I would like to thank and congratulate Mr. John Ashe of
Antigua and Barbuda, who during his time as President
laid the foundation and established the conditions
for formulating a new development agenda geared
to influencing the sustainable development of the
members of the General Assembly.
I would also like to congratulate the new President
on his election to the presidency of the Assembly
at its sixty-ninth session. His tenure comes at a time
when the global family is facing very serious threats
from the Ebola virus and from what I call the terrorist
virus, threats that demand that we all marshal our
human, financial and other resources in a global
partnership aimed at combating these modern plagues.
The President’s tenure also comes as we are about to
commence the second phase of our formulation of the
post-2015 development agenda. I am confident, as I am
sure we all are, that he will administer and lead with
distinction.
Today it is a privilege for me to share with the
Assembly the perspectives of the Government of
Trinidad and Tobago on our priorities for delivering
on and implementing a transformative post-2015
development agenda, according to the President’s
aptly selected theme. Last year we considered how
we would set the stage for the process to be launched
during this sixty-ninth session on finalizing the post-
2015 development agenda. I noted then that when we
adopted the Millennium Declaration (resolution 55/2)
and introduced the Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs), a new chapter opened for the United Nations
(see A/68/PV.10). That chapter would see the United
Nations positioned as a vehicle for assisting developing
countries, especially the most vulnerable, in their
efforts to reduce poverty and hunger, and for providing
an environment that would enable States to develop
their economies and thus help their people rise out of
persistent poverty.
Measures must now be put in place to spur a
proactive rather than reactive approach to the issue of
development in this transformative post-2015 agenda.
With the experience of the challenges and lessons
encountered in the past 14 years in the implementation
of the MDGs, we are now at a critical juncture in
putting into operation the elements we agreed to at
the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable
Development (Rio+20) so that they will constitute the
future we want. The current model was built on what
we agreed to at the Millennium Summit, but in some
ways it has fallen short of the expectations of many
developing countries.
However, the Government and people of Trinidad
and Tobago have been able to achieve this objective
because it formed an integral part of our 2011 medium-
term policy framework, through which we incorporated
and aligned the MDGs and their targets with Trinidad
and Tobago’s medium-term national priorities.
Consequently, some of the goals, targets and indicators
were modified in the light of Trinidad and Tobago’s
unique development circumstances and its achievement
of several of the MDGs. That approach resulted in,
for example, modified targets for education, including
achieving universal early-childhood education and a
60 per cent participation rate in tertiary education.
However, I am delighted to say that we have
surpassed many of our own targets, as well as some
of the MDGs. So in Trinidad and Tobago we now
have universal free primary- and secondary-school
education, and, as I said, we have surpassed our target
of 60 per cent in the tertiary sector and have 65 per
cent participation. That too is free. I am also pleased
to underscore that my country is well poised to achieve
70 per cent of the 43 targets across the eight goals that
are considered relevant to the national context. That
percentage consists of 42 per cent of targets that have
already been met and 28 per cent that are likely to be
met by 2015. So we say that with good success, and
lessons learned, we know what we still have to work on.
I now turn to a short discussion of the Caribbean
Community (CARICOM). Trinidad and Tobago, as part
of the CARICOM region and the global community,
welcomes the outcomes of the various milestones in
the process we have achieved to date. As a member of
CARICOM, we have been an active participant in the
Open Working Group on the Sustainable Development
Goals. We have therefore been witness to the sweeping
and unprecedented global participation and interest in
that process and its outcome. As a collective effort,
the crafting of the sustainable development goals
undoubtedly captured a spirit of openness, inclusiveness
and partnership, all of which underpin this new phase
of policy design and implementation. Along with the
report of the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts
on Sustainable Development Financing (A/69/315), the
17 goals adopted in July form a solid foundation.
It is my respectful view that in delivering on and
implementing a transformative post-2015 development
agenda we must and should prioritize key issues for this
session of the General Assembly. I have identified four
such priorities. The first, I believe, is for us to renew
our commitment to achieving the MDGs. Even in the
one year we have left, with more dedicated effort we
can make further advances on our original objectives.
As the MDG Gap Task Force Report, 2014: The State
of the Global Partnership for Development highlights,
although progress has been made in some areas, the
gains must be accelerated and in some areas a renewed
effort is needed to close the glaring gaps that still exist.
Some of those gaps are in important areas such as
access to affordable essential medicines, and in long-
term debt sustainability, particularly for small States,
which is an essential element of the global partnership
for sustainable development. Implementation will be a
key measure of our commitment to the aspirations for
the post-2015 development agenda.
The second priority is operationalizing “The
future we want” (resolution 66/288, annex). In the
Rio+20 Conference in 2012, we agreed on many of
the foundation elements for the post-2015 development
agenda. Coming out of that, we now have several
key documents to further inform and guide us on
the way forward. We have, for example, the report of
the Secretary-General’s High-level Panel on Global
Sustainability (A/66/700); the sustainable development
goals; the report of the Intergovernmental Committee
of Experts on Sustainable Development Financing; the
outcomes of the structured dialogues on a technology
facilitation mechanism (see resolution 68/310), and
the 10-year framework of programmes on sustainable
consumption and production.
“The future we want” also outlines some key
emerging challenges that we need to urgently address in
the context of the post-2015 development agenda. Some
of those issues, as the Assembly will recall, include
non-communicable diseases, the increasing urgency
to address climate change, and the imperative of
addressing the needs of marginalized groups, including
women, youth, children and persons living with
disabilities. Those are the building blocks of the future
we want to form the basis of the post-2015 development
agenda. Together with the institutional support of the
high-level political forum on sustainable development,
the reformed Economic and Social Council and the
United Nations Environmental Assembly, we have a
solid foundation for fashioning a global partnership
in support of poverty eradication through sustainable
development.
We look forward to the Secretary-General’s
synthesized report, which should place all of those
elements in the context of a fully integrated post-2015
development agenda and give due consideration to the
needs of countries in special situations, including small
island developing States, least developed countries,
landlocked developing countries and Africa. As a
specialized conference mandated in “The future
we want”, the outcome document (A/CONF.223/3,
annex) of the recently concluded Third International
Conference on Small Island Developing States — the
Small Island Developing States Accelerated Modalities
of Action — should also be appropriately addressed in
the upcoming Secretary-General’s report.
The third priority is for us to revitalize the global
partnership in support of sustainable development. The
8 August 2014 draft report of the Intergovernmental
Committee of Experts on Sustainable Development
Financing has highlighted that current financing
and investment patterns will not deliver sustainable
development. In fact, it goes on to say that
“[w]hile design and implementation of policies
will be on the national level, achieving sustainable
development will require international support and
cooperation”.
Those are the core prerequisites for a global partnership
in support of sustainable development. However, in
order make such a partnership meaningful, it is my
respectful view that it must also include the following
four particular elements.
First, it must include reform in the international
financial institutions, targeting on systemic failures
and focusing on building resilience that can sustain
growth in open and vulnerable economies.
Secondly, it must include the successful completion
of the Doha Round of trade negotiations, which will
ensure that the rules of trade and commerce do not
continue to operate so as to slow, impede or negate
development gains and aspirations in our very small
and vulnerable economies. I note that the third
International Conference on Financing for Development
is scheduled to take place in July 2015. That will be
critically important to ensuring that a meaningful
and effective global partnership for development will
become a reality for the implementation of the post-
2015 development agenda.
Thirdly, on the point of a revitalized global
partnership in support of sustainable development, I
wish to strongly reiterate the support of Trinidad and
Tobago for an end to the economic embargo against
Cuba. The perpetuation of those measures against
a developing country undermines our collective
aspirations for a post-2015 development agenda in
which no one should be left behind.
Fourthly, our priority should be for us to address
the mitigation gap for achieving the target of below
2 or 1.5˚C target for limiting the increase in global
greenhouse gas emissions and achieving an ambitious,
legally binding agreement on climate change in 2015
to be applied from 2020. That agreement should set
the world on track to achieving carbon neutrality by
2070, and by so doing ensure that the global climate
will support the sustainable development of present as
well as future generations.
Our collective action on climate change should
take into account the survival of the most vulnerable
States in particular, such as our small island developing
States, as the front line of increasingly severe impacts
of climate change. It should also be firmly rooted in the
principle of common but differentiated responsibilities,
recognizing that developing countries’ finance needs
for mitigation and adaptation to climate change cannot
be met exclusively from domestic resources, given the
competing demands on public finance. I believe that
every Head of Government and every Head of State
would recognize those competing interests in their own
nation States.
It is therefore essential to put the Green Climate
Fund into force early. It is my hope that the partnerships
and announcements made at the United Nations Climate
Summit 2014 on Tuesday, 23 September, will serve to
catalyse more ambitious action on climate change in the
near as well as in the long-term and build the momentum
necessary for a successful Conference of the Parties to
the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change, to be held in Lima in December and in Paris
in 2015.
Those are the elements of the global framework,
which should occupy our full attention and commitment
over the course of the sixty-ninth session of the General
Assembly. Those elements will be supported by critical
enabling actions at the regional and national levels.
For us in the context of the Caribbean Community, we
have been doing our part as a subregion of small island
and low-lying developing States to foster regional
integration in support of the sustainable development
of all of our peoples. CARICOM Heads of State and
Government have agreed on the vision of
“a Caribbean community that is integrated, inclusive
and resilient; driven by knowledge, excellence,
innovation and productivity; a community where
every citizen is secure and has the opportunity
to realize his or her potential with guaranteed
human rights and social justice; and contributes
to and shares in, its economic, social and cultural
prosperity. A community which can be a unified
and competitive force in the global arena”.
That vision is the collective ambition of the States
members of CARICOM, agreed in the context of a
strategic framework plan for period 2015-2019. That
plan will come through the implementation of six
integrated strategic priorities, which include building
economic, social, environmental and technological
resilience through a coordinated foreign policy and
research and development innovation.
In support of the implementation of those six
priorities, CARICOM Heads of State and Government
have called for a post-2015 development agenda that
will work in tandem with what we are discussing at
the sixty-ninth session of the General Assembly and
needs to focus on the eradication of poverty as a central
pillar, the adoption of a people-centred approach
through an intergovernmentally agreed agenda, and
an agenda that incorporates broader measures and
appropriate approaches and criteria to complement
the gross domestic product per capita as a measure
of development. Importantly, those broader measures
must foster an enabling global policy environment that
is more conducive to the achievement of development
objectives and affords greater policy coherence across
institutions, including those in the areas of trade,
finance, environment and development.
Those regional initiatives in support of advancing
the sustainable development of the people of CARICOM
are being designed and implemented in the context
of a broader strategy for mitigating the vulnerability
inherent in countries as small and open as ours, In
the context of a limited and narrow resource base,
the focus is on nurturing and developing our human
resources through an emphasis on innovation and
entrepreneurship. It is an approach that focuses on the
full realization of the human rights to development and
a life of dignity.
Consistent with this approach, I turn to another
matter close to our hearts in the region as we continue
to advance the global cause of truth, justice and
reconciliation, within the context of reparatory justice
for the victims and the descendants of the trans-Atlantic
slave trade. As a region we are determined to engage
in reparatory dialogue with the former slave-owning
European nations in order to address the living legacies
of these crimes. This is a critically vital element of the
socioeconomic development aspirations of the region as
the victims of these crimes and their descendants were
left in a state of social, psychological, economic and
cultural deprivation. In addition, they have been left
in a state of disenfranchisement that has ensured their
suffering and debilitation to this day, and from which
only reparatory action can alleviate their suffering.
I hold that sustainable development cannot be
achieved in an environment where people are denied
their basic rights to live free from fear, with daily
deprivation of the necessities of life due to the ravages
of war and other types of instability. It is for these
reasons that Trinidad and Tobago is concerned by the
developments in Ukraine and other parts of the globe,
which have caused pain and suffering to hundreds of
innocent victims. They too must be allowed to live
freely.
At the same time, we note with grave concern
the continued failure to find a lasting solution to the
decades-old Arab-Israeli conflict, which has caused
tremendous loss of life and destruction of property in
the Gaza Strip, and has left emotional and psychological
scars on those almost 2,000 families who lost loved
ones. Trinidad and Tobago remains committed to the
negotiation of the two-State solution as the preferred
means to bring lasting peace to the region so that the
people of Palestine, so long denied their rightful place in
the international community, can live in larger freedom
with their Israeli brothers and sisters. To that end, we
call for the implementation of all relevant Security
Council resolutions geared towards the resolution of the
conflict and the lifting of the illegal embargo imposed
on the Palestinian people since 2005.
Likewise, as co-sponsors of Security Council
resolution 2178 (2014), on threats to international
peace and security caused by terrorists acts, adopted
at Wednesday’s summit, we remain optimistic that
the resolution may serve as a catalyst for greater
international cooperation in the fight against terrorism.
We in Trinidad and Tobago have been the victim of
terrorists in 1990, when there was an attempted coup
against the newly elected Government by terrorists and
extremists. Members will agree that this new terrorist
phenomenon could be dubbed a terrorism “virus” as it is
spreading throughout the global family. The Assembly
will agree that terrorism has been undermining, and
continues to undermine, the sovereignty, territorial
integrity and peace and security of the peoples of the
Middle East and further afield.
Members of the Assembly will also recall that, in
my inaugural address to this body in September 2010
(see A/65/PV.20), I indicated that the time was right
for the adoption of a treaty to regulate the international
trade in conventional arms. That has now come to be
history with the adoption of the Arms Trade Treaty
(ATT); after yesterday’s High-level Treaty Event, it
now has the requisite number of States parties for its
entry into force, which is likely to be on 25 December
of this year. We are very happy about that.
The entry into force of the ATT will require States
parties to make important decisions to implement
the provisions of the Treaty at the First Conference
of States Parties, which is likely to be convened by
mid-2015. One of these decisions is on the location
of the ATT secretariat. Over a year ago, my country
announced its candidature to have the ATT secretariat
located in Port of Spain. That bid has been endorsed
by all 14 CARICOM States and has so far received the
support from a number of States from diverse regions.
The hosting of this important body in a region which
is disproportionately affected by the illicit trade in
small arms and light weapons and its association with
other trans-boundary crimes, such as drug trafficking,
would be a significant development. It will assist in the
full and effective implementation of the Treaty, and
contribute to the reduction, if not the elimination, of
illegal weapons in the hands of criminals whose actions
continue to threaten the sustainable development of our
region.
The Government of Trinidad and Tobago is
committed to providing the necessary resources to
host the secretariat, and this has been transmitted to
all Members of the United Nations. I call once more
on all those States which have not yet announced their
support for our candidature to do so and to ensure that
the principle of equitable geographic distribution in the
location of major global bodies is observed. No country
or region, in my respectful view, must continue to have
a monopoly in hosting important institutions which are
established for the benefit of all.
Trinidad and Tobago is satisfied that, among the
17 sustainable development goals adopted by the
General Assembly on 10 September, goal 3 ensures
healthy lives and promotes well-being for all ages.
The health and well-being of our people are critical
to ensuring productive lifestyles which are critical
to sustainable economic development, growth and
achieving a transformative past-2015 development
agenda. Health and well-being are one of the 10 thematic
areas of development identified by the Government of
Trinidad and Tobago.
It will be recalled that CARICOM, of which we
are a member, was largely responsible for calling
the attention of the General Assembly to the need
to adopt a resolution to focus attention of the effects
of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) as a major
contributor to human mortality. Nevertheless, while
we continue to make strides in tackling the incidence
of NCDs, we are cognizant of the need to combat the
spread of infectious diseases within our region and in
different regions, which threaten the survival of people
in many nations.
Security Council resolution 2177 (2014), which
was co-sponsored by Trinidad and Tobago, garnered
unanimous support, including that of the Secretary-
General, for dealing with the Ebola virus. We
congratulate the Secretary-General. Members pledged
to take action at the global and regional levels to combat
the spread of Ebola to supplement the United Nations
Mission for Ebola Emergency Response. Trinidad
and Tobago remains committed to playing our part in
eradicating infectious diseases undermining the health
and well-being of our people.
It is for this reason that, prior to the adoption of
resolution 2177 (2014), on Ebola, as Prime Minister of
Trinidad and Tobago I wrote to the Secretary-General
of CARICOM requesting that a meeting of States
members of the Community be convened to discuss and
agree on sustainable policy responses at the national
and regional levels alike concerning public health
issues, including Chikungunya and the Ebola virus.
Finally, the Assembly can rest assured of the support
of the Government of Trinidad and Tobago in assisting
the United Nations family in shaping a transformative
post-2015 development agenda. Our support will come
not only through our representation in the various organs
of this global institution but also by continuing to adopt
policies at the national level geared towards putting
people at the centre of all developmental objectives.
I say once again: any development agenda which
alienates people or places them at the periphery and not
the centre will not bring sustainable development and
will be doomed to failure. Such failure stands against
the commitment we have all made and the purposes we
are serving at the Assembly. Our work is cut out — for
all of us, together in global partnership, to achieve the
goals that we have set ourselves.