Mr. President, at the outset I should like to offer you
my sincere congratulations on your brilliant election to
the presidency of the General Assembly at its sixty-
second session. I assure you of my delegation’s full
cooperation. It will spare no effort to contribute to the
success of the deliberations of this session, at your
side, of course, because Benin is one of the Vice-
Presidents.
I also pay tribute to the excellent job done by
your predecessor, Her Excellency Mrs. Haya Rashed
Al-Khalifa. Throughout her term she was able to give
new momentum to the General Assembly by
relaunching the dialogue on the implementation of the
global partnership for development. Under her clear
direction our delegations were able to thoroughly study
the many questions that have been pending within the
framework of the implementation of the conclusions of
the 2005 Summit, and they have been able to assess the
challenges to be met.
We also express appreciation to the new United
Nations Secretary-General, His Excellency Mr. Ban
Ki-moon. He has been able to follow in the footsteps of
his illustrious predecessor, Mr. Kofi Annan, by
maintaining the pace of his reforms. Mr. Ban has not
only maintained the momentum of the reforms but has
also given them a visible personal mark that denotes a
will to streamline in an innovative and consensual way
the use of resources available for concrete action in
keeping with the perils that confront us.
We support the United Nations, which must assert
itself as an effective organization, capable of serving as
a melting pot for multilateral, inclusive, productive and
conclusive cooperation in the search for appropriate
solutions to the many challenges of our time.
These challenges include ongoing conflicts, the
rise of extremism, the weakening and destabilization of
entire regions, the continued impoverishment of the
most vulnerable populations and the practice of trade
subsidies and protectionism in developed countries.
They deny us our comparative advantages and stifle
our producers by distorting the international market. It
is necessary and urgent to establish a safety net so that
African countries affected by subsidies can compensate
for the enormous losses that they suffer. In addition,
social inequalities between States and within our
societies are ever greater. The proliferation of endemic
diseases decimates human resources. Malnutrition,
desertification and coastal erosion dangerously reduce
vital space and accentuate competition for survival,
together with repeated flooding resulting from global
warming linked to climate change.
We have indeed made considerable progress since
the Rio Summit in terms of the implementation of
instruments for global governance in the area of the
environment. Given the warnings and many alarms that
scientists have sent us in recent years we now need to
accelerate their comprehensive implementation,
because they give clear guidance to the efforts
undertaken by men to restore control over phenomena
and changes that jeopardize the conditions of our
existence on Earth. It is urgent to maximize synergies
within the framework of the implementation of these
instruments to ensure greater effectiveness. That is one
of the urgent tasks to be put on the agenda of the
Conference of the Parties to the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change scheduled
for December 2007 in Bali, Indonesia.
The risks stemming from climate change are
terrifying, particularly for low-income coastal
countries such as Benin. They dictate that we act in
advance instead of in response because we need to deal
with well-established contingencies via a precautionary
approach and by consistent implementation of the
principle of common but differentiated responsibility.
Beyond the vast investments required to deal with
coastal erosion and the deterioration of lands, the
eradication of poverty and improving the living
conditions of the poorest sections of the population are
essential aspects of efforts undertaken to strengthen the
resistance of our societies to the negative impacts of
climate change.
Above all we must increase our efforts to
transform our patterns of consumption and global
energy policies by using renewable energy sources. By
way of example, switching from firewood to solar
stoves would save many hectares of forests that are
annually decimated by the poorest populations to
ensure their energy supplies. It has been established
that the manner in which the world’s energy needs,
particularly those of developing countries, will be
covered in the decades to come will be key to our
ability to address climate change. We need to carry out
a change of mindset to bring about a change in
behaviour. To do this, the question of financing needs
to be resolved in a clearly understood spirit of
international solidarity and interdependence.
The international community will need to deliver
on the pledges made in Monterrey and Gleneagles by
mobilizing the funds to ensure implementation of the
national programmes of action and adaptation and the
implementation of the Millennium Development Goals.
It is fortunate that the high-level dialogue to be held in
New York on 23 and 24 October 2007 and the meeting
to be held in Qatar in 2008 will give us an opportunity
to bring about a thorough evaluation of the situation in
order to seek the optimum solutions to the problems
before us.
Assessing performance in the area of financing
for development is how we should measure the
effectiveness of international financial institutions. Our
hope is that appropriate reforms will be undertaken so
that they will be able to fully shoulder their
responsibilities in terms of mobilizing resources for
poor countries so that they can make up the lag.
Special attention needs to be given also to
internal constraints related to governance and to the
meagre mobilization of local resources that curb
economic and social development. The Government of
Benin, for example, has intensified its efforts to root
out corruption and promote transparent and effective
management of public finances. Our efforts in these
areas are coupled with measures to facilitate
investment, including the establishment of a
presidential investment council and the proclamation
of free nursery and primary schooling, measures that
have been judged to be essential for the continued
strengthening of democracy, economic growth and
social progress. The assistance from the international
community is greatly appreciated and is now being
directed exclusively to the goals agreed upon. In this
regard, Benin has joined the peer review mechanism
instituted by the African Union within the framework
of the promotion of good governance and
peacebuilding continent-wide.
Our search for solutions to the new threats can
only progress if we are able to preserve international
peace and security. It is disappointing that our efforts
since the 2005 Summit to reform the body which has
the primary responsibility for this, have been less than
conclusive. We need to rekindle our fervour in order to
give the Organization a Security Council that is more
representative in terms of its membership and more
transparent and effective in its working methods.
Whatever the formula decided upon, reform of the
Security Council cannot be viable if it does not take
into account the realities of today’s world, which differ
greatly from those of the 1940s. It cannot be fair if it
does not rationally rectify the boundless harm done to
Africa by excluding it from the category of permanent
members of the Security Council.
Reform of the Council will undoubtedly reflect
on its authority and its ability to fulfil its mandate in a
satisfactory manner with respect to the situations
concerning the fundamental principles of the Charter,
such as the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which
is more than 50 years old now. That conflict continues
to destabilize the Middle East, and it cannot be
otherwise so long as the vision of two sovereign,
contiguous States has not been implemented and the
occupied territories, including the Golan Heights and
the Shaba’a farmlands, have not been returned.
We are also concerned by the continued arms race
and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction,
as well as the stalemate in the multilateral negotiations.
We need to stem the illicit trafficking in small arms and
light weapons by adopting and implementing a treaty
on arms trafficking. The proliferation of non-State
armed groups, widespread violations of international
humanitarian law and war crimes against civilian
populations, particularly against women and children
in situations of conflict, must continue to be given our
unswerving attention. The perpetrators of these crimes
need to be tried by the International Criminal Court,
whose role as a deterrent needs to be enhanced by
greater cooperation with the Security Council and the
authority to initiate proceedings itself. We welcome the
fact that great progress has been made in the
deployment of a United Nations mechanism for
monitoring and outreach on the recruitment and use of
children in armed conflicts and on the possibility of it
being extended.
Cooperation between the United Nations and the
African Union within the framework of the
implementation of the Union’s 10-year plan of support
for capacity-building needs to be continued in
accordance with the spirit of Chapter VIII of the
Charter. Management of the situation in Darfur has
given us a field for experimentation that will enable us
to draw lessons to strengthen the effectiveness of this
cooperation beyond the constraints and handicaps by
looking at optimal solutions. We welcome the
establishment of the hybrid force. Our hope is that its
numerical and logistical capacities will enable it to
deal with the crisis. We hope that similar efforts will be
undertaken for Somalia.
The promotion of human dignity is necessary to
be able continually to strengthen international peace
and security. It is at the heart of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, proclaimed on
10 December 1948. We commemorate its sixtieth
anniversary next year. This is an opportunity to
undertake singular and proactive action to disseminate
human rights for rural and peri-urban populations and
communities, which are for the most part illiterate.
These social strata have been cut off from the benefits
of human rights but would be empowered and would
become responsible for their own fulfilment if given
access to human rights.
My country, which is firmly committed to
democracy, here reiterates its unswerving commitment
to make an effective contribution commensurate with
its means to the protection and promotion of human
dignity. That is the aim of my country’s proposal for a
new agenda item at the current session of the General
Assembly with the consensus title of “Celebration of
the sixtieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights”. A draft resolution will be submitted
and negotiated under this item. It could also serve as
the framework for the proclamation of an international
year for the promotion, dissemination and
appropriation of human rights.
In that connection, my country, together with the
United Nations Democracy Fund (UNDEF) and all
interested parties, proposes to organize an international
conference in 2008 on the challenges and issues
involved in democratic changes of government. I urge
all United Nations Member States to support these
initiatives so that they will come to pass for the
betterment of our peoples.