First, I
sincerely congratulate Mr. Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann
on his election as President of the General Assembly at
its sixty-third session. The role played by his country,
Nicaragua, in pursuing the purposes of the United
Nations and his long and distinguished career as a
diplomat have been recognized by his election. I assure
him of my country’s support and my own support as he
carries out his difficult and noble mission.
I also pay Mr. Srgjan Kerim, who presided over
the sixty-second session, a well deserved tribute for the
excellent work he did throughout his term in office.
I wish to express words of encouragement to the
Secretary-General, Mr Ban Ki-moon, for the important
direction he has given our Organization since taking up
his duties.
My country, the Central African Republic, has
since 1996 experienced domestic instability fuelled by
the effects of numerous conflicts in neighbouring
territories. The Darfur crisis and the constant
incursions of irregular armed bands in the north-east
and north-west and of the Lord’s Resistance Army on
the southern frontier, bordering on the Sudan and the
Democratic Republic of the Congo, have been
accompanied by plunder, rape, deportation and the
conscription of children under the age of 10.
The use of that part of the Central African
Republic territory as a rear base for non-State armed
elements represents a danger of the same type as those
that led to Security Council resolution 1778 (2007).
I welcome the mandate given to the United
Nations Mission in the Central African Republic and
Chad (MINURCAT) as part of a multidimensional
operation to restore the safety and security conditions
needed for a voluntary and lasting return of refugees
and persons displaced by the conflicts in that area of
the three frontiers that straddle the Central African
Republic, Chad and the Sudan.
However, with the mandate of the European
Union Force (EUFOR) ending in March 2009, and
because of the fragility of the situation in the north-east
and growing insecurity in the south-east, it is highly
desirable that MINURCAT’s mission be revised and
enlarged. We earnestly hope that it will go beyond its
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current framework to become an operational force of
the United Nations, and that cooperation between
MINURCAT and the other forces involved at the
regional and community levels will continue.
Referring to the situation in my country gives me
the opportunity to emphasize that the recurrent
political and military crises have further increased
poverty and food insecurity, particularly in the rural
and agricultural areas.
A suggested theme for this year’s general
debate — the impact of the world food crisis on
poverty and hunger throughout the world — in addition
to the need to democratize the United Nations, is at the
heart of the international community’s concerns, and
has been for some decades. The first matter involves
the following questions: climate conditions,
demographic problems, indebtedness, free and
equitable trade, redirecting the agricultural sector
towards biofuels, the price of oil and armed conflicts.
In the current context of world trade and the
world economy, there is a tendency for natural
disasters and armed conflicts, because of their effect on
socio-economic structures, to accentuate the impact of
the food crisis on developing countries.
For the Central African Republic, the food crisis
can be seen as somewhat paradoxical, in view of our
natural potential. The climate throughout the country is
favourable to pluvial agriculture, with an enviable
annual rainfall of 800 millimetres in the extreme north
and more than 1,500 millimetres in the south, and an
availability of fresh water estimated at 37,000 cubic
metres per inhabitant.
Of more than 15 million hectares of arable land, only
600,000 to 700,000 are cultivated. That is 1 per cent of our
national territory and 4.4 per cent of the total arable
area. Less than 0.5 million hectares are being actively
exploited by agricultural workers.
Stock-raising land represents 9.3 million hectares
out of a total of 16 million, with livestock totalling
about 3.2 million head of tropical breeds.
The challenges to be overcome are the insecurity
of rural areas, the disorganization of agricultural
producers, the low degree of support for the rural
community, the fact of being landlocked, the lack of
basic economic and social infrastructures, the exodus
from the countryside and the impact of HIV/AIDS and
malaria, which have reduced the labour force and
resulted in limited access to credit and fostered social
discrimination.
One of the Millennium Development Goals is to
halve, between 1996 and 2015, the number of those
suffering from hunger, and to halve, between 1990 and
2015, the degree of poverty.
There are a number of causes of the problems:
so-called natural causes and human causes. The natural
causes result from natural disasters: drought,
desertification, degradation of the environment and
floods, resulting in the erosion of arable land. Human
causes are regarded as having been responsible for
more than 35 per cent of the food emergencies in 2004,
compared with only 15 per cent in 1992. Wars and
economic and social upheaval have caused or worsened
the food situation.
The General Assembly is the appropriate forum
in which to raise and debate the problems confronting
our world today. That is what is expected of us in the
Assembly.
There is no human endeavour that will not
respond to application. Therefore, it is possible to meet
the challenge of the food crisis. But our weakness is
above all our lack of the technical, economic and
structural capacity to create the conditions for
agricultural production and productivity.
I welcome the measures taken in June this year at
the World Food Summit of the Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations (FAO), held in
Rome, on the food crisis. The initiative on the upswing
in the price of foodstuffs should mainly be based on
stimulating food production in our countries. For that,
we look forward to implementation of the International
Monetary Fund proposal to double its aid to agriculture
on the African continent, in the hope of strengthening
the productive capacity of our farmers and creating the
structural conditions for the production and marketing
of agricultural goods.
As part of regional talks on the food crisis, held
in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
on 29 July this year, under the aegis of the Economic
Community of Central African States (ECCAS), it was
agreed to make effective the Maputo Declaration and
the Abuja Declaration on, respectively, allocating
10 per cent of our national budget to agriculture and
assuring our countries better access to resources for
agriculture.
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We have also given ECCAS a mandate to, among
other actions, accelerate implementation of a common
agricultural policy. Relaunching the agricultural sector
is one of the priorities of my mandate as President of
the Central African Economic and Monetary
Community (CEMAC). At the Yaoundé summit in June
this year we decided to put that concern at the centre of
the regional economic programme.
None of these good resolutions can become
reality for our farmers unless the support promised to
them actually reaches them. Particularly in Central
Africa, if these promises are kept they will speed up
the putting into place of regional focal points for
development that will help to reduce the shortfalls in
agricultural activity and the disparities between rural
and urban areas.
Food security has become a matter of concern for
the world. Hunger continues to be the worst weapon of
mass destruction. The social crises seen in many places
result from the realization that food insecurity is
worsening with the rising cost of living and other
uncertainties, such as climate change and natural
disasters.
In Central Africa, because of the destructive
action of irregular military rebel groups, many
manipulated from outside, food insecurity, particularly
in rural areas, is often provoked by lack of security.
That led the Government to organize, in April this year,
a national seminar on reforming the security sector,
which was an important step towards peace.
In the light of this, the process of inclusive
political dialogue, which I have pledged to carry
through to its conclusion, should be seen by all Central
Africans as a categorical imperative.
Today, millions of people throughout the world
are increasingly losing their means of subsistence
because of the impact of food insecurity and of the
steep rise in oil prices on the world economy, with
unprecedented consequences for world order and
peace.
Hunger, the environment, corruption and civil
and ethnic conflicts are a burden for the most
impoverished peoples on earth.
Other threats, such as terrorism, poverty and
misgovernment, also contribute to making the world
even more vulnerable, and demand from us responses
and methods that will bring about a lasting solution.
In this age of interdependence of States, the
prime solution and imperative need seems to be a
collective decision-making forum and an instrument
for rapid action. That was the vision of the founders of
our Organization in 1945.
But we must recognize today that the various
institutions that make up the United Nations have their
limitations, and we must agree on the need for reform
to make the Organization much more effective in order
to achieve the Millennium Development Goals and
seek the kind of peace that meets the current situation.
My country is convinced of the importance of
genuine democratization of the United Nations system.
In that connection, particular attention should be given
to the functioning of the Security Council, the
Economic and Social Council, the Bretton Woods
institutions and the General Assembly. If together we
take courageous decisions to implement this ambitious
project, we shall give the world an ideal structure that
can tackle all international questions. This is an
opportunity to build a world that is more secure, more
equitable, more balanced and freer for all peoples.