I have the privilege and signal honour, on behalf of Mr. Patrice Talon, President of the Republic of Benin, who is unable to be here today, to deliver this statement, as follows:
“At the beginning of my remarks, I would like to extend to Mr. Csaba Korosi my warm congratulations on his outstanding election as President of the General Assembly at its seventy-seventh session.
“I would also like to extend my congratulations to his predecessor, His Excellency Mr. Abdulla Shahid, and his team for their remarkable work, carried out with competence and dedication, during their mandate, which deserves to be commended.
“Finally, I pay a warm tribute to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, with all my appreciation for the commendable efforts that he continues to deploy, alongside the Members, for the achievement of the noble objectives of our common Organization.
“The theme around which we gather this year, A watershed moment: transformative solutions to interlocking challenges’, is a pressing call to action. Indeed, this session is being held in a difficult international context, marked by the combined consequences of the coronavirus disease pandemic and the war in Ukraine, with their economic, political and social impacts on the whole world.
“In terms of peace and security, the first pillar of United Nations action and at the global level, action on our part, in the opinion of my delegation and in accordance with the position clearly expressed by the African Union, calls for imperative respect for international law and the territorial integrity and national sovereignty of Ukraine. We therefore urge the parties to the conflict to establish an immediate ceasefire and to open political negotiations without delay in order to save the world from the consequences of a planetary conflict.
“At the regional level, in this case in the area of West Africa to which Benin belongs, peace and security are threatened by the combined effects of the terrorist threat, on the one hand, and of maritime piracy, on the other, which constitute major obstacles to the free movement of persons and goods, as well as to the development of the nations concerned. Those obstacles, far from being purely regional issues, constitute a global threat and call for an immediate, coherent and integrated response from the community of nations.
“In terms of development, the second pillar of United Nations action, the time for diagnosis is long past, since we have already adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, whose articulations offer us a real plan of action for humankind and the planet in the immediate future and for posterity, in a more forward-looking approach.
“Aware of its own responsibilities, Africa, through the formulation and launch of a transformative vision for the continent, ‘The Africa We Want’, embodied by the African Union Agenda 2063, is resolutely committed to its economic integration and the acceleration of its industrialization, with added value and increased integration into global value chains. This means that the issue of Africa’s development, as one of the eight major priorities of the United Nations, must continue to be the subject of fruitful reflection, as was the case in July at the High-level Dialogue on Africa, organized jointly by the General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council.
“However, in this decade of action, it is urgent that concrete and bold actions accompany the reflections so that solutions can be found to the concerns of the African continent. Benin, for its part, is resolutely committed to ensuring a common social minimum for all by tirelessly investing in the satisfaction of the vital needs of all its citizens, which are to dress decently, to eat properly, to be housed with dignity, to enjoy proper health care and to be educated in an appropriate way.
“To that end, and in addition to courageous reforms in terms of good governance and optimal mobilization of internal financial resources, the Government of Benin is investing in finding innovative sources for mobilizing the funds necessary for its development, through the successful issuance of special Sustainable Development Goals Euro bonds, for example. It is urgent that robust and appropriate support be provided to our countries, in support of their efforts, in order to consolidate and sustain the gains made, on the one hand, and to effectively meet the pending challenges, on the other.
“Development, if it is to be sustainable, requires, in addition to its economic and social components, an environmental component without which it cannot exist. That is why it is more than ever time to pursue our joint efforts to deal appropriately with the problem of climate change, which poses a real existential threat for Benin, due to the combined effects of desertification in the north, coastal erosion and the ongoing salinization of fresh water in the south, and the increasingly accentuated disruption of the cycle of the seasons throughout the national territory. In that context, Benin has great hopes for the twenty-seventh Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which will take place in November in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, and calls on the entire community of nations to hold fruitful discussions and achieve results that are commensurate with the stakes before and the restoration of hope.
“With regard to the promotion and protection of human rights, Benin, at the international level and thanks to the start this year of its mandate as a member of the Human Rights Council, contributes and will continue to contribute to actively promote and facilitate all initiatives contributing to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, which is the most concrete way to guarantee respect for the rights of the human person.
“At the national level, Benin, among other actions, is investing in the mobilization, through various strategies, of resources to give the most vulnerable populations access to an adequate food system, high-quality education, health care that protects everyone, including the poorest, drinking water, electricity and clean energy.
“Faced with the multiple challenges that challenge us, the time is more than ever ripe for the need to preserve and even strengthen multilateralism and make it truly inclusive and based on rules that are fair and valid for all, as a crucible for reflection and action to provide viable and comprehensive solutions. In this context, Benin fully supports ongoing diplomatic initiatives within the United Nations to find peaceful, lasting and equitable solutions to the question of the creation of a viable Palestinian State endowed with the attributes of full international sovereignty and living in peaceful coexistence with the State of Israel; to efforts to find a definitive solution to the question of Western Sahara, capitalizing on the achievements of the political process, under the auspices of the Secretary-General, which is aimed at reaching a compromise solution, in the framework of the implementation of relevant Security Council resolutions; and to the question of the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed on Cuba, concerning which Benin associates itself with the declarations of the relevant summits of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, on the one hand, and with the resolution adopted at the thirty-fifth ordinary session of the African Union, held in February in Addis Ababa, on the other, to appeal to the need to end the said blockade in the name of the promotion of peace and development. Better still, we call for the normalization of relations between Cuba and the United States of America, which are two partners dear to Benin.
“As the Secretary-General underlines in his report entitled Our Common Agenda (A/75/982), the history of humankind, ancient and recent, demonstrates that it is capable of great things when it acts united and that we are now more than ever called upon to make a fateful choice between remaining passive and promoting the continuation of the ongoing disintegration, or acting resolutely to build a better, greener and safer future. I remain convinced that we will hear the voice of reason in favour of action for a better world.
“The theme of this session is fully relevant at a time rightly described as “decisive”, it invites us to find transformative solutions, in the face of interlocking challenges. That will be possible only through the engagement of multidimensional partnerships involving Governments, multilateral organizations, the private sector and civil society, with the common goal, in a spirit of shared responsibility, of taking bold action for the diligent implementation of existing agreements, in particular the effective achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.
“It is therefore with this call to responsible action, and with faith in our ability to work together to meet the challenges before us, that I wish full success to the work of the seventy-seventh session of General Assembly, pledging the readiness of my delegation to spare no effort to follow up, jointly with other members, on the commitments made in the context of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.
“Long live more solid, more inclusive and more coherent multilateral cooperation in the service of sustainable development!”