First of all, I have the pleasure of congratulating you,
Sir, on being elected to preside over this session, an
honour falling to a Central American for the second
time in the history of the United Nations. I wish you
every success and commend you once again. I would
also like to express our gratitude for the work done by
Mr. Kerim as President of the previous session. On
behalf of El Salvador, I would also like to congratulate
the Secretary-General for the dynamism and
determination with which he is leading the
Organization.
It seems to me very timely that the central focus
of debate for this session is the impact of the global
food crisis on the issue of poverty and hunger
throughout the world, including the need to
democratize the United Nations. It is increasingly
evident every day that the world is facing a global
crisis that has a negative impact on development
efforts, especially in the poorest countries. Food,
climate, energy and financial problems are aggravating
the already difficult situation of developing countries.
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We are gathered here because we have a duty to
assume the political and moral responsibility to
respond to the problems currently facing the
international community. The world must learn from
both its successes and its failures. We must learn to
face crises collectively and turn them into
opportunities, for no one can solve them alone any
longer.
In order to preserve the progress made in the area
of development, we need to strengthen global
leadership to make it both decisive and accountable. In
the current crisis, there is a danger that we could lose
ground.
The economic and financial system cannot be at
the mercy of markets that operate on speculation.
Together, we must rebuild a wise capitalist system that
provides financing for economic development, rather
than one that rewards speculation.
We must help to prevent and mitigate serious
financial fluctuations. We must balance accounts and
stabilize credit. I agree with the President of the French
Republic that, in order to achieve this, countries
directly affected by the situation must meet as soon as
possible to find joint solutions to what is the most
acute financial crisis the world has experienced in 75
years.
It is undeniable the rise — and above all the
instability — in the price of oil continues to have a
negative impact on development efforts in most
countries in the world, in particular the smallest and
most vulnerable among them.
Here, I would like to reiterate the call I made
from this very rostrum last year (see A/62/PV.6), for
oil-producing countries to seek and implement flexible
mechanisms aimed at ensuring that hydrocarbon prices
do not continue to drastically affect developing
countries. Such mechanisms, of course, should not
ignore the harmful effects of speculation by
intermediaries in the world markets.
If we do not act jointly and immediately, and if,
in this forum, we are not able to come up with a
balanced solution to this problem, we will effectively
condemn oil-importing countries to bankruptcy for
years to come. We have invested in development, and
we have worked as hard as possible to achieve the
MDGs; those successes will be swept aside by the
excessive and crippling prices of oil. We cannot
continue to wait. We must take immediate political
decisions to shore up development and prevent a
deeper crisis in order to preserve global peace, security
and stability.
Faced with the food crisis, which is directly
affecting us all, we support the implementation of the
measures agreed upon during the June 2008 High-
Level Conference on World Food Security: the
Challenges of Climate Change and Bioenergy. We call
for action and assistance, particularly for affected
developing countries.
We would like to congratulate the Group of Eight
(G8) on its decision to support, in the framework of the
United Nations system, the establishment of a world
agriculture and food association, and the identification
of a range of actions to address the food crisis,
including through the participation of major
institutions.
In the face of this tangle of problems that require
creative responses, the countries of the Central
American Integration System (SICA) advocate the
initiative on action under the Staple Grains Plan, which
concentrates in particular on strengthening technical
assistance and public and private assistance and a
programme for financing, land leasing and a temporary
worker programme.
The countries of SICA and Brazil, during
El Salvador’s pro tempore presidency of that
organization, supported the holding of a special session
of the General Assembly on the world food and energy
crisis. As a result, a high-level meeting on food
security was held, beginning on 18 July, in this very
Hall, during which El Salvador explained the actions
that we have undertaken in order to deal with the crisis
in Central America, particularly in the most vulnerable
areas.
In our country, El Salvador, we are responding
with social programmes aimed at reducing extreme
poverty, fighting hunger and infant malnutrition, and
attaining other MDGs. At the next Ibero-American
summit of heads of State or Government, which will be
held in El Salvador, the subject of children under the
age of five will be a matter of priority.
In order to counter the impact of the economic
crisis on Salvadoranian households, we have created a
multidisciplinary commission with broad participation,
which has proposed a series of measures to address
23 08-51839
current effects and promote a social pact of national
solidarity for productivity and employment. Those
solutions involve business people, workers, political
parties and civil society bodies, and the creation of a
committee for the implementation of viable priority
actions.
One of the most successful measures that we have
implemented in El Salvador to prevent a food crisis is
the promotion of improved seed varieties for staple
grains, which has enabled us to achieve record
production this year.
However, I have to tell the Assembly that all the
efforts of solidarity we make as a global forum or as
individual countries require broad participation,
democratic stability, the enjoyment of full individual
liberties, and a genuine sense of social responsibility
on the part of Governments, irrespective of their
ideologies. International cooperation is also important
for strengthening national and regional efforts. That is
why El Salvador has insisted on the issue of
cooperation with middle-income countries.
In October 2007, at San Salvador, we held the
second International Conference on Development
Cooperation with Middle-Income Countries. In August
2008, in Namibia, my country co-chaired the third
Conference on that subject. At that meeting, we agreed
on measures including improving access to markets,
reducing poverty, fulfilling the MDGs, increasing the
competitiveness of our economies and improving our
physical and financial infrastructures.
The problems we face require decisive measures
to be taken. In that respect, I would ask all Member
States to support the fulfilment and implementation of
the commitments agreed upon in the El Salvador
Consensus and the Namibia Declaration, as well as the
consideration of this topic at the Global Conference on
Financing for Development in Doha. Those efforts
should lead to a General Assembly resolution with the
objective of reviewing current practices in the area of
international cooperation.
For middle-income countries, injustice is clearly
to be seen in international cooperation. The
commitment I propose should lead us to swiftly
prepare a multidisciplinary plan of action, global in its
scope, in order to strengthen development cooperation
for middle-income countries. We believe that new
types of development cooperation must also be
included, such as South-South cooperation, triangular
cooperation, the exchange of debt for investment in
social areas, such as health, education and the
environment, as we are already doing with Spain,
France and Germany. All of this could help us to attain
all of the MDGs and to meet other parameters
established by the United Nations.
In my view, it is important that as we seek
solutions to all of those problems, we never abandon
our ongoing efforts to achieve the MDGs. In that
respect, I am very happy to describe some of the
achievements we made during the period from 2001 to
2007.
Extreme poverty at the national level was reduced
from 32.6 per cent in 2001 to 12.8 per cent in 2007.
With regard to education, the net rate of school
enrolment increased from 78 to 93 per cent during that
same period. The percentage of schoolchildren who
enter the first grade of primary school and complete the
fifth grade has increased from 58 to 80 per cent, and
the literacy rate for young people between the ages of
15 and 24 has increased from 85 to 95 per cent. I
would also like to inform you that the Constitution of
El Salvador stipulates that primary education must be
free. With tremendous effort, our Government has
achieved and established free secondary education in
all El Salvador’s public education institutions.
With regard to environmental sustainability, the
percentage of the population without access to drinking
water dropped from 23.9 to 12.1 per cent and without
access to sanitation from 21.9 to 8.1 per cent.
In the fight against HIV/AIDS, I am very pleased
to report on the major efforts that we have undertaken
in El Salvador to help those suffering from
HIV/AIDS — first and foremost, universal free
antiretroviral drugs for all those who need them, with a
great number of decentralized hospitals providing that
treatment. In the last four years, we have managed to
reduce the mortality rate of those with HIV/AIDS by
35 per cent and the number of children born with
HIV/AIDS by 89.14 per cent, falling from 150 to
15 children annually.
With regard to implementing the goals of the
Special Session of the General Assembly on Children
in 2002, contained in the Plan of Action Creating a
World Fit for Children (A/S-27/19/Rev.1), I am pleased
to report the progress El Salvador has made. We have
achieved 15 of the 35 goals, particularly in the
reduction of extreme poverty, immunization, infant and
08-51839 24
maternal mortality and education of children and
adolescents.
Programmes such as the Solidarity Network,
which maps poverty in order to identify extreme
poverty, Alliance with the Family with 19 measures to
help the family purse, Solidarity Fund for Health and
healthy schools have been key to those successes. I
must underline that we have achieved some of the
targets established under the Millennium Development
Goals before the 2015 deadline, in particular
concerning poverty reduction, gender equality and
access to drinking water. That is why we support the
initiative of the Secretary-General to hold a summit in
2010 to review the progress made in implementing the
Goals.
With regard to existing regional asymmetries, and
even more those between developed and
underdeveloped countries, and the role the United
Nations should play regarding sustainable
development, the Member States need a modern, strong
global Organization with institutions able effectively to
face the new challenges of the current international
situation.
To that end, El Salvador would like to reiterate its
resolute support for the United Nations reform process,
so that the purposes and principles for which the
Organization was created in 1945 can be fulfilled,
particularly today when we are facing global threats
against peace, security, human rights and international
cooperation — fundamental pillars of development.
Security Council reform is particularly important
as part of that effort, and in that respect, we would like
to stress the need to bring changes to make that
institution more representative, democratic and
transparent, so as to adapt it to the current international
situation.
From this rostrum, I should like to reiterate once
again our profound appreciation to the United Nations
system for supporting the process of coordinating and
reinforcing the peace agreements in El Salvador.
Today, El Salvador is a model. We are living witnesses
of the fundamental role of the United Nations in
guaranteeing peace and stability.
Mindful of our experience, El Salvador is
participating actively as Vice-Chair of the
Peacebuilding Commission. Similarly, we have become
a troop-contributing country within the United Nations
system, a role that we are proud to assume to defend
world peace and security in times of need. On that
basis, we have participated and continue to take part in
operations in Côte d’Ivoire, Western Sahara, Liberia,
Iraq and Haiti, and recently, we joined the Spanish
contingent in the United Nations Interim Force in
Lebanon.
Migration, particularly when undocumented, has
increasingly become a source of differences, instability
and conflict. As a country of origin, transit and
destination for migratory flows, we appeal for the
continued strengthening of actions to combat and
prevent the illegal trafficking of migrants and trade in
persons in all their forms and for guaranteeing full
protection and support for the victims of those crimes,
particularly women and children.
While respecting the sovereign rights of States
with regard to their immigration policies, we call for a
comprehensive approach to international migration that
values the positive contributions made by immigrants
to the economy and culture of the communities where
they live, and favours schemes in support of controlled
migration, including temporary work programmes. I
should like to point out that, in the United States alone,
around 12 million undocumented migrants reside,
awaiting humane and comprehensive immigration
reform. They are good, hard-working people, who have
sacrificed their lives to support their families.
Another subject on which we must try to achieve
consensus is climate change and global warming. I
would like to stress that our country is meeting its
commitment to support international efforts to address
the effects of climate change.
In that regard, El Salvador is actively
participating in the international negotiations aimed at
creating an instrument that will complement the Kyoto
Protocol on the emission of greenhouse gases after
2012, and awaits the and successful conclusion of
those negotiations in 2009 at the conference in
Copenhagen, Denmark.
In the context of Central America, on 28 May
2008, the Presidents of the countries in the region
adopted, at the invitation of my colleague and friend
President Manuel José Zelaya Rosales of Honduras, the
Declaration of San Pedro Sula on climate change and
the environment, which set out guidelines for tackling
the serious problems arising from climate change. In
El Salvador, recently we launched the innovative
25 08-51839
project Green Network, which seeks to involve
Government and private institutions and the Ministries
of the Environment and of Education in the protection
of the environment through the implementation of
programmes to improve social and environmental
conditions for the most vulnerable.
That initiative has encouraged participation in
areas such as water security, judicious use of timber to
protect the forests, recycling in schools, energy saving
and responsible environmental business policies.
As the emissary of a nation that lives in
democracy and peace, respecting human rights and
fundamental freedoms, I should like to reiterate once
again, on behalf of El Salvador, our firm support for
the aspirations of the people of the Republic of China
in Taiwan to participate in the international
institutional structure, particularly in the United
Nations system. We support the initiative to examine
the participation of that country in the specialized
agencies of the United Nations, with particular
emphasis on the fact that the people of that country
cannot and should not remain isolated from the
international community and could contribute
experience, resources and knowledge to deal with the
challenges that we all face.
I also wish to refer to the case of Palestine.
Palestine should have its own State, as does Israel, with
secure borders. I think that the United Nations should
play a greater and more active role in ensuring that the
Palestinian people have their own territory and that the
territory of Israel is also respected through secure
borders.
This is the fifth time during my administration
that the Government of El Salvador has been
represented at the highest level in this important forum,
which is the universal and most democratic body in our
Organization. My presence in the General Assembly
and in other high-level meetings to discuss matters of
global interest constitutes an unequivocal
demonstration of the importance and relevance we all
attach to the work of the United Nations.
I would like to finalize my intervention as the
President of El Salvador in this forum. I hope that the
Organization will be strengthened on the basis of
understanding, solidarity and the political will of all of
its Members. I am absolutely convinced that if we
combine our wills, our abilities and our resources, we
will be able to steer the United Nations so that it may
effectively fulfil its role of promoting peace, security,
justice and sustainable development.
Despite the problems in the world, I am an
eternal optimist. Problems always have solutions, and
it is easier to find those solutions together. We must
promote tolerance and human dignity. There is no
greater bastion for peace and brotherhood than
understanding and respect for our diversity, our beliefs
and our fundamental values, if we are to live together
peacefully and with solidarity between nations.
I also wish to state today, within this global
forum, that the Central America of 20 years ago has
disappeared, that the world’s image of it is mistaken.
The Central American countries and the Central
American Integration System — SICA — are working
well. Integration is accelerating. Over the last three
years we have made more progress in Central
American integration than we have made over the last
fifty years.
Central America has taken valiant, bold
decisions, among them the customs union. Guatemala,
El Salvador and Honduras will be making progress in
the next few weeks in the area of customs — free
movement of people and goods in a Central America of
40 million people living in an atmosphere of peace and
tranquility, with the normal problems of any country,
but with many exchanges and closer contacts between
leaders.
Thanks to all, and may the supreme Creator guide
us towards those great goals. May God bless our
Organization, the whole world and Central America,
and may God bless the Earth to which El Salvador
belongs.