I would like to
congratulate the President on his assumption of the
presidency of the General Assembly at its sixty-sixth
session. We are confident that his extensive diplomatic
experience will inform his leadership at this session. I
assure him of my delegation’s full support.
During the sixty-fifth session of the General
Assembly, we benefited from the skilled leadership of
His Excellency Mr. Joseph Deiss. I wish to recognize
his sterling contribution to the work of that session.
We join others in welcoming the newest Member
of the United Nations family — the Republic of South
Sudan. The emergence of South Sudan as a sovereign
State underscores the fundamental value and relevance
of the theme of this year’s General Assembly session,
namely, “The role of mediation in the settlement of
disputes by peaceful means”. We salute the tenacity of
the people of South Sudan in their struggle to gain
statehood after five decades of conflict. We urge all
sides and factions not to allow rivalries and revenge to
impede growth and development. The international
community must assist South Sudan as it embarks on
the daunting journey of stabilization and nation
building.
We look out at a global political landscape that is
marked by turbulence and uncertainty. The
developments over the past several months in the
Middle East and North Africa in particular are stark
reminders that the legitimate aspirations of citizens for
11-51384 28
freedom, inclusive Government and respect for human
rights cannot be indefinitely suppressed.
Longstanding disputes and pockets of political
instability and conflict continue to fester in several
parts of the world, resulting in social and economic
dislocation and humanitarian crises. If the United
Nations is to effectively respond to those situations of
conflict, its preventive diplomacy capacity, including
mediation capacity, must be strengthened.
Many conflicts have their roots in racial and
religious intolerance, resulting in social exclusion,
marginalization and the alienation of people. The High-
level Meeting to commemorate the tenth anniversary of
the adoption of the Durban Declaration and Programme
of Action against racism, racial discrimination,
xenophobia and related intolerance, obliged us to
reflect on the global community’s inadequate
compliance with the objectives of the Programme of
Action. Recognizing the danger in such situations of
potential conflict and providing full support for the
Programme are congruent with the principles implied
in the theme for this session of the General Assembly.
Related to that is the continued support of the
international community for the project to erect a
permanent memorial to the victims of slavery and the
trans-Atlantic slave trade, as a visible message of the
Durban Declaration and Programme of Action. Jamaica
thanks all those countries that have contributed to the
erection of the memorial and looks forward to its
completion within a reasonable time frame.
Peace and development are mutually reinforcing
and intrinsically linked to growth and prosperity. It is
therefore important that we consciously seek to
strengthen and support the role of the Peacebuilding
Commission, recognizing the linkages between
peacekeeping and peacebuilding and the transition
from stabilization to consolidation.
The resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
is long overdue. It is time to end the occupation of
Palestinian territory. It is time for the people of
Palestine and Israel to live in peace and mutual
security. Jamaica remains unwavering in its support for
a just, lasting and comprehensive agreement that
recognizes the Palestinian State within the pre-1967
borders and guarantees the security of Israel. The focus
must now be on ending the stalemate and reviving
direct negotiations between Israel and Palestine. In that
regard, Jamaica welcomes the declarations to the
General Assembly by both Palestine and Israel of their
readiness to do so.
Both sides must now re-engage in good faith,
taking no action that could undermine the possibility of
a durable solution. Central to that must be Israel’s
cessation of settlement building and expansion in the
occupied territories and, on the part of the Palestinian
leadership and people, the renunciation of violence
against Israel and acceptance of its right to exist. The
door to peaceful negotiations will not be forever open,
nor can there be a continuing delay to Palestine’s
assumption of its rightful place in the global
community of States.
The spread of globalization is well advanced, and
our economies and growth prospects are interlinked in
a vast network of economic opportunities. In these
difficult financial times, developing countries are
forced to take painful policy decisions aimed at
recalibrating our economic plans to address immediate
challenges while laying the groundwork for the
fulfilment of our long-term development goals.
The balancing act that this involves can have dire
consequences for our most vulnerable nationals. We all
have to take ownership of our own development
process and the necessary steps to provide an economic
environment that is conducive to growth and
prosperity. To that end, we are compelled to adopt
approaches that are innovative, pro-active and
collaborative. It is through adopting such approaches
that many countries and regions have made significant
inroads in the attainment of the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs).
I wish to refer to the struggles of two
neighbouring Caribbean countries to achieve
development. Haiti, in the wake of its disruptive
disaster, and in line with its successful efforts for
political organization, needs the continued support of
the international community to foster its development,
if its democratic gains are to be consolidated. Cuba
must have the space to foment its own development,
free from the decades-long embargo that has slowed its
growth, but not its will to improve the welfare of its
people and that of other developing countries. A strong
Cuban economy, integrated into the Caribbean
marketplace, is essential to the region’s development.
We are faced with the reality that, although we all
operate in one global economy, with the same
aspirations for growth and sustainable development,
29 11-51384
we do not all have the same resources or capabilities.
In addition to being acutely vulnerable to the vagaries
of the global economic environment, the development
prospects of many developing countries are frequently
undermined by environmental degradation and climate
change.
Classifications that are ostensibly positive, such
as our own designation as an upper-middle-income
country, serve to obscure several of the development
challenges that we continue to face, particularly in
accessing development financing and assistance, which
are critical to our development process and the
attainment of the MDGs. The range of socio-economic
characteristics and levels of development of countries
that fall in the middle-income category is indicative of
the need for us to move towards harmonization of the
criteria used in classification and resources allocation.
Developing countries like ours have undertaken
painful adjustments to achieve fiscal discipline and
macroeconomic stability within an open economy. We
continue to pursue free trade agreements at the
regional, hemispheric and global levels. However, the
missing link to progress is the urgent need to build
capacities in developing countries through
infrastructure development, institution-building and
expanding and enhancing productive capacity for
competitiveness and to meet international quality
standards.
Moving from an economy primarily driven by
commodities to one that is value-added, knowledge-
based, innovative and technology-driven is a
transformation that, although challenging for
developing countries, must be achieved. Without
effective partnerships between the large and small
economies for mutual benefit, balanced trade and
shared growth, that is unlikely to occur.
I speak here positively of the increasing South-
South cooperation that offers hope to many developing
countries. We have long recognized that we can
maximize our growth prospects through increased
economic partnerships and investment opportunities,
which ultimately lead to improvements in trade
relations. Indeed, the reality is that development aid is
an essential resource, which is used by developing
countries to offset the financial burden involved in the
execution of major development projects.
Unfortunately, much development aid and
assistance to developing countries continue to fall short
of the agreed goal of 0.7 per cent of gross national
income, as some of our developed partners fail to meet
their commitments. Closing the gap between
commitment to development and the provision of
resources that will facilitate the implementation of its
various components requires political courage. We
commend those partners who have maintained or
exceeded their official development assistance targets
despite their own economic challenges.
We continue to count on the support of our
partners and the international community to help drive
our social and development goals and to keep our
safety nets in place. International financial and
development assistance help to strengthen our
development process and to address setbacks from
external shocks on our economic planning and social
investments. Development funding is critical in the
recovery of our agricultural, mining and tourism
industries, which are often adversely affected by
climate change and the impact of natural disasters. So,
too, are the transfer of technology and capacity
building.
We urge our partners to recommit to the
development agenda, both here at the United Nations
and within the context of the Bretton Woods
institutions. We reiterate our call for the reform of the
international financial institutions towards increased
transparency and accountability, and an increased role
for the developing countries in decision-making.
We welcome the increased attention that the
Group of Twenty (G-20) has paid to development
issues and are encouraged by the consultative approach
in its relations with the United Nations. It is imperative
that the G-20’s activities in respect of development
accord with the central role of the United Nations in
economic development.
The Doha Development Round of trade
negotiations, which began in good faith nearly a
decade ago, has the potential to significantly improve
the development prospects of most developing
countries. We therefore urge the full re-engagement of
all parties in the process, so that we might move
beyond the current impasse and usher in a new era of
multilateral trade relations. This must take into account
the preservation of policy space and flexibility for
developing countries in areas that are integral to our
ability to build competitiveness and trade capacity. We
remain hopeful that at the eighth Ministerial
11-51384 30
Conference, to be held in December, we will consider a
package of measures as the basis for a more balanced
trade regime that will serve as a catalyst for increased
economic growth and prosperity worldwide. We must
commit to ensuring that development remains a central
objective of the negotiations.
We support coordinated and collaborative efforts
within the context of the review and implementation of
the Aid for Trade Initiative in support of developing
countries. We will continue to work with our
international partners and aid and development entities
in expanding the Initiative to build on the supply-side
capacity and infrastructure of developing countries, so
that we can take advantage of trade opportunities and
connections within the global economy.
Jamaica has embarked on an export-led trade
policy with the full involvement of the business sector
within the context of the World Trade Organization
Trade Policy Review institutional framework. The
strategic formulation of our trade policy process
includes collaboration with the private sector
particularly given its central role and expertise in
manufacturing and exporting. Our success in trade
development is strongly dependent on partnerships
with the private sector as we agree to policy directives
and pursue an export-led trade initiative, while being
mindful of our resources and capacity to export, as
well as business opportunities and market intelligence
globally.
Other critical challenges such as food security,
energy security, climate change, poverty and diseases,
continue to demand the attention of the international
community. Precisely because of their transnational
character, many of these problems require multilateral
cooperation and action in an inclusive framework that
involves both developed and developing countries.
A year ago, world leaders gathered at the General
Assembly to take stock of the progress made towards
the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals.
We renewed our commitments to achieving those
targets by 2015. We acknowledge the support and
partnership in the midst of the global economic
challenges. Nonetheless, with four years left until the
2015 deadline, we are deeply concerned at the slow
pace of delivery on commitments made in several key
areas, namely, ODA, trade, debt relief and access to
new technologies and affordable essential medicines.
Jamaica renews the appeal made by our Prime
Minister at the summit last year for an emergency
programme to re-energize the MDG agenda. Without
such a programme, those targets will remain elusive in
2015 and beyond. The fiscal policy requirements
attached to the resources made available for developing
countries through institutions like the International
Monetary Fund cannot assist in meeting the MDG
targets in the short run. It is therefore critical that we
reinvigorate the Global Partnership for Development
aligned with MDG 8. Critical also must be the
channelling of resources and the fiscal space to support
programmes for economic empowerment and capacity
building. More concessionary loans and grants and
debt-for-equity swaps should be among the instruments
used.
Jamaica is on track to meet most of the MDGs
despite the economic and financial challenges. Through
assistance from the Global Fund, we have significantly
increased access to antiretroviral drugs and reduced the
rates of HIV/AIDS infection, mother-to-child
transmission and AIDS mortality. At the High-level
Meeting on AIDS held in June, Member States
committed to bold new targets for the AIDS response,
including scaling up investments. As a result of its
reclassification as an upper-middle-income country,
Jamaica will not be eligible to access those funds. This
puts us at risk of reversing the gains made in halting
the spread of HIV. We again urge that the factors used
by the relevant multilateral agencies in the
measurement of a country’s wealth be reviewed, as
their classifications often bear no resemblance to the
realities on the ground. They must more carefully take
into account a country’s indebtedness and capacity to
pay, as well as its fiscal capacity to finance
programmes that are taken for granted in respect of
middle-income countries.
We are pleased that the international community
embraced the proposal made by the Caribbean
Community for United Nations emphasis on
non-communicable diseases (NCDs), the silent killer of
millions around the world. The High-level Meeting on
NCDs last week allowed us for the first time to agree
to measures to significantly reduce NCDs. The political
declaration we adopted (resolution 66/2, annex), while
not as ambitious as Jamaica would have preferred,
provides a good basis to address the prevention and
control of NCDs. We urge the United Nations system
and Member States to expeditiously implement
31 11-51384
measures to achieve the agreed targets and indicators
on NCDs.
The famine in the Horn of Africa, precipitated by
the worst drought in half a century, is of grave concern
to us all. It has heightened our awareness of the
devastating impact of natural disasters on poor
developing countries. We must adopt more concrete
measures on food security, building on the progress
made from the World Summit on Food Security and
working closely with the World Food Programme and
the United Nations Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs to strengthen international
humanitarian response and assistance, particularly in
areas that are prone to disasters and conflicts. The
plight of starving populations, including mothers and
infants in the region, must push us towards the
commitments of the World Food Summit Plan of
Action.
To sustain the global food market and feed our
populations, we have to engage in greater investments
in science and research to boost agricultural
production — especially in poor rural communities —
as well as to offset the effect of drought and famine.
We equally have to increase investment in transport
and agricultural infrastructure to facilitate the storage
of food, its marketing and packaging and its
transportation to marketplaces.
Speculative action in the global market, with the
attendant volatility in commodity prices, has generated
socio-economic tensions in various countries across the
globe. The constant increases in food prices not only
create further strain on the economy and on social
welfare, but also threaten food security and deepen the
economic challenges of countries that are already
striving to recover from the global financial crisis.
Jamaica therefore welcomes the initiative launched by
President Sarkozy of France for the G-20 to give
serious consideration to this question of financial
speculation in the prices of petroleum and food at the
summit to be held in November. This is a burgeoning
crisis, which the United Nations must also take
seriously.
Climate change presents a clear and present
danger to human development, particularly in small
island developing States and least developed States.
Progress was made at the United Nations Climate
Change Conference in Cancún last December, when
common ground was reached between developed and
developing countries on several key issues. We must
now implement and operationalize those decisions. We
remain disappointed at the slow pace of climate change
financing.
The United Nations Climate Change Conference
in Durban in December will provide yet another
opportunity to forge consensus on effective adaptation
and mitigation strategies within the context of an
ambitious post-2012 climate change framework. A
second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol is
essential, and we remain optimistic that at Durban we
will all demonstrate the necessary political will and
seriousness of purpose to achieve that.
At the United Nations we share a common
background in the 1983 World Commission on
Environment and Development and the 1987 report
“Our Common Future” (A/42/427, annex). We share an
awareness that the nations of the world are
interdependent, experience interlocking crises and have
a common but differently shaded responsibility. We
have agreed on the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto
Protocol. We share the conviction that inequality,
poverty and the environment and environmental
degradation are linked and that development and the
environment are inseparable. In the light of that
background, we urge a renewed commitment to the
pursuit of development that is sustainable, through
increased attention to all three pillars of sustainable
development — the environmental, the socio-political
and the economic — and a redoubling of efforts to
integrate sustainable development principles at the
international, regional and, most important, national
levels, and
“meet[ing] the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to
meet their own needs”. (A/42/427, annex,
conclusion, para. 1)
As a small island developing State, we have a
vested interest in the successful outcome of the 2012
United Nations Conference on Sustainable
Development (Rio+20) to review the implementation
of the commitments made 20 years ago at the
Conference in Rio de Janeiro. States and regions are
already assessing the progress that we have made and
the gaps that persist in our efforts to chart a more
sustainable course to development in the period since
the 1992 Conference. Significant gaps that cause
11-51384 32
concern relate to the transfer of technology, capacity-
building and the provision of additional financial
resources for development.
In our efforts to strengthen the international
sustainable development architecture, the emphasis
should be on effectiveness, on the efficacy of
institutions that not only facilitate extensive policy
discussions, but that also move us towards fulfilment
of the ambitious vision that we all embraced in Rio in
1992. We should also aim for institutional flexibility,
which will allow us to address long-standing and
emerging challenges through increased cooperation and
coordination.
Rio+20 will provide us with an excellent
opportunity to renew our commitment to Agenda 21,
the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation and, in
respect of the small island developing States, the
Barbados Programme of Action and the Mauritius
Strategy on its implementation.
As host to the International Seabed Authority,
Jamaica attaches great importance to ocean affairs and
the law of the sea. Next year marks the thirtieth
anniversary of the opening for signature of the United
Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, drawn up in
Montego Bay. We encourage Member States to
appropriately highlight that landmark event at the
international level.
The total elimination of nuclear weapons remains
an important goal for the international community.
While we have taken significant steps towards
achieving that goal, significant challenges remain. A
number of key players remain outside the Treaty on the
Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), and the
Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty has still not
entered into force. As we look towards the start of the
preparatory process for the 2015 NPT Review
Conference, there must be unquestionable political will
to address those lingering deficiencies in our push to
achieve a world free of nuclear weapons.
We must continue to build on the momentum
gained from last year’s special high-level meeting of
the General Assembly on transnational organized
crime, which addressed measures to counter the
growing problem, including narco-trafficking and the
illicit trade in small arms and ammunition.
Jamaica, like its partners in the Caribbean
Community, continues to face severe threats to our
long-term socio-economic development from illicit
trafficking in narcotic drugs, small arms and light
weapons and ammunition. We will remain resolute in
our fight against this menace both locally and abroad.
We have achieved marked reductions in crime and
criminal activities over the past year with our
multifaceted strategy to stem the problems, as well as
through the implementation of social intervention and
social transformation initiatives to stem the problem of
crime and violence. We continue to strengthen the
capacity of our security forces and to improve our
justice system, to ensure that criminals are caught and
prosecuted in a court of law.
We firmly believe, however, that we will not see
the full impact of those efforts without an international
regime that regulates the sale and transfer of
conventional weapons, in particular small arms and
light weapons and their ammunition. To that end,
Jamaica is committed to ensuring that the 2012
Diplomatic Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty
results in a legally binding, comprehensive, objective
and transparent Treaty.
In order for the United Nations to deliver on all
our expectations, its organizational structure must
reflect the geopolitical realities of the twenty-first
century. An effective response to global challenges
requires a reformed and dynamic United Nations.
Reform initiatives, spanning a number of years, have
led to the establishment of UN-Women, the reform and
strengthening of the Economic and Social Council, a
more coordinated and efficient response to
humanitarian crises and a change in the way we
conduct our peacekeeping missions. We must continue
our efforts aimed at revitalizing the General Assembly
so that it can effectively carry out its role and
responsibility as the chief deliberative and
policymaking organ of the United Nations.
A glaring failure has been our inability to agree
on reform of the Security Council to ensure that it is
more democratic, responsive and reflective of today’s
political environment. For more than 15 years, the
debates for comprehensive and lasting reform of the
Council have achieved very little. The African
countries and our Latin American and Caribbean region
still have no permanent seat at the table. That injustice
cannot continue. Comprehensive reform can only be
achieved within the intergovernmental negotiating
process. Anything less will be nothing more than a
continuation of the status quo.
33 11-51384
As we continue to work together to achieve
sustainable development for all, it is imperative that we
exercise the requisite political will and make good on
our commitments to the global development agenda.
The far-reaching effects of the multiple and
interconnected crises of recent years have reinforced
our interdependence and the important role of
economic cooperation and partnerships in securing
global peace and prosperity.
We must redouble our efforts to address the
growing challenges of poverty, food insecurity, the
rising costs of food and energy, and climate change. It
is not good enough to engage in extensive
deliberations, to make commitments and issue
declarations without providing the means for their
implementation, including financing, capacity-building
and technology transfer. We must now go beyond grand
statements if we are to fully realize sustainable
development and rekindle the faith of the people we
serve in the United Nations.