I am highly honoured to participate in this seventy- seventh session of the General Assembly on behalf of His Excellency Mr. Filipe Jacinto Nyusi, President of the Republic of Mozambique, who, for agenda reasons, cannot be present.
I would like to congratulate Your Excellency, Ambassador Csaba Korosi, upon your election as President of the General Assembly at its current session. I wish you great success in your mission. Let me also commend the work done by your predecessor, His Excellency Mr. Abdulla Shahid. Under his presidency, we strengthened multilateral mechanisms in support of Member States to address global challenges such as coronavirus disease (COVID-19) .
To His Excellency Secretary-General Antonio Guterres go our words of appreciation for the wise manner in which he has led the work of our Organization.
Allow me also, on behalf of the Mozambican people, to thank all United Nations Member States for the support that contributed to the election of Mozambique as a non-permanent member of the Security Council for the term 2023-2024. We acknowledge that election with a great sense of responsibility. Based on the motto of our candidacy, “International peace and security and sustainable development”, we will advocate for dialogue, the peaceful resolution of conflicts, the promotion of peace, the fight against terrorism and the role of multilateralism as an important tool to address the challenges facing the world.
The theme of the current session of the General Assembly reveals that the world is living through adverse and challenging times, characterized by a multiplicity of interlinked crises. Among those, we can highlight COVID-19, climate change and humanitarian crises, with their negative effects on the global economy.
The emergence of new outbreaks of internal tensions and inter-State conflicts, terrorism and international organized crime is negatively affecting the economic and social development of our countries. These are aggravating the food, energy and humanitarian crises and hampering the functioning of the supply chain in international markets. That is why Mozambique advocates for the need for constructive dialogue and concerted multilateral action, which are the only avenues for the preservation of peace and the continued promotion of the sustainable development of our countries.
For Mozambique, the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will guide us in the search for collective solutions to the problems of this era of change, which is also the theme of this session. In our own experience, the incorporation of the SDGs into the priorities and pillars of our governance programme has had significant positive results for household incomes and the fight against poverty; agricultural productivity and the development of the entire value chain; the supply of drinking water to the population, in particular in rural areas; the number of people with access to electricity; enrolment in primary, secondary, technical-professional and higher education schools; the rates of access and retention of girls in school, particularly in rural areas; and primary health care and vaccination programmes for children, as well as maternal and child health care.
Equally noteworthy is the expansion of services in the administration of justice, ensuring improved access to justice for citizens. We have also been promoting actions in the area of the blue economy, as well as in the protection and conservation of the environment and ecosystems. However, our experience also shows that we need to rethink the multilateral institutional financing model, which will allow more resources to be mobilized to complement internal efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.
In the context of the prevention and combat of COVID-19, the Government of Mozambique has adopted a set of measures to contain the spread of the pandemic in order to ensure a balance between saving human lives and keeping the economy running. Among these measures, we have undertaken massive vaccination campaigns against the disease; 96.6 per cent of Mozambican citizens over 18 years of age have been vaccinated to date.
Each of our countries has lessons to draw from the fight against and prevention of COVID-19. I highlight the need for national health systems to be prepared to respond to health crises, which requires the provision of and universal access to medical equipment and the means necessary for prevention and treatment; funding to effectively respond to public health emergencies; the strengthening of education and the training of health professionals; the strengthening of bilateral and multilateral cooperation; and greater interaction and dialogue between public and private actors, to respond more effectively to crises with global impact.
Climate change has made Mozambique permanently vigilant. In recent times, our country has been cyclically and intensively affected by depressions, tropical cyclones, rains and strong winds, floods and droughts that have caused the loss of human life, the displacement of persons and extensive damage to infrastructure and socioeconomic activities. Between 2019 and 2022 alone, Mozambique was hit by Cyclones Idai, Kenneth, Guambe, Chalane, Ana and Gombe.
In order to respond to challenges related to the reduction and risk management of natural disasters, in 2021 Mozambique, in coordination with the countries of southern Africa and cooperation partners, established, in Nacala-Porto, in the north of the country, the Humanitarian and Emergency Operations Centre of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). The Centre is aimed at providing SADC countries with tools and institutions capable of responding to and mitigating the impacts of climate change and other emergencies requiring rapid, coordinated and timely intervention in any member State.
Mozambique is committed to continuing to strengthen climate security, including through advocacy and the dissemination of good environmental protection practices, management and risk reduction of natural disasters. These actions reinforce the role that His Excellency Mr. Filipe Jacinto Nyusi, President of the Republic of Mozambique, has been playing in his capacity as the African Union Champion for Disaster Risk Management in Africa. In that vein, we call on the international community to join in our efforts so that we can continue to build resilience and adaptation capacity to address the effects of climate change, in line with the commitments made in the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030.
With regard to the consolidation of national peace and reconciliation, Mozambique has made remarkable progress in the process of the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) of former Resistencia Nacional Mogambicana (RENAMO) guerrillas. To date, 4,002 former RENAMO guerrillas, out of a total of 5,221, have been covered by this process. We foresee the conclusion of the DDR process by the end of this year, which will be an important milestone in the implementation of the Accord for National Peace and Reconciliation signed on 6 August 2019 between the Government of Mozambique and RENAMO. With the completion of this stage, we will focus on long-term reintegration and more effective reconciliation, which are crucial to ensuring the sustainability of the peace process and the consolidation of national unity. The remarkable progress we are making in DDR is due to the valuable assistance and support of the United Nations and the Contact Group.
In order to prevent terrorist activity in some districts of Cabo Delgado province, the Government has adopted a comprehensive approach that includes strengthening the operational capacity of the Defence and Security Forces, stabilizing security and creating conditions that will enable recovery, reconstruction and socioeconomic development, so that we can reduce the vulnerability of communities to violent extremism. Thanks to the actions undertaken by Mozambique, combined with the support and assistance of multilateral and bilateral cooperation partners, including SADC, the European Union and Rwanda, we have made progress in combating terrorism.
Mozambique’s approach is a pioneering one in terms of concerted regional action to address the global threat of terrorism. The ongoing actions on the ground are enabling the re-establishment of security and, consequently, the gradual return of the people to their areas of origin and the resumption of economic and social activity in the regions previously affected by terrorist actions, through the implementation of the Cabo Delgado reconstruction programme. I therefore wish to express our appreciation to all those who, directly or indirectly, have supported Mozambique in the prevention of and combat against terrorism by providing humanitarian assistance and rebuilding the economic and social fabric of the affected areas.
At the service of the Security Council as a non-permanent member, I reaffirm Mozambique’s commitment to the principles and objectives of the United Nations. We will listen to and work in close collaboration and coordination with all Member States.