On behalf of
the people and Government of the Republic of
Mozambique, and indeed on my own behalf, I would
like to place on record our congratulations to the
President on her election to preside over the sixty-first
session of the General Assembly. We are delighted to
see a distinguished daughter of Bahrain in the
stewardship of the highest organ of the United Nations.
We reiterate our congratulations to her
predecessor, Mr. Jan Eliasson, Minister for Foreign
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Affairs of Sweden, for his leadership during the
sixtieth session. We congratulate him once again on the
commendable work done during his tenure of office.
We would also like to pay a glowing tribute to
Mr. Kofi Annan for his accomplishments during his
mandate as Secretary-General. We commend the
devotion and tireless efforts of this son of Africa, our
continent, for his work for the promotion of
international peace, security and development, as well
as for having created the solid foundations for wide-
ranging reforms of the United Nations.
One of the issues on which our debate focused
last year related to development. We noted with
concern then that there was a substantive lack of
progress in forging partnerships. In this regard, we
salute the President for bringing the theme
“Implementing a global partnership for development”
for debate at this session.
We live in a very unbalanced world, in which
developing countries find themselves in a vicious cycle
of dependency and vulnerability. This plight
undermines our efforts to address, speedily and
successfully, the challenges that prevent our enjoying
sounder economic and social growth and weaken our
capacity to deal, more effectively and with greater
impact, with the various manifestations of poverty and
to fight, more vigorously, diseases such as malaria,
tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS. Given our state of
development, more often than not we are powerless to
prevent or mitigate the impact of natural disasters and
environmental degradation. Consequently, poverty
prevents the part of our humanity located in developing
countries from enjoying the freedom of choice and
action that the other part of mankind takes for granted.
The merit of the theme that the President has put
forward for our debate is that it gives us yet another
opportunity to reflect on issues that we have dealt with
in the past in seeking solutions for the remaining
challenges imposed by underdevelopment. It also lends
itself to a debate of at least three important issues
related to the problem of underdevelopment.
The first is that no country alone, however
resourceful it may be, can successfully overcome these
challenges on its own, at least not in the medium term,
because these are challenges noted for their complexity
and interrelationships with other global problems and
phenomena.
The second point that can be inferred from this
theme is that, while underdevelopment can be
attributed to or identified with a given country, its
consequences transcend national borders. They go
beyond geographical boundaries to, on the one hand,
affect national security and demography in other
countries and, on the other, raise moral obligations of
new dimensions, as well as material challenges in other
societies.
The third issue relates to a static view of poverty.
The poor need to regain their self-confidence so that,
like people in other parts of the world, they too can rid
themselves of the shackles of poverty. By the same
token, those who can assist also need to overcome the
deep-rooted view that the poor will not escape from
poverty, as they are destined to remain poor. On the
other hand, they also need to overcome the
preconceived idea that development must be imposed
from the outside.
This discussion brings us back to our realization
that, given the global nature of the challenges facing us
today, we have no choice but to weave together and
strengthen the national, regional and global
partnerships. As a result of this realization, we adopted
the Monterrey Consensus, as well as the Johannesburg
Plan of Implementation and the Millennium
Declaration. The expectation was that these
consensuses would translate, in concrete terms, into
our commitment to forge global partnerships for
development. Regrettably, little has been achieved so
far. Abject poverty remains a common feature of the
majority of developing countries.
Therefore, I urge that we need to reiterate our
commitment to work together at various levels for the
well-being of humanity. Mankind is not a far-fetched
concept. For example, the very fact that the language I
am using now can be translated into the other
languages of the planet is a clear demonstration of how
we belong to the same humanity. Let us, therefore,
redouble our efforts so as not to frustrate the
expectations of billions of citizens worldwide, in the
developed and the developing countries alike. All of
them are longing for a fairer, prosperous and peaceful
world. Through these partnerships we can also, more
effectively, contribute to conflict resolution in Africa,
in the Middle East and in the world at large.
At this juncture, we would like to share with the
Assembly our experience and views on the role and
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place of partnerships to overcome the challenges
before us today.
At the national level, we are of the view that the
development projects must be owned and driven by
their primary and ultimate beneficiaries. In this regard,
the Government creates and promotes an environment
that facilitates the honing of self-esteem, promotes
recourse to individual creativity and supports
incremental development. At the same time, the
Government encourages and sustains partnerships with
other collective development actors, such as civil
society organizations, the private sector and
international partners in cooperation. The products of
this approach to governance include, for example: the
second Action Plan for the Reduction of Absolute
Poverty for the period 2006-2009, drawn up with the
active participation of civil society organizations;
annual meetings with the private sector; meetings of
the social partners, with the participation of the
Government, trade unions and employers; the national
forum for the African Peer Review Mechanism; and the
joint review meetings between the Government and the
development partners involved in direct budget
support.
These partnerships are held together by our
adherence to open and inclusive governance. They are
also sustained by the collective commitment of various
stakeholders engaged in the development of
Mozambique to reduce the incidence of absolute
poverty from 54 per cent in 2003 to 45 per cent in
2009. The environment of peace and stability in which
we live and which we promote also contributes to
enhancing these partnerships.
Regional cooperation plays an important role in
building and sustaining partnerships for development.
The Southern African Development Community
(SADC) is a case in point. Since its birth, SADC has
been playing a crucial role in promoting the political,
economic and social integration of countries and
peoples of the region. At the same time, SADC allows
a given number of its member states to take initiatives
that further its ultimate objective of a more prosperous
region. In accordance with this principle, last August
Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe launched
the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, a project that
aims to transform an area of approximately 35,000
square kilometres, rich in biodiversity, into a
development hub.
Viewed as one of the building blocks of the
African Union, SADC plays an important role in
promoting the New Partnership for Africa’s
Development (NEPAD), the African Union road map
towards prosperity. We take this opportunity to
commend the international community for aligning its
assistance ever more closely with the NEPAD
priorities. We would also encourage our development
partners to increase their support for NEPAD.
By deciding last week in Havana on the
continuation of the Non-Aligned Movement’s
revitalization process, the Non-Aligned Summit put
greater emphasis on the role the Movement should play
in forging partnerships among the countries of the
South, as part of the global partnerships. Thus, the
Non-Aligned Movement reinvigorated the Bandung
spirit, which, as we all know, inspired the
establishment of the New Asian-African Strategic
Partnership.
In addition to the Monterrey Consensus, we
advocate an increase in international financial support,
including official development assistance and foreign
direct investment for countries such as ours that have
potential for agriculture, agro-industry and tourism.
Similarly, we are in favour of the establishment
of a fairer and more favourable global trading system
that is more conducive to sustainable development in
developing countries. In this context, we regret the lack
of progress in the Doha Development Round, and we
urge developed countries to be more flexible, within
the framework of the World Trade Organization, in
their approach to the needs of developing countries. We
reiterate this appeal because we are convinced that our
partners do not want to witness the perpetuation of the
marginalization of developing countries from the
global economy.
The assessment made in 2005 indicates that a
number of developing countries are making progress
towards the attainment of the Millennium Development
Goals. Mozambique is part of this positive trend.
However, to ensure that it is irreversible, we call upon
our development partners to continue to provide
substantial and timely support for the priorities
identified by the recipient countries. We believe that
our partners are also touched, in their souls and in their
spirit, by the poverty that still afflicts that part of
humanity.
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In conclusion, we join previous speakers in
emphasizing the need for the United Nations reforms to
move forward. We all recognize the United Nations
potential to forge effective partnerships for
development. Therefore, we reaffirm the commitment
of the Government of the Republic of Mozambique to
contribute to the success of this reform process, always
bearing in mind the need to safeguard the
intergovernmental nature of the United Nations.
Mozambique is proud that its Prime Minister,
Mrs. Luísa Diogo, is one of the Co-Chairs of the High-
level Panel on System-Wide Coherence in the areas of
development, humanitarian assistance and the
environment, established by the Secretary-General. It
is our belief that the Panel’s report will contribute to
the success of the United Nations reforms. A reformed
United Nations will be better placed to respond to the
international challenges imposed by the need to
strengthen international law and multilateralism and to
promote partnerships for development and peace
worldwide.