‘WE ARE HERE BECAUSE WE ALL HAVE A SHARED MISSION’ TO BUILD PEACE,

 

SAYS SECRETARY-GENERAL, IN TOAST AT HEADQUARTERS DINNER

 

Following is Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s toast at the State dinner on the occasion of the general debate in New York, 25 September:

Allow me to warmly welcome all of you to the United Nations.  Excellencies, this is your house as much as mine.  I want all of you to feel at home here.

And I am grateful to President Bush.  Let me thank you for your strong support for the United Nations, as Head of State of the host country.  Had I known that you were going to host a very good dinner then I should have been able to save the budget of the United Nations!  Thank you very much for your generosity and hospitality.  I hope such generosity and hospitality will continue in the years to come.

I am delighted that so many of you are represented at the highest level, for what is an exceptionally busy general debate season.  In addition to attending the Assembly itself, many of you are engaged in our common efforts on Darfur, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Middle East, and elsewhere.  Even more joined our high-level event on climate change yesterday.  Some of you are convening meetings on other crucial issues, from Kosovo to peace and security in Africa.  All of you share the understanding that we are here because we all have a shared mission and goals to build peace in the broadest sense of the word.

As we look around us in this imposing room and its unparalleled views of the East River, we are reminded that the United Nations building is in itself a treasure and a triumph.  As history has been written in its halls, its beauty has stood the test of time.  But meanwhile, the building has fallen precariously behind health, fire, and building safety standards.

That is why I am profoundly grateful to all of you for your generous support in the work to save, and make safe, our United Nations house.  The renovation of this building will take about seven years, according to approved General Assembly schedules.  But I have a plan -– part of reform again -– to shorten it to maybe four to five years.  Let us see.  In any case, the renovation will begin some time next year.  By the time you attend the General Assembly next year, you may have to deliver your speech at a temporary General Assembly Hall, which we are now going to build.  This may cause some inconvenience, disruptions, but I hope you will bear with that.  We are going to build a new temporary General Assembly Hall in the North lawn.

I thank you for your patience at the disruption the renovation work will cause.  Believe me, I am already having sleepless nights about the logistics of this exercise.  Maybe all of our staff may have to move out to somewhere in Manhattan, so there will be much inconvenience.  But it is necessary.  I hope we will all be able draw inspiration from it.  I hope that, as we renovate our house, we will also renew our commitment and revitalize our Organization, to build astronger UN for a better world.

Allow me to wish all of you good luck and continued good health and success and prosperity in the important days ahead.  It will be one of the busiest general debate seasons for many years, and it will mean hard work for all of us, but I know it will be worth it.

Please join me in a toast:  to the United Nations, our common home.  A l’ONU notre famille commune!  Je vous remercie.  Thank you very much.

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For information media • not an official record