another century has ended, to be the Metropolis of the world ... Nothing can resist its progress ... This City will be a country of itself, a nation in its strength, its resources, its incalculable riches".

Such exuberance is, of course, one of New York's most endearing and inspiring traits, not least because there is so much supporting evidence around us.

Fifty years ago, E.B. White was similarly hopeful as he watched the United Nations buildings rise in place of the slaughterhouses of Turtle Bay. He called it the "greatest housing project of them all". And then, with thoughts of the Second World War and air raids still fresh in his mind, he wrote:

"The struggling Parliament of Man ... this riddle in steel and stone is at once the perfect target and the perfect demonstration of nonviolence, of racial brotherhood, this lofty target scraping the skies and meeting the destroying planes halfway, home of all people and all nations, capital of everything, housing the deliberations by which the planes are to be stayed and their errand forestalled."

Friends, the nuclear peril to which E.B. White was alluding, though somewhat diminished, is still with us. So are a range of other challenges that are of such global nature and consequence that I call them "problems without passports". To address them we need blueprints without borders. But

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this is equally an age of great promise, and so we also need your imagination and vision.

I know that New York City, a city of builders and dreamers, is among the most resourceful places on earth. A revitalized United Nations is likewise up to the task. Our partnership means a great deal to a great many people. May it prosper and endure.

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