At the outset, on behalf of His Excellency El
Hadj Omar Bongo Ondimba, President of the Gabonese
Republic and head of State, whom I have the honour to
represent here, I should like to sincerely congratulate
you, Sir, on your election as President of the General
Assembly at its sixty-third session. You can be assured
of our full and entire readiness to cooperate to ensure
the success of your weighty mission. It is also my
pleasure to pay a well-deserved tribute to your
predecessor, His Excellency Mr. Srgjan Kerim, for the
talent and dedication that he showed in guiding our
work throughout the sixty-second session. Finally, to
His Excellency Mr. Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of
the United Nations, I express my encouragement as he
carries out his lofty duties at the head of our
Organization.
The food crisis that is currently raging is
characterized by rising prices for foodstuffs. Its causes
are both structural and immediate. Indeed, the
predominance of biofuel crops over subsistence crops
and the implementation of trade policies based on
subsidies and export restrictions have a disastrous
35 08-51570
impact on food security. The food riots of the second
half of 2008, which have taken place throughout the
world — particularly in Africa — in response to
soaring food prices, reflect a major crisis and express
the increased difficulties faced by hundreds of millions
of people in feeding themselves.
One hardly need repeat the words said by
Mr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali when, in November 1999,
he addressed the thirtieth session of the Conference of
the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United
Nations (FAO): “Hunger is as unacceptable as war.” It
is therefore urgent that we make a lasting response to
the food crisis by taking collective action at the global
level to halt it and ensure food security for our most
vulnerable populations.
Here, I should like to commend the adoption, on
5 June 2008, of the Declaration of the High-level
Conference on World Food Security by heads of State
or Government meeting in Rome. Likewise, at the
regional level, we welcome the conclusions of the
regional meeting on the food crisis held on 29 July
2008 in Kinshasa under the auspices of the Economic
Community of Central African States. At the
continental level, we call for the effective
implementation of the July 2003 Maputo Declaration,
which sets out a framework for accelerating
agricultural development and food security; the 2006
Abuja Declaration, which advocates a green revolution
in Africa; and, more recently, the Sharm el-Sheikh
Declaration on the challenges of the increase in food
prices and agricultural development.
It is in that contact that Gabon, like other
countries of the South hit by this crisis, has taken
urgent fiscal and budgetary measures supported by a
six-month suspension of import duties and taxes on
consumer products and a suspension of the value-added
tax on such products, causing a substantial loss in
terms of the State budget.
In addition, from a medium- and long-term
perspective, Gabon is working together with
international partners, in particular FAO and the United
Nations Development Programme (UNDP), to
implement its national poverty reduction strategy and
its special food security programme. The latter
incorporates aspects related to water management,
intensifying vegetable production and diversifying and
increasing agricultural production. We are prepared to
go even further, because we must banish the spectre of
hunger and malnutrition once and for all. The
achievement of Millennium Development Goal 1
depends on that.
Furthermore, the food crisis poses the problem of
the role and place of agriculture in our economies.
Rather than making us overly concerned, it should lead
us to rethink that sector in order to increase its
contribution to the development of our countries.
The challenge of feeding a planet with a growing
population is closely linked to the environmental issue
and to climate change. Environmental degradation is
characterized by the degradation of natural resources,
including the growing water shortage, the increase in
arid lands, deforestation and the effects of global
warming. All these elements prevent an increase in
agricultural production that could contribute to a lasting
solution to the food crisis. Thus, we must do our utmost
to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
That is why my country welcomes the road map
adopted during the negotiations held in Bali, as the
outcome of the thirteenth session of the Conference of
the Parties to the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change. The road map is an
important step towards the formulation of a follow-up
to the Kyoto Protocol, which is set to expire in 2012.
Here I should like to commend the recent efforts made
by the industrialized countries at the Group of Eight
(G-8) summit held in Hokkaido, Japan, in July 2008, at
which they once again reaffirmed their will to halve
their greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
For its part, my country, Gabon, whose forests are
one of the components of the important Congo
Basin — the planet’s second ecological lung, after the
Amazon — has acceded without reservation to the
conventions related to the fight against climate change
and the preservation of biodiversity. Indeed, we have
decided to shoulder our share of the responsibility by
devoting 11 per cent of our territory to humankind
through, inter alia, the establishment of 13 national
parks. Naturally, those efforts require others, in
particular the admission of our forests into the carbon-
trading mechanisms and the granting of compensatory
measures to African countries by industrialized
countries, which are the primary emitters of carbon
dioxide.
Developing countries need the international
community’s ongoing and substantial support to meet
the new challenges that they face. It is thus urgent that
08-51570 36
all development partners keep their promises, in
particular by doubling official development assistance,
introducing innovative development financing methods
and cancelling debt, whose burden undermines our
development efforts.
This appeal also has to do with the varying
constraints that weigh on developing countries,
particularly HIV/AIDS pandemic, malaria and other
infectious diseases that impact their populations and
their economies. In fact, with regard to HIV/AIDS, the
efforts of African countries to provide universal access
to prevention, care and treatment by 2010 do not appear
to be sufficient to eradicate that modern-day scourge.
The interdependence of the threats confronting
the international community highlights more than ever
the need to provide a new impetus to the efforts to
promote solidarity and international peace and security.
In a number of regions around the world, tensions and
deep crises maintain instability and insecurity, thereby
inhibiting any chance for development.
Specifically with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, we can never emphasize enough that only
concerted and thorough efforts based on the principle
of two States — Israel and Palestine — living in peace
and security within secure and internationally
recognized borders will make it possible to bring about
a lasting, just and equitable solution to that conflict.
In Africa as well there are many hotspots of
tension that continue to be concern. That is the case
with respect to Somalia, where the instability that has
prevailed for more than 15 years undermines any
fledgling development. Still, we should commend the
recent efforts to promote a political process that would
be open to all in that country, in particular reaching the
agreement signed on 9 June 2008 in Djibouti between
the Federal Transition Government and the Alliance for
the Reliberation of Somalia under the auspices of the
United Nations, with the support of the African Union.
One hopes that that event, which is a true opportunity
towards a lasting settlement of that conflict, will lead
to the deployment of a United Nations peacekeeping
operation that could help end the chaos that has
prevailed in that country since 1990.
The overall security situation in Darfur also
continues to be a source of great concern for the
international community. One should, however,
commend and encourage the tenacious efforts
undertaken in the joint mediation of the African Union
and the United Nations in carrying out an inclusive
process that would lead to a settlement to the conflict
in Darfur, which has lasted for a number of years.
The situation between Chad and the Sudan has
sparked genuine hope, due to the resumption of dialogue
between those two States within the framework of the
various agreements that they have signed, particularly
the Dakar Agreement of 13 March 2008.
With respect to Central African Republic, we can
only commend the meaningful progress made within
the framework of the preparations for an inclusive
political dialogue since the first meeting of the follow-
up committee on peace talks. We encourage the United
Nations and international partners to commit further in
rebuilding that fraternal country.
Lastly, with respect to Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon
welcomes the progress made in the implementation of
the Ouagadougou Agreement and its additional
agreements. We appeal to the various partners of that
fraternal country to support those efforts.
The myriad challenges we have just addressed
can be dealt with only through collective actions at the
global level. That is why the heads of State and
Government recognized in the Millennium Declaration
and reaffirmed in the Outcome Document of the 2005
World Summit the need to strengthen the United
Nations in order to make it a tool that would allow
them to better achieve their priority goals. That is why
my country welcomes the fact that since the 2005
World Summit, most of the major recommendations in
the Outcome Document have been implemented in the
framework of the process of reform of the United
Nations. The establishment of two major bodies — the
Peacebuilding Commission and the Human Rights
Council, which have been operational since June
2006 — is a perfect demonstration of this.
Bolstered by the major progress made, we need to
continue our efforts over the coming sessions to
complete the reform process. For example, we need to
complete the revitalization of the General Assembly,
the Organization’s most representative deliberative
body. Similarly, consistency in the actions of the
United Nations bodies should be reinforced. From that
standpoint, I wish to commend the Delivering as One
initiative, which has had encouraging results in the
pilot countries.
37 08-51570
Regarding reform in the Security Council, we
need to commend the tireless efforts of the different
Presidents of the General Assembly, which have made
it possible to complete the process of consultations that
should lead to the beginning of intergovernmental
negotiations by 31 January 2009, at the latest. The
building of a more just and secure world that would
meet the deep aspirations of our peoples depends on
that.