Activities of Secretary-General in France, 20-23 June
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres departed New York on Tuesday evening, 20 June. He arrived in Paris on Wednesday morning where he met that afternoon with Emmanuel Macron, the President of France.
They discussed the objectives of the Paris Summit, including the importance of reforms to the international financial architecture, debt relief, access to liquidity, as well as the urgent need for climate action and climate justice.
The Secretary-General and the President also discussed the war in Ukraine, as well as the situation in the Sahel, the crisis in Sudan and its regional implications.
On Thursday morning, the Secretary-General addressed the opening session of the Summit for a New Global Financing Pact.
In his opening remarks, the Secretary-General delivered a blunt message. It is clear, he said, that the international financial architecture has failed in its mission to provide a global safety net for developing countries. It is outdated, dysfunctional and unjust, he underscored.
He told the assembled audience that this meeting provides a remarkable foundation to address the difficulties faced by numerous developing countries.
The Secretary-General outlined several of the built-in injustices of the system — over three quarters of today's countries were not present at the creation of the Bretton Woods institutions — the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (MF).
International financial institutions are now too small and limited to fulfill their mandate and serve everyone, especially the most vulnerable countries, he went on to explain.
In conclusion, he admitted that any change in power dynamics would be challenging given that power dynamics and constraints on global cooperation in today’s world make problems more difficult to solve.
But, solutions are not impossible, Mr. Guterres appealed, and we can start now. He urged the participants to make this meeting rallying cry for urgent action. (See Press Release SG/SM/21855.)
On the side-lines of the summit, the Secretary-General had a number of bilateral meetings, including with Presidents Ranil Wickremesinghe of Sri Lanka; Macky Sall of Senegal; Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno of Chad; as well as Sigrid Kaag, Deputy Prime Minister of the Netherlands; and Sultan al-Jaber, Minister for Industry and advanced technology of the United Arab Emirates and President Designate of the twenty-eighth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP28).
The Secretary-General was then hosted for a working lunch by the French Minister for Foreign Affairs, Catherine Colonna, at the Quai d’Orsay.
The Secretary-General was then received by the President of the National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet and later that afternoon, he spoke to students at the Institute of Political Sciences — Sciences Po.
He told them that the international system has rarely been so gloomy, with protracted wars, a raging climate crisis, an appalling gap between rich and poor and new warnings about the dangers of unregulated technology.
He said that much of the framework of the world order, from the United Nations Security Council to the Bretton Woods institutions, were created in the aftermath of the Second World War and must now reflect the very different circumstances in place 80 years later. Multilateralism, he said, must be completely overhauled.
On climate, the Secretary-General said that he has proposed a Climate Solidarity Pact in which big emitters make extra efforts to cut their emissions and an Acceleration Agenda to intensify climate efforts.
And he noted his call for a Global Digital Compact to deal with the challenges posed by Artificial Intelligence and the proliferation of misinformation and hate speech on the Internet. (See Press Release SG/SM/21856.)
His programme for the day concluded with an official working dinner hosted by President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysée Palace.
The Secretary-General returned to New York early on Friday afternoon, 23 June.