Allow me to begin my statement by recalling the commitment to
fight poverty, in force since September 2000, when 189
countries signed the Millennium Declaration, which
included the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
On that agreement we undertook to meet by 2015 some
basic goals on the path of human development.
Today, from a Government that has declared in
Ecuador a citizens' revolution, one that is democratic,
ethical and nationalist, we wish to set out some critical
thoughts with regard to the very concept of the MDGs,
their limitations and the dangers that minimum
programmes of that nature entail, in particular with
regard to the profound social and economic inequalities
that exist on the planet.
The first limitation of the MDGs is that they
constitute a minimum as a poverty-reducing strategy.
Our goal is to go much further than such minimums by
going into greater depth on those objectives and
incorporating others. The fact that we subscribe
exclusively to a focus on minimum needs, such as that
presented in the MDGs, carries a high risk that in
seeking to satisfy our consciences we limit the
aspirations for social change.
I think it is fair to say that there are two
thresholds by which we can characterize the lives of
people. The first has to do with the indispensable
abilities of human beings to survive within a society
and without which life could not be called human. The
second refers to the capacities that allow each
individual to be fulfilled within that society. We are
speaking not only about subsistence, but of the right to
enjoy a life that is worthy of living.
Ecuador believes that to have the goal of living
on $1 plus 1 cent per day in order to supposedly
overcome extreme poverty or to avoid dying
prematurely, as one might deduce from the MDGs —
does not lead to a dignified life. The development of
public policies in a country that is attempting to bring
about radical change - as is the case in Ecuador -
cannot be satisfied with those minimum objectives.
Obviously, avoiding the premature death of girls and
boys or of pregnant women is an objective that nobody
would question. However, if we base ourselves only on
that, we run the risk of agreeing that human life is
simply a process of resistance, the aim of which is to
extend someone's existence by a few more hours.
What we propose therefore are common goals,
not only with regard to living minimums but with
regard to social maximums as well. For example, we
feel that it is possible to draw on diverse identities, to
build and restore public areas, to guarantee access to
justice and to have work which enables people to enjoy
the right to support themselves and to have time for
contemplation, artistic creation and recreation — goals
that are already contained in the national development
plan that is being implemented by the Government of
Ecuador.
Accordingly, we renounce the idea of a
historically inevitable present to which we must
surrender by simply looking for minimums that are
clearly basic. Furthermore, to be satisfied with the
minimum also means - and that is very serious -
legitimizing the reality that we experience because the
minimum will not alter the distance and power
relationships between individuals and between
societies. Hence, we also favour the recognition of
equal dignity for all human beings. Granting some
people certain minimums must be an initial and
temporary goal and must never be considered a modus
operandi of public policy. For that means that the
“beneficiary” is placed in a position of inferiority
compared to everyone else. In other words, it means
that their dignity is not recognized as equal with
everyone else's. In fact, it is no accident that
international bureaucracies such as the World Bank
always suggest producing poverty reports, but never
consider publishing inequality reports.
For this reason, perhaps the best way to reduce
poverty with dignity is to reduce social, economic,
territorial, environmental and cultural gaps. One of my
Government's main goals is thus to reduce inequality
in an endogenous development framework of economic
inclusion and socio-territorial cohesion, domestically
as well as within the global system. And along the
same lines, we in Ecuador are seeking to apply the rule
of human rights and universal values. On the other
hand, the long and sad neoliberal night proposed -
from an existential perspective with its consequent
absolutism of the market - social programmes that
ended up by breaking up society into as many parts as
there are social groups.
However, a national plan and a change in the
power relationships within a society do not mean that
all the fragments will come together. There is no claim
that, by some twist of fate, these will acquire meaning
and coherence and will assemble themselves like the
pieces of a puzzle - even if some of the pieces are
missing. It is indispensable to have a common plan that
must be constantly redesigned and whose goal must be
that we all want to be part of it.
That is why, in Ecuador, we are creating our
national development plan in a democratic fashion. We
know that without everyone's participation in society's
basic decisions, no country can legitimize its public
decision-making and make it more efficient. We must
change a political practice employed by the traditional
sectors, with their technocrats and elites, and return
speech and action to those who should be the owners,
protagonists and beneficiaries of public policy.
I would like furthermore to point out that the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) offer a vision
of development that is linked to consumption and a
strategy linked to processes of economic liberalization.
Our view on development is very different from that.
We understand development to be the attainment of a
good standard of living for everyone, in peace and in
harmony with nature, and with the indefinite extension
of human cultures. In that respect, we are extremely
happy to see that the Assembly has broadly debated the
devastating and unjust effects of climate change.
Ecuador has submitted a specific and innovative
proposal to contribute to the reduction of carbon
dioxide emissions and to the preservation of
biodiversity: our Yasuni-ITT proposal. It involves a
commitment not to extract some 920 million barrels of
oil, thereby avoiding the emission of approximately
111 million tons of carbon that would come from the
burning of this fossil fuel. However, that will mean that
we will have to forgo significant investments of around
$720 million each year, a very significant amount for
the economy of Ecuador.
We are prepared to make this huge sacrifice, but
we also ask for shared responsibility on the part of the
international community, particularly on the part of
developed countries, the planet's main predators, and
for a minimum compensation for the environmental
benefits that we are generating. That would be an
extraordinary example of global collective action,
setting aside rhetoric in favour of concrete facts and
practical actions: not only would it reduce global
warming for the benefit of the whole planet, but it
would also bring about a new way of thinking about
economics in the twenty-first century, where the
generation of value is compensated, not just the
generation of goods.
Speaking of cultures, we were very happy to see
that the General Assembly recently adopted the
Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
(resolution 61/295), which was sponsored very actively
by Ecuador. The Declaration is an instrument that had
to wait more than 20 years to be adopted and that will
be the fundamental charter for the protection of human
rights of our indigenous peoples.
Finally, the good living that we are talking about
presupposes that genuine individual freedoms,
opportunities and potentials be enhanced. An immoral
paradox arises here: at the world level, we are
promoting the free movement of goods and capital,
looking for the highest profitability. But, on the other
hand, we are penalizing the free circulation of people
who are looking for decent jobs. That is quite simply
intolerable and absolutely unsustainable from an
ethical point of view.
For the Government of Ecuador, there are no
illegal human beings. There is no such thing, and the
United Nations must insist on this point. There is no
such person as an illegal human being. It is not
permissible to think in that way. We are working
actively to bring about changes in the shameful
international migration policies, particularly those of
the countries of the so-called first world, without
forgetting, of course, that our greatest responsibility is
to build a country that will guarantee decent life as a
way of preventing forced exodus because of poverty
and exclusion.
We must not be misled by those who proclaim the
end of ideologies and the end of history. Conservatives
want to make us believe that we live in the best of all
possible worlds and that we have to abandon any
attempt at change, any attempt to build our own
individual and collective identity, any attempt to build
our own history. In the face of such a miserly and self-
satisfied worldview, we say that it is possible to have
collective action that is both aware and democratic, in
order to direct our lives and organize world society in a
different way with a more human face. Our
understanding of development obliges us to recognize
one another, understand one another and appreciate one
another, so that we can move towards self-realization
and the building of a shared future. Ecuador invites the
Assembly to build this world, this dream.