SPECIAL FUND TO AID WORLD’S POOR IS PROPOSED AT UNITED NATIONS CEREMONY TO MARK LAUNCHING OF INTERNATIONAL HUMAN SOLIDARITY DAY

Launch of International

Human Solidarity Day

SPECIAL FUND TO AID WORLD’S POOR IS PROPOSED AT UNITED NATIONS CEREMONY

TO MARK LAUNCHING OF INTERNATIONAL HUMAN SOLIDARITY DAY

Lech Wałęsa of Poland Suggests Chance for ‘Ordinary Citizens of World’

To Contribute; Others Stress Importance of Economic, Social ‘Protection Systems’

The International Human Solidarity Day was launched at a ceremony at United Nations Headquarters this morning with a call by the former President of Poland for a special “fund of human solidarity” to provide a better life for the world’s poor.

Lech Wałęsa, a Nobel Peace Laureate and a founder of Poland’s solidarity movement, said the fund should not replace the many important and valued initiatives of Governments and intergovernmental bodies, but should give ordinary citizens of the world the possibility to contribute, however modestly.  He said the fund could be administered by the United Nations Secretary-General, with Governments assisting by disseminating information about it and exempting payments to the fund from taxes and other fees.

In speech of welcome, the Chairperson of the General Assembly’s Second Committee (Economic and Financial), Tiina Intelmann, said the International Human Solidarity Day was proclaimed by the General Assembly (resolution 60/2900) as an initiative in the fight against poverty.  It should remind everyone about the commitment to poverty eradication, the raising of awareness of the importance of solidarity and the encouragement of the debate on ways to promote solidarity for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.

The President of the Economic and Social Council, Ali Hachani, said that in a world increasingly pushed towards individualism and market economics, the renewal of solidarity was a sign of hope especially for those who found it more difficult to pull themselves out of a life of poverty.

The General Assembly in its resolution decided that the International Human Solidarity Day should be observed on 20 December each year.

Ahmed Al-Haddad, Chef de Cabinet, made a statement on behalf of the President of the General Assembly.

Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, José Antonio Ocampo, said that meaningful efforts against poverty required that much more attention be given to developing genuinely integrated economic and social policies aimed at preventing economic crises and developing permanent social protection systems.  There was a need for global initiatives and national policies that strengthened the economic dimensions of solidarity, along with the social and humanitarian dimensions.

Statements were also made by the representatives of Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil and Burkina Faso.

A logo, which the Second Committee Chairperson described as expressing the idea of solidarity, was unveiled.  The logo had human figures embracing the globe in a gesture of solidarity and shared responsibility.  The figures were represented by different colours, yet united.

Statements

TIINA INTELMANN ( Estonia), Chairperson of the Second Committee, in a welcoming statement, said the International Day was proclaimed by the Assembly as an initiative in the fight against poverty.  It should be a day to remind all about the commitment to poverty eradication, a day to raise the awareness of the importance of solidarity, as well as a day to encourage debate on ways to promote solidarity for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.  It should also be a day of action to encourage new initiatives for poverty eradication.

She said solidarity was also relevant to other issues under discussion in the Second Committee, such as trade, debt, financing for development, globalization and interdependence, and the strengthening of humanitarian and disaster relief assistance.  The importance of solidarity in international relations was reaffirmed in the Millennium Summit Declaration, which identified freedom, equality, tolerance, respect for nature, shared responsibility and indeed solidarity, as fundamental and essential values to international relations in the twenty-first century.  The examples of human solidarity abounded and the question was how to harness it into action and also to use it to realize the promise of the Millennium Declaration.

ALI HACHANI ( Tunisia), President of the Economic and Social Council, thanked the Second Committee for organizing the ceremony and recalled that it was in that Committee that the first United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty was launched in 1996.  One element in the enrichment of the Decade, he said, had been the inclusion of the concept of solidarity, which was crucial in the fight against poverty.  In a world increasingly pushed towards individualism and market economics, the renewal of solidarity was a sign of hope especially for those who found it more difficult to pull themselves out of a life of poverty, disease and deprivation.  He said that in developing countries the inability of the marginalized to benefit from the new patterns of development risked leaving whole strata of the populations outside the stream of the development thus jeopardizing stability, harmony and peace.

It was not fortuitous that since the adoption of the Millennium Declaration, initiatives building on the concept of solidarity had flourished.  The establishment by the General Assembly of the World Solidarity Fund, the launching of the “initiative against hunger and poverty”, the “contribution of solidarity:  international drug purchase facility UNITAID” and the “digital solidarity fund” were but a few examples of mechanisms in which solidarity appeared as a common denominator.  The value of solidarity had thus acquired a multidimensional and operational meaning, including the involvement of all relevant stakeholders. 

He said monitoring the progress of the Millennium Development Goals and promoting development cooperation were two of the important future responsibilities of the Council.  The Council was committed to pursuing its efforts to help the international community in reaching the goals established by United Nations summits and conferences.  The goals spelled out in the conferences included nurturing a global partnership for development, which was solidarity between the North and South, to create an international environment favourable to the growth of developing countries and the impact of that growth on poverty alleviation.

He said that, through action on finance, trade and debt, developed countries could make a significant dent on the burdens faced by developing countries.  The Economic and Social Council planned to organize an event on 15 December to build upon the momentum created today as part of International Human Solidarity Day.

Speaking on behalf of the President of the General Assembly, Chef de Cabinet, Ahmed Al-Haddad, recalled that world leaders at the summit last year had identified solidarity as the hallmark of the twenty-first century.  There was no better spokesman for the idea of human solidarity to achieve development goals than Lech Wałęsa, whose solidarity movement had been a moving force in bringing prosperity to Eastern and Central Europe. 

José Antonio Ocampo, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, described International Human Solidarity Day as a new force in the fight against poverty and underdevelopment.  While official development assistance (ODA) was vital for many countries to reach their development goals, new forms of solidarity were emerging through innovative forms of financing.  As examples, he cited the levy on airplane tickets that some countries had instituted and the external debt relief which could liberate resources for poverty reduction.  Meaningful efforts against poverty required much more attention to developing genuinely integrated economic and social policies aimed at preventing economic crises and developing permanent social protection systems.  He said there was a need for global initiatives and national policies that strengthened the economic dimensions of solidarity, along with the social and humanitarian dimensions.

LECH WAŁĘSA, former President of Poland, in a keynote address, said the world required changes and urgent measures needed to be taken.  Hunger was still a weapon of mass destruction against millions of people.  Conflicts and human rights violations brought enormous suffering and death.  The world was not able to stop the pollution of environment and climate change which produced grave risks to the planet.  Diseases and epidemics killed the most productive of groups of people.  Terrorism was also a calamity directed against civil population.

He said much had been done to address those challenges and, in that respect, the United Nations was much appreciated.  But there was a need to act faster and more efficiently; there was need for an idea that would unite and consolidate those activities and make each individual responsible for the future of the world.  None of the great problems facing humanity could be resolved without cooperation among Governments and also among nations, cultures, religions and civilizations.  What humanity needed was a great global partnership, he declared.

He said the underlying principles and reason for such a partnership should be the concept of common interest of the whole world and the concept of human solidarity.  For him, solidarity was not only compassion and willingness to help other people.  It was, firstly, the comprehension of unity and concurrence of interests and activities of all, understanding of the common responsibility for today and tomorrow, that was how “solidarity” was understood in Poland.

He said the concept of solidarity was present in many cultures, religions and traditions, adding that it should be made the foundation and basic principle of the new contemporary international order.  The concept should bind the diversity of today’s world with shared responsibility and sense of unity.  It should lead to recognition that the unity of the world had an advantage over the existing divisions and national selfishness.  The international community should stand against those who saw the world as a battlefield of nations, religions, civilizations and races; the international community should oppose such a vision of the world by the world of solidarity.

He called for the creation of a great movement of world solidarity which could support the work and effectiveness of the United Nations.  Noting that the solidarity movement of Poland united almost 10 million people, he said a world solidarity movement could unite a quarter of the population of the world.  It would be an enormous power.

He also called for the establishment of a fund for human solidarity which should give every ordinary citizen of the world the possibility to contribute five or ten dollars a year.  The fund would be used in the fight against poverty, malnutrition, lack of education and a decent life.  It would be a fund through which people would help other people and not Governments helping other Governments.  The fund could finance the education of children in the poorest countries, building schools, educating teachers, providing books and school supplies and feeding children at school.  He said the fund could be administered by the United Nations Secretary-General.  Governments could assist by disseminating information on the fund and exempting it from taxes and other fees.

He said he would like every school to have access to the Internet with every child using it to find useful information. 

IFTEKHAR AHMED CHOWDHURY ( Bangladesh) said the world owed a debt of gratitude to “a titan of our times”, Lech Wałęsa.  He was one of the heroes who had shaped not just modern Poland but our age.  “Today we believe that humanity is linked to one another by such a bond of solidarity that the responsibility of alleviating the pains of some fall on all.  That is the essence of solidarity and partnership.”  Although income equality among rich and poor was rising and the global economy often appeared to be skewed against the weak, he continued, change for the better was occurring and the process was inexorable.  It was true that in the journey along the path of development, the developing countries must be in the driver’s seat -- but the international community must provide the enabling ambience and support when needed.  Solidarity in the creation of such a framework of global cooperation must be the bedrock of today’s international relations.

JOHAN VERBEKE ( Belgium) said there were two concepts of solidarity in a globalized world -- a narrow one and a broad one.  In the narrow concept, solidarity was driven by self-interest, the idea that someone else’s poverty soon becomes one’s own problem.  He preferred the broader concept of solidarity and justice which could best be understood by asking oneself the question of what principles of law, governance or distribution of wealth one would support if they could not know beforehand what position they would occupy in society.  Notions of solidarity tended to be limited by time and space.  Space in the sense that solidarity ended where the nation-State ended.  It embraced only kin and compatriots, rather than the larger global system which had left some many living in states of poverty.  And it was limited in time to the present.  People needed to enlarge the circle of solidarity to go beyond our current generation.  The international community was working at the United Nations to do just that, he said, citing the concepts of sustainable development and respect for the “precautionary principle to avoid damage” as examples.

PIRAGIBE DOS SANTOS TARRAGO ( Brazil) said solidarity could produce tangible results; it had helped reduce poverty in Brazil and was playing a critical role in reducing poverty in Latin America, where countries had continued to improve and expand targeted social assistance programmes.  Although one of the ten largest countries in the world, Brazil had a quarter of its population living below the poverty line; in response, as a federal priority, Brazil had created a programme of conditional cash transfers, Bolsa-Familia.

He cited statistics on the growth of microfinance, both domestically and regionally, and said that it was solidarity that explained the extremely low rate of default in microcredit; the borrower was aware that a default would affect not an impersonal, far-away institution, but the network of people who had made the loan possible -- a network that included relatives, neighbours and friends.  On the international level, he highlighted the “solidarity levy” on airline tickets, which 18 countries had joined so far, with the money earmarked for action against hunger and poverty.

MICHELE KAFANDO ( Burkina Faso) said today’s event was of special significance.  The African culture had solidarity as its central element.  It inspired Governments to work towards regional integration.  His Government had created a social policy which was reducing poverty and improving the quality of life of the people.  The social protection policy had ensured the provision of basic social services, such as health and education, and reduced poverty, which had come down from 46.4 per cent in 2003 to 42.4 per cent last year.  It had led to reform and adaptation of social institutions.

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For information media • not an official record