I am grateful for the immense privilege of joining everyone here in the General Assembly — a privilege made possible by the peaceful democratic transition that followed the free and fair elections held in Kenya on 9 August. Those elections stand as a testimony of the universal power of democracy, as well as the manifest ability of African peoples to invest in stronger nations and a secure future by using robust institutions, effective constitutions and the impartial administration of the rule of law to guarantee the realization of our shared objectives.
The General Assembly’s seventy-seventh session comes at a unique moment, as the entire world struggles with multiple grave challenges, including regional conflicts, the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, the triple planetary crisis, food insecurity and the rising cost of living.
I take this opportunity to congratulate the President on his election and to express my confidence that his wealth of experience offers us significant assurance of his good leadership. The motto of his presidency, “Solutions through solidarity, sustainability and science”, succinctly captures with particular resonance the urgent imperatives of our time. I assure the President of Kenya’s firm support and cooperation during his tenure.
I also take this opportunity to commend his predecessor, His Excellency Mr. Abdulla Shahid, for his bold steps in steering the United Nations community and for ensuring its business continuity under the unprecedented circumstances occasioned by multiple global threats such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
Human well-being is under grave threat. The health of the planet requires urgent attention. The immense pressure exerted by conventional threats, such as climate change, the global food crisis, terrorism, cybercrime and armed conflict, has been compounded by the unprecedented and devastating disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. I express my approval of the President’s theme for this year’s session, “A watershed moment: transformative solutions to interlocking challenges”, because it boldly signals the window of opportunity that we now have to step up our engagement from firm consensus to decisive action.
In many respects, the COVID-19 pandemic stripped us of many illusions and exposed stark justice and solidarity deficits in the face of existential crisis. It brought into sharp focus the global economy’s two- lane highway, repressively patrolled by a rising tide of exclusionist nationalism — a spectre that undermines prospects for collective action and significantly impairs the resolve of the international community to guarantee the fundamental rights, including the rights to safety and dignity, of the world’s vulnerable majority.
It is also for that reason that many nations, especially in the global South, now advocate the democratization of global governance and a reimagined multilateralism that is inclusive and works for the good of all. Kenya stands ready to work with other nations to achieve the
pan-Africanization of multilateralism and a more just and inclusive system of global governance.
It is important to reflect on those matters as we do our best to get our people, enterprises and industries back on their feet so that the engine of development can power our societies towards a prosperity that actually leaves no one behind. “Building back better” is the universal rallying call to incorporate lessons learned into doing more, in a better way, to recover from shocks. I would suggest that we have a golden opportunity to faithfully adhere to that motto by augmenting it, in word and in deed, with an additional “b” to make it “building back better from the bottom”.
Building back better from the bottom upwards is essentially about including the marginalized working majority in the economic mainstream. The bottom millions relentlessly wage their daily battle for survival in a crowded arena that is characterized by scarcity of opportunity and a generally precarious existence. The ingenuity, optimism, resilience and energy demonstrated by those in that ever-bustling bottom segment is sometimes called hustling.
Invisible to policymakers and beyond the reach of many public services, those hustlers take nothing for granted, surviving overwhelming odds and frequently achieving great success. In the words of Abraham Lincoln, things may come to those who wait, but only the things left behind by those who hustle. It is time to bolster the resilience of our nations to mainstream those millions through deliberate strategies and efforts to advance economic inclusion by building back better from the bottom.
The interlocking challenges of conflicts, the triple planetary crisis and the global food crisis have impeded our momentum and obstructed our focus in achieving fundamental transformations towards sustainable development. In the Horn of Africa region, severe drought and the disruption of supply chains due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the Russia-Ukraine conflict, have left us food-insecure. Consequently, we have been constrained to repurpose our strategies to prioritize drought and famine relief to insulate education from disruption and improve social protection and health-care systems in order ensure people’s well-being.
Many countries now bear witness to the unsettling phenomena of rivers, canals and water reservoirs drying up owing to droughts and heat waves occasioned by climate change. Kenya is no exception. The northern, arid and semi-arid rangelands of our country have been gravely impacted by drought whose severity has not been experienced in 40 years. The scarce rainfall over three consecutive seasons has led to poor crops and pasture, leaving some 3.1 million residents of those rangelands severely food insecure. That unprecedented confluence of intensely adverse events has exacerbated water scarcity and starvation, which are worsened by rising food prices, thereby complicating Kenya’s road map towards delivering a good quality of life to its citizens and hindering our progress towards achieving Sustainable Development Goals 6 and 2.
Severe drought has affected not only the Horn of Africa and the Sahel regions; it also continues to devastate many others, including in Asia, Europe and the Americas. If for no other reason, the fact that we are in this together must strengthen the case for concerted efforts across the continents. With that in mind, I call on Member States and all relevant stakeholders to demonstrate strong political will and showcase effective cooperation by supporting the most affected countries both financially and by sharing land-restoration and climate-adaptation technologies. Collaborating to expand inclusion can usher in a new paradigm of multilateralism for us.
The latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reminds us that we cannot afford to waste another moment debating the merits of doing something versus doing nothing. It will soon be too late to reverse the course of events, and then, even the best possible interventions will not suffice. Every day is an opportunity for us as leaders to expedite our efforts to confront the triple planetary crisis.
It should be recalled that during the Stockholm+50 meeting, which Kenya had the honour of co-hosting with Sweden, there was agreement among States on the need to act urgently to address environmental impacts. Given that consensus, it is deeply concerning that little progress has been made with regard to the action that is needed. It is time to collectively contemplate the urgent measures needed to implement the high- priority actions we must take in order to contain the ongoing disruptions, as well as deliberate on longterm implementation approaches to be undertaken. I fully agree with the Secretary-General’s memorable statement, that “[w]e have a rendezvous with climate disaster” (A/77/PV.4, p.3). I add that we must not be taken by surprise. If being forewarned indeed means
being forearmed, this is our opportunity to mobilize with tremendous urgency and take action at once.
The agricultural sector has an important part to play in reducing the severity of climate change. A number of practices have a bearing, positive or negative, on various dimensions of the environment. Investing in modern agricultural technology is therefore one important avenue towards tackling prevailing environmental challenges. Kenya is responding through substantial investment in climate-resilient agriculture. At the core of our 10-year strategy for agricultural-sector growth and transformation are nine flagships. They include the registration of farmers to direct incentives, improving farmer practices through customized extension services, the monitoring of emergency food-reserve stocks using a digital food balance sheet and the use of an early-warning system to monitor food supplies and market prices.
Agriculture remains the bedrock of the development of many nations and will therefore continue to hold the key to ensuring equitable and sustainable growth for our people. No country, large or small, has ever attained significant growth without modernizing its agricultural sector. And as we rededicate ourselves to those targets, we must, in the immediate term, find answers to the severe deficit in the availability, flow and accessibility of fertilizer to our farmers worldwide. I could not agree more with Secretary-General Guterres’ warning in this Hall yesterday, that
“Without action now, the global fertilizer shortage will quickly morph into a global food shortage” (ibid., p. 2).
We are encouraged to note that education, health, agriculture and numerous other public services have become increasingly reliant on digital access. The world needs greater investment in the development of information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure, accompanied by policies that support innovation and increased acquisition and deployment of technology. In so doing, we should be driven by the conviction that those measures offer a viable shortcut to poverty reduction and the promotion of inclusive development. I call for stronger global partnerships to enhance ICT infrastructure in developing countries and bridge the yawning digital divide between the global South and the rest of the world.
The General Assembly’s seventy-seventh session follows the commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), UNEP@50, as well as Stockholm+50 and the Ocean Conference in Lisbon. The outcomes of those conferences demanded real commitment to addressing global environmental concerns as a matter of urgency and a just transition to sustainable economies that work for all people.
The fifth United Nations Environment Assembly’s adoption in Nairobi of the March 2022 landmark resolution to end plastic pollution is a decisive signal that the world is prepared and motivated to act to address that menace. Kenya is committed to working closely with other nations to pursue legally binding instruments aimed at bringing an end to plastic pollution. As the host nation to UNEP and the United Nations Human Settlements Programme, Kenya affirms that those critical United Nations agencies have an indispensable role in the promotion of environmental sustainability globally, as well as in developing socially and environmentally sound sustainable cities.
In keeping with its strong commitment to multilateral institutions, Kenya has made more land available for the United Nations Office in Nairobi (UNON) to facilitate the upgrading of its complex. I take this opportunity to call on Member States to complement that contribution through enhanced financing aimed at adequately modernizing the UNON facilities Nairobi.
Kenya remains a strong advocate for making the sustainable use of ocean and blue-economy resources a development priority, holding the firm belief that significantly increased investment in that essential sector can end hunger, reduce poverty, create jobs and spur economic growth. I urge the Secretary-General to continue calling attention to the urgent need to develop that vital sector. In particular, I call on developed countries to invest in sustainable fishing, protect marine ecosystems and share ocean-based climate solutions with developing countries.
For our part, I am pleased to report that, building on the historic 2018 Sustainable Blue Economy Conference, held in Nairobi, Kenya is reviewing its national blue-economy strategy in order to strengthen community structures in the participatory management of freshwater, coastal and marine resources and ecosystems. The strategy is expected to contribute to our economic development through food and
nutrition security, coastal and rural development and income increases along the aquaculture value chains.
It will also enhance maritime transport and tourism. We invite development partnerships to invest in Africa towards building the capacity to sustainably utilize marine resources. We must rally together to make the best use of Africa’s vast blue resources in developing our economies while meeting our climate targets.
As we look forward to the twenty-seventh Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, to be held in Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt, it is logical to expect that Member States will shift their attention towards the development and implementation of frameworks for climate change mitigation. Member States must complete their pending actions so they can turn to the implementation work that lies ahead. I therefore call on all of us to urgently deliver on all commitments made towards climate-change financing. It is critical to emphasize that we are running out of time in that regard.
Over the past decade, Kenya has sustained its aggressive pursuit of rapid socioeconomic transformation through three principal road maps. The first road map is the Kenya National Vision 2030, the formal long-term blueprint aimed at transforming Kenya into a newly industrializing, upper-middle-income country providing a high quality of life to all its citizens in a clean and secure environment by 2030. The second road map is the African Union’s Agenda 2063. The third road map is the Sustainable Development Goals. Kenya seeks to tap into a variety of resources to catalyse the achievement of those interlocking and mutually reinforcing objectives.
The disruption and ensuing crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic compelled us to diversify our focus into new interventions, including an economic stimulus programme, a COVID-19 economic recovery strategy and a COVID-19 socioeconomic re-engineering recovery strategy, all aimed at mitigating the adverse impacts of the pandemic. I confirm that we have done our utmost in the circumstances. Nevertheless, it is not enough. Kenya and the rest of Africa, like other developing countries, are in need of greater international partnership and cooperation to avert economic crisis in the wake of the pandemic.
Developing countries, which are heavily burdened by external-debt servicing, run the risk of losing development gains because of the shocks inflicted by the pandemic and associated disruptions. I call on global financial institutions and the international community to take urgent steps to release all existing financial instruments in order to provide much-needed additional liquidity and secure better fiscal space for developing countries such as Kenya to enhance social investment, support climate change adaptation and mitigation, address security needs and resolve development financing challenges.
On behalf of Kenya, I therefore join other leaders in calling on the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and other multilateral lenders to extend pandemic- related debt relief to the worst-hit countries, especially those affected by the devastating combination of conflict, climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic. I also urge the Group of 20 to extend and expand the scope of the common framework to suspend or reschedule debt repayments by middle-income countries during the pandemic recovery period.
I would like the Assembly to take a moment to consider the peace and security landscape — one that is currently beset with multiple challenges but also abounds with considerable opportunities. Our home region of East Africa and the Horn of Africa, in particular, is burdened by significant conflicts and challenges that have implications for the region’s development. We stand on the cusp of a vast opportunity to galvanize confidence-building measures in order to generate and sustain momentum towards sustainable peace.
In its role as an anchor State in the region, Kenya has sustained our investment in diplomatic efforts to find lasting peace in multiple situations within and beyond the region. Although some processes have yielded undeniable success, challenges remain. I therefore strongly reiterate our call for partnership towards confidence-building measures and urge more concerted efforts to achieve sustainable peace and stability.
Kenya is currently serving on the Security Council. I am proud to confirm that our engagement over the past two years has prioritized regional peace and security, countering terrorism and violent extremism, peace support operations and climate and security as critical contributions to collective efforts to build a safer, more prosperous and peaceful world. I am also proud to state that Kenya has continued to champion closer cooperation between regional mechanisms and the Security Council as an effective means for achieving international peace and security.
Kenya continues to advocate the renewal of the African Union Peace and Security Architecture, which draws comparative strength from the highly productive complementarity among the United Nations, the African Union and the regional economic communities. Working closely with the other two elected African members of the Security Council, we are committed to finding a stronger African voice in the Council and achieving a consensus-driven, rules-based multilateral system. It is our manifest intention to see greater pan- Africanization of the global agenda in order to make multilateralism work for the people of the world in their diversity. It is time for multilateralism to reflect the voices of the farmers, represent the hopes of villagers, champion the aspirations of pastoralists, defend the rights of fisherfolk, express the dreams of traders, respect the wishes of workers and indeed protect the welfare of all the peoples of the global South.
Let me express my country’s strong collective conviction that the relevance, legitimacy and moral authority of the United Nations will forever remain deficient and undermined in the absence of comprehensive reforms of the Security Council. We therefore remain firmly committed to reforming the Security Council to make it a more effective, representative and democratic global institution.
Given the magnitude and variety of challenges the world continues to confront, a more fit-for-purpose United Nations is urgently needed, one that possesses the legitimacy and efficacy required to deal with threats to international peace and security. A just and inclusive world order cannot be spearheaded by a Security Council that persistently and unjustly fails the inclusivity criterion. Similarly, threats to democracy will not be credibly resolved by an undemocratic and unrepresentative Security Council. It is vitally important for that critical institution to reflect the values it is entrusted to protect, defend and uphold on behalf of humankind. We welcome the call by President Biden this morning for the expansion of the membership of the Security Council as a significant step in the right direction and look forward to building consensus towards realizing that.
The COVID-19 pandemic severely disrupted health systems, thereby seriously challenging the implementation of programmes that are vital for the realization of the health-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). To place us firmly back on track and accelerate our progress towards the SDG targets, it is imperative for us to foster sustainable partnerships among Governments, other State actors, civil society and the private sector. That modality of collective action is particularly vital for building resilient health systems, whose importance in enabling us to withstand future pandemics and other health crises can no longer be disputed.
For that reason, Kenya will continue to strongly support the development of legally binding World Health Organization international instruments in order to anchor global solidarity and promote equity. The fact is that the COVID-19 pandemic exposed, for all the world to see, the severe deficit of those critical values in our current multilateral configuration.
Global supply chains remained impervious to demand in the global South generally and to Africa in particular. Unequal access to vaccines underscored that unjust and unequal situation, with unforgettable clarity. Whenever human life, security and welfare are in jeopardy, it is immoral to administer interventions through frameworks that are anchored on fundamental inequality. We are all witnesses to admirable demonstrations of effective solidarity in response to crises in various parts of the world. Our knowledge of the possibility of spontaneous, yet resolute, global solidarity reinforces the African exception as particularly repugnant.
From genocides and civil conflict to famine and pandemics, the African continent is consistently left behind to bear the brunt of weak solidarity and the disastrous failure of multilateralism. History indicates that the last time that Africa was the focal point of strong and effective multilateral consensus was during the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885, and the character of the ensuing interventions casts a long shadow to date.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but the failure of multilateralism during crises, which relegates the people of Africa outside the circle of moral consideration and normalizes humanitarian neglect and other casual injustices, is a failure of humankind. Nothing about Africa — I repeat, nothing about Africa or its peoples — makes it acceptable for that type of failure to persist in this era, and we have an urgent moral duty to do better and right that wrong.
For decades, Africa has borne the brunt of three epidemics — HIV, tuberculosis and malaria. I applaud innovative partnerships such as the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria for their progress in addressing the three menaces. I also welcome the ambitious targets set for the seventh replenishment cycle. Kenya is committed to supporting the Global Fund and implementing agreed targets in order to actualize our pledge at the Replenishment Conference. Kenya calls upon all countries implementing the Global Fund programmes, especially fellow African States, to remain at the forefront in championing the successful replenishment of the Fund. In that way, the mobilization of much-needed resources will be enhanced, thereby bringing us closer to the elimination of those dangerous diseases.
In conclusion, Kenya joins the Secretary-General in calling for the strengthening of multilateralism as the only sustainable path to a peaceful, stable and prosperous world for all. That is the imperative of our time and the call of this moment. It is time to work on the trust deficit with stronger conviction that none of us is really safe until all of us are safe.
The theme of the seventy-seventh session, “A watershed moment: transformative solutions to interlocking challenges”, demands that we recognize that the crises we must confront are interlinked in a complicated way. They can be effectively addressed only through more imaginative strategies and innovative formulas. A population of 8 billion people, in a densely networked world, increasingly looks up to the multilateral system as the anchor of their individual aspirations, both directly and indirectly through robust national frameworks. Therefore, the United Nations system is increasingly expected to be responsive to those needs, and the proceedings in forums such as the General Assembly are expected to speak to ordinary people in the far-flung reaches of our incredibly diverse globe.
It is impossible to address all their individual needs directly, but it is possible to respond to all of them by speaking with conviction to the universal values of equality, inclusion, justice, solidarity and collective action, while making sure that all our interventions effectively reflect them, with clarity. The integrity of the international order must be measured by the distance separating our resolutions, consensus and agreement from decisive actions, committed interventions and effective solutions. A watershed moment therefore demands that we reduce that gap drastically and quickly.
Kenya pursues numerous essential domestic agendas through the multilateral framework. We are heavily invested in the strength, effectiveness and eventual success of all the interventions formulated by the United Nations. It is important that the output of this forum and other similar forums achieve immediate resonance in the minds and lives of our young people, who still seek the opportunity to express and actualize themselves; our farmers, who work to feed our nations; our jua kali entrepreneurs, who strive in pursuit of success in the informal economy; and our professionals, who formulate policy, implement strategy and monitor service delivery in the public and private sectors.
Africa places immense value on the international community and the tremendous possibilities it can unlock through inclusive, sustainable and effective action to transform the lives of our peoples and establish lasting peace, security and shared prosperity. This watershed moment is our chance to turn the key and open that door of opportunity. We can make progress in addressing the triple global threats and liberate ourselves from the shame of the past failures of multilateralism. At this watershed moment, we must not only choose but also act decisively to bequeath to our children and their children a greener, safer, healthier and more abundant Earth. Let us do it together — inclusively and multilaterally.