SECRETARY-GENERAL STRESSES NEED FOR PUBLIC SECTOR TO STRIVE

CONSTANTLY TO IMPROVE CAPACITY FOR GOOD GOVERNANCE

Message to Audience of 8,000 at UN Global Forum in Mexico City

MEXICO CITY, 3 November -- A global forum hosted by Mexico and attended by delegations from more than 100 nations heard messages from the United Nations today on the importance of bolstering governmental capacities, which have often been eroded in the recent decades of globalization and liberalization.

“The public sector must challenge itself continuously to improve the way it does business”, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a message delivered to an audience of 8,000 by Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, Jose Antonio Ocampo, at the National Auditorium in Mexico City.  The Secretary-General linked the capacity for good governance with the ability of countries to meet the Millennium Development Goals for the reduction of poverty and improvement in basic standards of living.

Under-Secretary-General Ocampo, addressing the delegates, noted that “globalization has generated opportunities, but it has also eroded the capacity for action of nation States”.

Governments were being challenged to overcome stricter budgets and the lessened capacities of the State, Mr. Ocampo said, and their success “will depend overwhelmingly on the strength and agility of their institutions, the flexibility of administrative structures and processes, and the capacity to innovate and respond to new situations”.

The Fifth Global Forum on Reinventing Government, taking place from today until Friday, is hosted and organized by Mexico with the active support of the United Nations Department of Social and Economic Affairs (DESA).

Today’s opening was also addressed by President Vicente Fox of Mexico and Donald Johnston, Secretary-General of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.  Other participants at the Forum include Prime Minister Goh Kun, of the Republic of Korea and Prime Minister, Apolo Nsibambi, of Uganda.

The final three days of the Forum will be dedicated to a series of workshops, training sessions and educational events organized by the public administration division of DESA.

For more information, contact Angel Escudero de Paz, Juan Miguel Diez or Tim Wall, at the United Nations Information Centre in Mexico City, tel.: 52-55-5263-9718, e-mail: jmdiez@UN.org.mx.

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