LOUISE FR+CHETTE STRESSES NEED FOR DETERMINATION TO RESTORE SENSE OF SHARED RESPONSIBILITY, AS 'GLOBALIZATION CONDEMNS US MORE AND MORE TO SHARED FATE'
Press Release
DSG/SM/49
DEV/2204
LOUISE FRÉCHETTE STRESSES NEED FOR DETERMINATION TO RESTORE SENSE OF SHARED RESPONSIBILITY, AS 'GLOBALIZATION CONDEMNS US MORE AND MORE TO SHARED FATE'
19990429 Addressing Group of 77 Preparatory Committee on South Summit, Deputy Secretary-General Says Summit Could Be Source of Strength, Inspiration to UNFollowing is the address, delivered in New York yesterday, by Deputy Secretary-General Louise Fréchette to the Group of 77 Open-ended Preparatory Committee on the South Summit:
In the absence of the Secretary-General, it is my privilege to greet you on behalf of the United Nations Secretariat, and to wish you every success in your important work.
I should like to congratulate the Group of 77 on its decision to convene the South Summit next year. This will be an occasion for developing countries to articulate their own vision and aspirations and, we hope, to come up with fresh approaches to deal with the challenges of our time.
It will also be very timely, being held just at the moment when it can make a most valuable contribution to our efforts to prepare for the Millennium Assembly.
We all know that the international community is at a crossroads. Conventional recipes and approaches are no longer adequate to meet the new challenges of a rapidly changing world in which, more than ever before in human history, people on different continents are directly affected by each other's actions.
An automobile today may be assembled in one continent from parts manufactured in two or more others. Billions of dollars are moved across the world in a few seconds, by pressing a few keys on a computer terminal. A sporting event or a rock concert can be watched "in real time" by people thousands of miles away. So also can scenes of war and terrible suffering.
Like almost everything else in life, this phenomenon of "globalization" has good and bad sides to it. It brings us many opportunities to learn from
each other, and to benefit from a wider range of choices. But it can also seem very threatening. Workers find their jobs made suddenly obsolete by imported technology, or uneconomic thanks to foreign competition. Parents find their children attracted by products and role models from alien cultures. Sometimes the world even seems to be losing all its spice and variety. Instead of widening our choices, globalization can seem to be forcing us all into the same shallow, consumerist culture -- giving us the same appetites, but leaving us more than ever unequal in our ability to satisfy them. Many millions of people have yet to feel its benefits at all.
The key question for developing countries is how to achieve equitable and sustainable development in this new era. The great global conferences held by the United Nations during the 1990s have given us a comprehensive set of guidelines and goals. Many tasks are best tackled by individual countries, but many others call for collective action, whether at global or regional level.
Solemn declarations and statements of principle are not enough. Unless backed up by firm political will, and by the allocation of adequate resources, such statements are doomed to become at best irrelevant, at worst a yardstick for measuring failure and distributing blame.
How are we going to muster that will? Where are we going to find those resources?
The search for solutions must be guided by a determination to restore a sense of shared responsibility, at a time when globalization condemns us more and more to a shared fate. Some commentators even claim that new global actors are making the nation State irrelevant or obsolete. That is quite wrong. The role of the State has never been more important -- in giving its citizens a sense of direction and purpose, and in managing the process of change so that all can benefit and none are trampled underfoot.
But individual States, no matter how powerful, will not be able to solve these problems by themselves. Effective multilateral institutions are more than ever necessary to the security and prosperity of people all over the world. We must ensure that these institutions are up to their task. For instance, the trauma of the recent financial crisis has shown us that the so-called "global financial architecture" has serious weaknesses, and badly needs reform.
Today's world is driven by multifaceted interests -- by a variety of actors who forge alliances around shifting goals. Developing countries may feel they are only the objects of globalization. But they can become subjects if they themselves build new alliances. So doing, they can both expand their economic opportunities and reduce the risks they run from external shocks. They can also do much to increase the vitality of multilateral institutions,
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among which this one here is surely still the most important. Your Summit, I believe, could be a source of great strength and inspiration to the United Nations.
Let me conclude by wishing you courage and clear heads as you approach your task. I shall follow your work with great interest. I and other members of the Secretariat stand ready to give you whatever help you may feel you need.
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