I congratulate you, Sir, on your election to lead the General Assembly. You can be assured of our full commitment to the successful execution of your mandate, including from our position as a Vice-President this session. I also acknowledge your predecessor for his sterling stewardship of the Assembly during his presidency of hope.
This year, Jamaica celebrates 60 years of independence and membership in the United Nations. We reflect with pride on the significant contributions that Jamaica, a small island developing State, has made to global efforts for peace, development and human rights, as well as in the fields of music, culture and sports. At home, our diamond jubilee of independence has provided the impetus for us to reignite our nation for greatness. It is our intention to bring that same energy to the work of the seventy-seventh session.
We gather as the world faces unprecedented overlapping crises: the ongoing impact of the coronavirus disease pandemic; the war in Ukraine; inflation; debt; energy and food insecurity; and natural disasters fuelled by climate change. We do not all have the same capacity to withstand and recover from such shocks. Indeed, recovery has been uneven, and there has been a further widening of pre-existing development inequalities. As we search for solutions, let us acknowledge the differentiated needs and vulnerability of all members of our global family. Small island developing States and some middle-income countries are particularly vulnerable to climate and external economic shocks, which have an oversized impact relative to their national budgets and an often-crippling impact on their infrastructure. In order for small island developing States to survive economic shocks and recover lost and damaged infrastructure, they are forced to borrow, only to be confronted again in a few years with another round of natural disasters that could wipe out significant infrastructure and force us to add to our already high debt. As I speak, I am monitoring a tropical system that is threatening the Caribbean.
Jamaica believes that a comprehensive and targeted approach to accessing development finance is needed. We fully support the work of the high-level panel developing a multidimensional vulnerability index. We eagerly anticipate an era of truly equitable access to concessional financing and other funding support
that will enable us to invest in resilient infrastructure and create fiscal buffers so that we can withstand and recover quickly from the next economic, health or climate shock with little borrowing.
Without the acknowledgment of vulnerability as a basis for access to finance, small island developing States will continue to struggle and will be unable to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Even as we call for reforms of the global financial architecture to account for vulnerability, Jamaica is exercising great fiscal discipline. It has been a long and hard struggle, but we have lowered our ratio of debt to gross domestic product from stratospheric levels a decade ago, and we continue to pursue policies to ensure that we can drive down our debt. We are building fiscal buffers to help us respond quickly to shocks. We are working with our development partners using innovative financing tools, such as floating a catastrophe bond to insure us against climate disasters. Most important, we are mainstreaming climate resilience in all our infrastructure investments.
Small island developing States such as Jamaica are always mindful that despite their best efforts to improve fiscal management and debt sustainability, a single climate event could wipe out 100 per cent of a country’s economy in a few hours. Climate change is an immediate existential threat for small island developing States such as Jamaica. Concerted action to slow down and halt global temperature rise is literally a question of our survival. While we continue to develop our own resilience and play our part in mitigating climate change, we cannot change the trajectory by our actions alone. Jamaica looks forward to the convening of the twenty- seventh session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Egypt later this year. We call on all countries to meet their commitments and contributions to climate targets. We also call on the countries of the developed world to increase their commitments and ambitions in climate financing, especially for adaptation and loss and damage.
As an island, Jamaica is keenly attuned to the importance of protecting and sustainably using its ocean and marine resources. We recognize that urgent action is needed to address the health and sustainability of the oceans. Jamaica joins the global community in celebrating the fortieth anniversary of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which opened for adoption in Montego Bay, Jamaica, on 10 December 1982. The Convention is a testament to the power of multilateralism. As the constitution for the ocean, the Convention has yielded immense benefit since its entry into force. Since 1994, Jamaica has welcomed representatives to the International Seabed Authority who have brought to life its important deliberations on the preservation and exploitation of the resources of the international seabed, which forms part of the common heritage of humankind.
The pandemic has made it clear that for developing countries, major and inclusive transformations are required in the areas of technology and innovation. While all countries suffered during the pandemic, they did not all suffer equally. A country’s economic resilience was often a reflection of how digitally advanced it was. Many countries lag far behind in digital access, penetration and capability. We must prioritize bridging the digital divide both within and between countries, to create a level playing field and spur a transformation of critical sectors of the economy and the society. As the world prepares for an even more digitally engaged future, we must take effective steps to protect cyberspace and its physical infrastructure to ensure that it is safely and securely available to all users across the world. Cybercrime is an increasing threat and international cooperation is required to deal with it in a comprehensive manner. Jamaica fully supports the work under way in the United Nations to formulate a cybercrime treaty and come up with guidelines and a framework for cybersecurity.
A number of countries in Latin America and the Caribbean are facing an epidemic of crime and violence. Since the pandemic and the disruption in education, mental-health challenges are increasingly being expressed in violent ways. A propensity to try to resolve conflict or cope with social and mental stresses through violence requires a public health response, and Jamaica has not only engaged in global initiatives such as the Global Partnership to End Violence Against Children, but it has also recently empanelled a National Commission on Violence Prevention to advise the Government on building an articulated public health and social services response. However, the situation is exponentially complicated and exacerbated by the influx of illegal and unregistered small arms into our country.
Whether among organized transnational criminal enterprises, street-level gangs or misguided young people in inner cities, the availability of guns is driving an ever-increasing homicide rate. In the same way that a war on drugs is being prosecuted in which we have been faithful partners in policing what comes through
our waters or leaves our shores, there must now be a war on guns. Jamaica does not manufacture guns, but its population suffers from the effects of their wide availability. The countries that manufacture weapons that are available to the public must implement stronger measures to ensure that those weapons do not end up on the streets and in the hands of people for whom they were not intended. In the same way that there is concern about illegal drugs on the streets of rich countries, there must be concern about guns on the streets of developing countries such as Jamaica.
The situation in our sister Caribbean Community (CARICOM) country of Haiti is one of deep concern for Jamaica and the region. The challenges there — political, economic, environmental and social — are longstanding and present serious obstacles to the peace and dignity of the Haitian people. Indeed, they present challenges for the region, particularly where crime and other security issues are concerned. We support a Haitian-led process to arrive at sustainable solutions to those challenges, and together with CARICOM and the international community, we are committed to moving beyond just standing with Haiti to working more closely with Haiti to provide consistent and meaningful support. Jamaica also once again joins the calls for discontinuing the economic, commercial and financial embargo on our closest Caribbean neighbour, Cuba.
We cannot properly make use of this watershed moment to benefit the future without adequately addressing the past. Jamaica reaffirms its determination to further the call for the international recognition of reparative justice as a necessary path to healing, the restoration of dignity and progress for people of African descent. The world cannot turn a blind eye to the systemic imbalances that persist after centuries of exploitation. If the moral standard today by which we claim a higher civilization acknowledges that actions in the past that generated wealth for some by depriving others of their freedom were wrong, then that same moral standard must lead those who benefited from the wrongs of the past and claim a higher civilization today to repair that which their morality now acknowledges to be an injustice. There is an inescapable duty to make economic redress for historical injustices and recognize the dignity of the States and peoples affected. The arc of international morality will not complete its bend for the peoples of the African diaspora without open and inclusive exchanges on the dispensation of reparative justice. We recognize the complexities associated with that sensitive issue. Yet as with all complex global challenges, we must summon the determination to take bold and creative steps to meet the moment.
Since Jamaica attained independence 60 years ago, multilateralism has been a core principle of its foreign policy. It continues to underpin our cooperation with Member States and other stakeholders within the United Nations system. Transformative global solutions can thrive only within a robust multilateral framework. The current global political and security environment is cause for great alarm. We have witnessed a nuclear armed super-Power, a permanent member of the Security Council, acting with impunity to launch a military offensive against its neighbour. Russia’s military incursion into Ukraine can only be condemned as a flagrant violation of the Charter of the United Nations. We must never return to the days when military might is considered right. Jamaica strongly cautions against actions that could signal the demise of a peaceful multilateral order.
I commend the Secretary-General and his team for the initiatives undertaken within his purview to fulfil relevant mandates. For their part, Member States must also address long-standing issues of reform and restructuring, including with regard to the Security Council. That critical organ must work more transparently and responsively. It must be more representative of the world of today and more prepared for the world of tomorrow. A rotating seat for small island developing States would ensure that their unique perspectives, challenges and contributions are permanently available to the Council, thereby improving the quality of its service and work for our people.
As a highly tourism-dependent country in the most tourism-dependent region of the world, Jamaica has invested heavily in building resilience in the tourism sector. During the pandemic we pioneered the introduction of resilient corridors on the island, which served as a focused, protocol-based and data-driven blueprint for safely reopening tourism and assisted greatly in fast-tracking our tourism sector’s recovery. We have been engaging countries across the world in our efforts to bolster resilience in global tourism, and Jamaica is proposing officially designating 17 February as Global Tourism Resilience Day every year. That annual commemoration would serve to encourage a consistent examination of resilience-building in the tourism sector, in the face of persistent global disruptions to sustainable tourism and development. We encourage the global community to work with us to
commemorate the first Global Tourism Resilience Day in 2023.
In conclusion, while our current reality presents complex challenges, I believe that the capacity and capabilities exist within in this body to overcome those challenges. The gap between the challenges we face and the solutions that exist or have yet to be created is the human will. The General Assembly is about developing the common global political will to see this time as a watershed moment to deploy and accelerate transformative solutions to the interlocking challenges we face. The people of the world are counting on us to lead and work together as one humankind — one love. Jamaica is committed to doing its part, in this its sixtieth year of membership and in the years ahead.