At the outset, allow me to address Mr. Korosi, Director of Environmental Sustainability at the Office of the President of Hungary. His election as President of the General Assembly at its seventy-seventh session sends a clear message about the road mapped out for us by this annual meeting of the United Nations. I offer him my sincere congratulations. I would also like to warmly commend the Secretary-General for his ongoing commitment and dedication at the helm of the United Nations.
On behalf of the people of Madagascar, I would also like to take the opportunity provided by this forum to reiterate our deepest condolences to the British people. Queen Elizabeth II inspired several generations in her country and all over the world. I also want to congratulate His Majesty King Charles III and wish him good health and a blessed reign.
The annual meeting of the General Assembly is always an opportunity to highlight the aspiration that unites us, that is, universal peace. Now that we have learned to live with the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), which we have discussed at length over the past two years, we are still facing the consequences of the crisis, despite everything. It has shown us that it is at the most difficult times that we realize the importance of solidarity among nations. The theme of this session, “A watershed moment: transformative solutions to interlocking challenges”, is very apt. It gives us new hope, reassures us and gives us new hope that we can advance together along the path of development. When we had to tackle the health crisis, we chose to put our trust in our scientists and in the wealth of Earth’s natural resources. The establishment of the Pharmalagasy pharmaceutical plant, at the height of the health crisis, demonstrated that we could turn difficulties into opportunities in order to exploit our biodiversity and thereby protect our population. While we predicted the apocalypse for Africa, Madagascar’s infection and death rates are among the lowest in the world. We have been classified as a green zone, meaning a country with low risks of infection. At the moment no PCR tests or health certificates are required to enter Madagascar. We beat the statistics and emerged from the crisis stronger, and above all, more committed to ensuring our country’s development.
The world was just beginning to recover from the pandemic when new crises emerged. No country was spared the effects of COVID-19, and the conflict in Ukraine has worsened instability and heightened inequalities. That is yet another major obstacle to our efforts to achieve resilience and post-COVID recovery. Like every other country in the world, we are experiencing the full inflationary effects of this crisis. We firmly believe that all wars end around the table. Dialogue is the only way to bring about peace. Madagascar therefore reiterates its call for dialogue to resolve the conflict, because its effects are global and
becoming more burdensome by the day. Developing nations such as ours are feeling and paying the price. The crucial role of the United Nations must be to encourage multilateralism in order to find equitable solutions that take into account the strengths and weaknesses of every country and its people.
How can we accept the fact that in this time of crisis, countries with gross domestic product (GDP) per capita of more than $100,000 and others with per capita GDP of less than $600 are buying barrels of oil in the same market and at the same price? Our Organization should take measures to support low-income countries so that they can benefit from and supply themselves with oil at equitable prices, given that the current global situation is a source of major upheaval in a number of countries. Some States are now affected by instability. The social fabric is unravelling, and economies are increasingly fragile. Some States have been forced to raise fuel prices by 50 per cent, which has resulted in riots and socioeconomic disturbances. Recovery is a concern that we all share. Our solidarity is the only way we can heal our societies, revive our economies, support growth and establish peace.
Every country has now had to review its development strategies, and that has emphasized how essential it is for each of us to accelerate industrialization and become self-sufficient. We continue to believe that we should produce and process everything that our populations need domestically. There are weapons more powerful than bombs, tanks and missiles, which are our lands, our raw materials, our natural resources and our people. Local industrialization, agricultural innovation and leadership are our ammunition in the work of strengthening ourselves and our armour in order to protect our peoples.
In Madagascar, we have developed a detailed strategy to make up for the delays our development has suffered. We developed our 2019-2023 Madagascar Emergency Plan and began to implement it when I took office as President in 2019. Our vision is clear and reflected in our political will, which we have demonstrated through all of our actions. We have prioritized a sector- and project-based approach in order to raise Madagascar’s classification to that of a newly emerging country. We have launched an ambitious set of reforms to modernize our administration, develop our human capital and foster strong, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, with energy as the driving force of its development. Madagascar is a country that is blessed with water resources for hydroelectric dams, a high number of sunshine hours for solar power plants and wind power for wind farms. Many countries are facing energy problems today, and we must therefore accelerate our renewable energy production so that we can achieve self-sufficiency in the next five years. We intend to double or even triple our energy production capacity.
It is 2022. Regrettably, Africa is still a continent where most families live in darkness and obscurity. More than 600 million Africans, including 85 per cent of Malagasy households, still use candles and oil lamps to light their homes. That is why we are launching a major operation to equip most Malagasy homes with solar kits by the end of next year, with some of them, of course, subsidized by the State. In achieving that, Madagascar intends to be the first or one of the first countries on the African continent to have brought light to all its people.
Climate change is one of the major challenges of our time and one that we all have to tackle. It is important and urgent that we mobilize our joint efforts to protect our planet. I would like to raise the alarm here about commitments that were made at the twenty- first Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and reaffirmed at COP26, regarding the creation of the Green Climate Fund, which was supposed to be funded annually in the amount of $100 billion. Madagascar was the fifth African country to complete its national adaptation plan, and my country therefore should have been a beneficiary of the Fund. However, the access to funding is slow and so far none of the commitments have been upheld. It is unfair that the least-polluting nations should pay the highest price for the impact of climate change.
Madagascar is an island and therefore vulnerable to climate hazards. This year alone, five cyclones struck the island in the space of just two months. Some 178,000 hectares of arable land were flooded and destroyed. Our island is the first country to have endured a climate-induced famine. Water resources are drying up in the south of the country and the people in that area are the most vulnerable on the island. The effects of climate change are worsening. The global situation is calling us to action. How many high-level meetings, summits and international conferences have we already had? How many statements and commitments have we made? Now we have to transform our words into
actions. Today I am relaying the cries and the voices of the African continent in general and Madagascar in particular. Africa’s young people and indeed the entire continent are waiting for polluting countries to comply with the agreements they have made. Keeping those promises will protect our planet. Our populations demand that those promises be kept, and future generations will hold us accountable later.
Environmental protection issues are particularly dear to my heart. We all know that forests are the lungs of the Earth, and yet the use of charcoal and firewood remains standard practice across the African continent, including by 92 per cent of the population of my country. A family using charcoal or firewood for cooking destroys approximately one hectare of forest every year, which is devastating. We must change the practice and the mindset. That is why Madagascar will equip 250,000 families with bioethanol stoves with the aim of preserving 250,000 hectares of our forest every year.
We have started major public works projects to transform the country because everything needs to be built or rebuilt. Everything is urgent, and everything is a priority. For the past almost four years, we have been constantly building and repairing roads. We have built schools, health centres, hospitals, dams, courts, prisons in line with international standards, sporting and cultural facilities and much more. And Madagascar is continually evolving, despite the successive global crises. Ours is a large country and considerable work has been done to ensure that all areas are accessible. However, the road is still a long and winding one. But we have faith, and we will continue to move forward with determination. The Madagascar Emergency Plan is literally paving the way for the future.
From north to south and east to west, all of Madagascar is under construction. Only last week we opened our state highway 5A in the north of the country, which until now had for decades been a dirt road that took a week to traverse in the rainy season. Now it takes only two hours. It has led to an immediate reduction in the costs of the transportation and movement of goods and people, considerably improving the lives of the local communities and contributing to socioeconomic development in my country’s northern regions. In the south of the country, we are starting work on state highway 13 and will soon do the same for highways 10 and 44 in the east, thereby facilitating access to Madagascar’s main granary. In the north-west, state highway 31, which is currently under reconstruction, will be entirely restored, which will mean that we will have access to our second largest agricultural area. In a few weeks we will be starting work on the country’s first major highway, which will link the capital to our largest port. Once the work is completed, the journey will be shortened from 10 hours to only two and a half.
The demographic dividend is a variable that we have to include in our equation. We must change the structure of our population. Our current demographic growth is not commensurate with our economic growth. In some areas, girls under the age of 18 are already mothers of families who on average have to care for between five and eight children. It is therefore harder for them to feed and properly raise, care for and educate those children. Our family planning programme, which has already been launched, is therefore a crucial part of our strategy for controlling our birth rate and transforming the current population from one that is dependent to one that is employed and economically productive. Our demography in Madagascar will be an asset to our development and no longer an obstacle to it.
With regard to education, we have made great strides. My Government has built more than 1,000 classrooms and has made huge investments in teaching tools and material. We have set up school canteens. We have published books and textbooks and distributed tablets so as to considerably improve the quality of education received by our children and young people. Access to basic education has increased by 146 per cent and the school dropout rate has significantly decreased. We have made education a national priority, and we reiterate our commitment to transforming and revitalizing schools and universities.
Last year, I had the opportunity to speak (A/76/ PV.6, p.7) about my country’s wish to finally see the implementation of resolutions adopted by the General Assembly in 1979 (resolution 34/91) and 1980 (resolution 35/123), concerning the return and administration of the Indian Ocean lies Eparses or Nosy Malagasy to Madagascar. We welcome the upcoming second meeting of the joint French-Malagasy commission on the subject, and based on those two resolutions, which confirm the legitimacy of our claim, we hope to have the support of the United Nations in finally reaching a fair, settled and peaceful solution.
During the pandemic, the sick needed oxygen to survive. Many countries are currently still struggling
to breathe, thanks to the effects of successive crises. They need the oxygen they require to breathe in the form of support, aid and assistance, which will help them tackle the challenges of socioeconomic recovery and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. We must accelerate the pace of the implementation of new financing mechanisms, such as the Resilience and Sustainability Trust, to ensure the disbursement of funding. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the friendly countries that have always stood with us in the most difficult times.
The Africa of tomorrow must be autonomous, independent and prosperous. We have a duty to change the history of the continent and to write a new chapter so that each of us and each of our countries can change and be transformed. Our Organization needs to strengthen its solidarity to provide shared solutions to our common problems.
May God bless each of our nations. The homeland is sacred.