Outgoing General Assembly President Urges Members to Continue Progress Made in 2016, as Successor Pledges ‘Loyalty, Discretion, Conscience’
Secretary-General Hails Concluding Session’s Efforts on Refugees, Counter-terrorism, Young People Affected by Violent Extremism
The General Assembly concluded its seventieth session today, with the outgoing President encouraging the 193-member body to continue the progress initiated during his tenure towards greater effectiveness and relevance, as he formally handed over his gavel to the President-elect of the seventy-first session.
Looking back of the seventieth session, Assembly President Mogens Lykketoft (Denmark) recalled that a year ago, he had outlined his hope of galvanizing a new commitment to action and installing a spirit of transparency and openness into the Assembly’s work. The 193-member organ had kicked off the seventieth session with the largest Summit in United Nations history, adopting the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, he said. The Sustainable Development Goals — alongside the historic Paris Agreement on climate change — had outlined the route for revolutionary transformation of global production and consumption patterns. Avoiding a future of division and destruction called for their relentless implementation, and the Assembly’s first high-level thematic debate had focused on the plans, actions, financing, technology and partnerships required.
Noting that the Assembly had also addressed a number of related issues, he said they ranged from the 10-year review of the World Summit on Information Society and the special session on the world drug problem, to the meeting on the global battle against HIV/AIDS and the midterm review of support for the least developed countries in Antalya, Turkey.
To be sure, Agenda 2030 would demand a reversal of trends, he said. While the Assembly had held meetings on the Commission of Inquiry on Syria and discussed the Secretary-General’s Human Rights Up Front Initiative, conflicts had expanded in size and number, causing humanitarian catastrophes. Disarmament negotiations had disclosed long-standing divides, while military budgets and tensions among major countries had increased. In too many conflicts there had been no action, he said, emphasizing that, in implementing the Security Council road map to peace and ceasefire in Syria, in the global fight against terrorism, and in the need to stop the arms race, “we have existential common interests that are much more important than our conflicts of interest”. Security Council reform must contribute to that common understanding, he stressed, recalling that the Assembly’s discussions in 2016 had highlighted the need for an enlarged Council that would reflect twenty-first century geopolitical realities.
On the election of a new Secretary-General, he said he was proud that the Assembly had broken new ground in terms of transparency in the selection process and the presentation of each candidate during Assembly dialogues as well as in a Global Town Hall debate. He pressed the Council to make the remaining process open and engaging in order to preserve the legitimacy of its recommendation. He said that he had sent a letter to the Council this morning, summarizing the process to date and addressing calls from many members for the appointment of co-facilitators to prepare an appointment resolution during the next session.
He went on to underline that transparency and openness must go beyond the Secretary-General’s selection, welcoming the codification of steps relating to the integrity, transparency and accountability of his Office in the resolution adopted this morning. There were challenges, notably in the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary), of rigidity in organization and budgeting, and in the positions of Member States. Amid a growing workload on the Office of the Secretary-General and parts of the Secretariat, it was critical to focus on areas where the most value could be added. “I encourage you to continue to make this body more relevant, outward-looking, transparent” and effective, he said.
Mr. Lykketoft then formally handed over his gavel to Peter Thomson (Fiji), President-elect of the seventy-first session, who was joined on the podium by his two young grandchildren. Pledging to truthfully perform his duties with “loyalty, discretion and conscience”, he raised the United Nations Charter in his right hand and took the Presidential Oath of Office — administered for the first time in history — promising to discharge his functions and regulate his conduct in the sole interest of the United Nations, in view of and in accordance with the Charter.
The new President said he had brought his grandchildren from Fiji to witness the day’s proceedings, noting that they would be young adults by the time the world should have achieved the Goals outlined in the 2030 Agenda. The communal conscience of humanity would not rest easy until it was clear that those aspirations would be met, he cautioned, emphasizing that the upcoming Assembly session would not be fulfilling unless real progress was under way on each development target.
If humanity’s willpower was strong enough, he continued, 14 years from now, energy would be sustainable and affordable for all, men and women would have decent work within resilient infrastructure and sustainable industries, and the necessary action would be under way to combat climate change. Recalling that the Assembly had been gearing up for the Summit to adopt the 2030 Agenda at this time in 2016, he said the future development framework would serve as a bright new beacon to pull the world out of poverty and cease the unsustainable practices that bedevilled the planet. The great majority of people had yet to learn of the Agenda or embrace the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, he pointed out, adding that, for that reason, the theme of the seventy-first session would be “The Sustainable Development Goals: A Universal Push to Transform our World”.
Pledging to take the 17 Goals to the people so they could understand them as rights and responsibilities, he said he would look to advance action to revitalize and align the work of the Assembly with the new development agenda. He said he had put together a Sustainable Development Goals team within his Office and would work to advance a range of initiatives and events in collaboration with the membership, the United Nations system, civil society, the private sector and others.
He went on to state that under his leadership, the Assembly would strive to find new methods of sustaining peace, resolving entrenched conflicts, diminishing the atrocities of global terrorism, managing migrant and refugee flows and resolving the many humanitarian crises around the world. He welcomed the cessation of hostilities that had come into effect in Syria and called on all parties to honour the terms of that agreement.
Underscoring that the link connecting sustainable development, peace and security and human rights had never been more explicit, he said that he would encourage a heightening of the Assembly’s human rights work. Regrettably, there was widespread lack of empathy for people on the move, many of whom were fleeing conflict, persecution or the effects of climate change. He congratulated those who were not shirking their decent responsibilities, adding: “It is time to turn down the rhetoric of intolerance and ratchet up a collective response based on our common humanity.”
Indeed, there was much the membership must undertake in the areas of peace and security, including improving the United Nations architecture to address terrorism and violent extremism, he said, pointing out that, as a representative of a proud troop-contributing country, he was aware of the need to be diligent in the coherent implementation of the outcomes from last year’s reviews on peacekeeping and peacebuilding, as well as on women, peace and security. Furthermore, he looked forward to implementation of the ambitious “sustaining peace” agenda by the General Assembly and the Security Council earlier this year. Security Council reform was also of great importance for the upcoming session, he said. “The question is not whether reform is necessary, but how and in what form it will be achieved.”
Prior to those remarks, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called attention to other successes of the seventieth session, including early agreement on the outcome of the high-level plenary meeting on refugees and migrants, which he emphasized must lead to greater compassion and solidarity, as well as a global sharing of responsibility. Member States had also reviewed the Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy and held a series of useful thematic debates on human rights, peace and security and the plight of children and youth affected by violent extremism.
He said initiatives to improve the transparency of the Assembly President’s Office were critical for wide-ranging efforts to make the Organization’s work more accountable to people around the world. Furthermore, the Assembly had set in motion a process for selecting the next Secretary-General that would shine greater light onto what had been largely an opaque activity, thereby enabling people to feel more involved in the selection, as they should be.
Following the session’s conclusion, the Assembly reconvened immediately to open its seventy-first session.