Twenty years ago
I took the floor for the first time before the General
Assembly. A few months before that, on 28 May 1993,
Monaco had become the one hundred and eighty-third
State Member of the United Nations, the smallest
Member State of the only universal Organization. The
decision of Prince Rainier III, my father, reflected
the will to fully assume our role as a responsible and
committed State within a changing world, where new
opportunities and new challenges were becoming
interdependent and transcending borders.
That vision remains unchanged over the passage
of time. My country continues to shoulder all its
responsibilities on the major issues that bring us
together here today. Faithful to its principles and to
its past, the Principality of Monaco wishes to make
its contribution in the most effective way possible to
the task of building peace, to which we have been so
attached over the centuries.
Therefore, inspired by a conviction that our shared
humanity requires that each of us treat our fellow
human beings with respect and dignity, tolerance
and comprehension, we have endorsed the values and
principles of the Charter of the United Nations, which
we aspire together to defend and to promote. That
important decision to fulfil the responsibility that each
Member State has is strengthened by the conviction,
originating from the holding of the first Earth Summit,
in 1992, that sustainable development, without which
we cannot aspire to our ideal of peace, must be planned
with respect for the environment of our planet.
It is in a sombre international context that we are
going to define the post-2015 development agenda,
an agenda that will be the cornerstone of the work of
the Organization and will be crucial to establishing
its political legitimacy for decades to come. The
growing insecurity in the world, characterized by the
fragmentation of societies, threatens the progress made
in many fields and causes multidimensional regional
instability that is likely to further deepen existing
differences.
The recent attacks perpetrated in Kenya, Pakistan
and Iraq are another shocking illustration of that
problem. They remind us that many parts of the world
are still subject to deadly terrorist attacks. Allow me
to extend to the families of the victims and to their
Government my deepest condolences.
I must also speak out against persisting conflicts,
which hamper development and cause an unacceptable
humanitarian situation. With regard to Syria in
particular, the number of displaced civilians and
refugees in bordering countries is of great concern. A
new threshold was crossed with the use of chemical
weapons, an extremely serious violation of international
law that cannot be tolerated. Monaco associates itself
with those who continue to advocate for a political
settlement of the conflict, especially in the light of
the recent agreement on the control and destruction
of chemical weapons stockpiles in Syria. Those
responsible for the use of chemical weapons cannot go
unpunished.
The International Committee of the Red Cross,
which I wish to pay tribute to for its determination to
fulfil its mandate in spite of difficult circumstances,
must be given access to populations in need and must
be assured that it is able to conduct its activities in full
security.
The tenth anniversary of the attack on United
Nations staff in Baghdad is a sad reminder that we
need to relentlessly continue with our efforts on
behalf of United Nations staff, who too often have
become deliberate targets. That deplorable situation
will be given attention in the coming world summit
on humanitarian aid to be held on the initiative of the
Secretary-General, which we fully support.
The evolution of factors that lead to humanitarian
emergencies forces us to examine the ways in which
the Organization can act in such circumstances, which
include conflicts, natural disasters, climate change and
environmental degradation. We must recognize that the
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, to
which I express my deepest gratitude, needs to be given
the means and the resources required for it to carry out
the mandate we have given it.
To those who criticize or threaten the progress of
the United Nations, the results accomplished show that
our courageous political decisions, in the fields of both
security and development, are timely and positive.
Together, in the year 2000, we defined the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which today
have made it possible for billions of people to live
better. Those successes are all the more remarkable
given that progress has been achieved in spite of the
effects of many crises of a financial, economic, food
and energy nature, some of whose consequences linger
and are even worsening.
Tomorrow, the special event devoted to the
MDGs will be an opportunity to reiterate our priority
commitment to eliminating poverty and an opportunity
for us to redouble efforts to hasten the achievement of
the Goals.
The Millennium Development Goals Report 2013
indicates the areas that require urgent action and the
significant gaps that exist, not only among countries
but within their borders. We cannot tolerate the fact that
there are still people who have been rejected by society,
people for whom the hope born of a new millennium
remains a broken promise. It is not acceptable that in
today’s world human beings still live close to complete
destitution, where even their basic needs go unmet.
That is why we applaud the Secretary-General’s efforts
on behalf of his mobilization campaigns — Education
First, “Every woman, every child” and Scaling
Up Nutrition — which push us to shoulder our
responsibilities towards the world’s most vulnerable.
Education, the promotion of women, the protection
of children, public health and the conservation
of natural resources are priority elements in the
international cooperation policies that I have outlined.
They are structured around the eight MDGs, especially
maternal and child health, the fight against pandemics
and neglected diseases and the promotion of food
security, and in particular they are geared towards the
least developed countries. It seems to me that a policy
of international cooperation should respond as much
as possible to their interests, so that a virtuous circle
of development can be launched and help build a more
just, stable and less unequal world.
Important advances have often been accompanied
or completed by the adoption of measures emerging
from the Organization’s major conferences and
summits. By strengthening the treaty regime on human
rights, disarmament and the fight against terrorism, and
through the regimes established by the Security Council,
Member States have endowed themselves with the
means to reaffirm their faith in multilateralism, which
is the reason for the Organization’s existence, and in
the rule of law, which is the foundation of our collective
action. It is vital that we speed up the implementation
of the Programme of Action adopted in Istanbul in 2011
at the Fourth United Nations Conference on the Least
Developed Countries.
The work that lies ahead for the President of the
General Assembly comes at a turning point in our
history. Under his leadership, the General Assembly
must not only speed up the implementation of the MDGs
but also prepare the post-2015 development agenda and
define the sustainable development goals in accordance
with this session’s theme “The post-2015 development
agenda: setting the stage”.
His valuable experience and unreserved dedication
to the Organization, and to sustainable development in
particular, will guide our deliberations. We are grateful
to have him, a son of Antigua and Barbuda, a small
island developing State, presiding over the upcoming
discussions, since we are confident that he is all too
familiar with the issues at stake.
He should also rest assured that Monaco’s
representative, in its capacity as Vice-President, is
ready to support him in his noble task.
Based on lessons learned from the MDGs, together
we will build an ambitious new development programme
capable of responding effectively to the demands of our
new reality. I have climate change in mind in particular.
Greenhouse-gas emissions continue to increase at the
global level, despite the fact that we have identified
climate change as one of the greatest dangers of our
era. The Secretary-General can count on my country’s
contribution to the upcoming summit on climate
change, which he intends to hold next September. His
willingness to bring together leaders from every sector
of society — civil society, the private sector, the world
of business and finance and, above all, young people,
all of them agents of change — is the only path of hope
for the radical transformation that is needed. There is
no alternative to defining a new programme and a new
paradigm.
At the current rate, if we do not change our
behaviour, we will need the equivalent of two planet
Earths to meet the needs of the world’s population,
which, as we know, will reach 9 billion in 2050 and
has always been concentrated in urban and coastal
zones, whose natural resources are particularly
vulnerable. That simple fact should prompt us to adopt
sustainable modes of production and consumption,
in accordance with the decisions taken at the United
Nations Conference on Sustainable Development. That
essential change of mindset presupposes that we place
human beings at the heart of the development issue. It is
no longer a question of agreeing on development plans
for agricultural, artisanal and industrial capacities. We
must consider that it is human societies and individuals
who deserve all of our attention. We must study
economic and environmental issues in the light of their
impact on the lives of people and communities. Taking
those needs into account means that we must reflect
further on how to ensure responsible development that
respects the environment and is truly sustainable.
The Assembly is aware of my personal commitment
to issues involving the oceans and seas. In accordance
with the Monaco Message on the acknowledged
importance of the oceans in “The future we want”
(resolution 66/288, annex), which was adopted in
November 2011, I am once again committing to
promoting the role of the oceans in the definition of
the post-2015 agenda and to reiterating my support for
a sustainable development goal focusing on the oceans.
Climate regulation, food and nutrition security, energy,
tourism, transport and international trade — all areas
directly or indirectly affected by the oceans — are
linked to the three pillars of sustainable development.
I think it is also essential to reaffirm how fundamental
the oceans are to the world and how serious are the
risks presented to them through the excessive human
activity that contributes to their acidification and the
acceleration of the drop in the resources they contain.
In that context, I would like to say how crucial I
believe it is that the international community address the
status of the high seas without delay, and how urgent it
is that protected marine areas be established, especially
in the polar regions. If the viability and sustainable
management of the oceans are to be achieved, only
an unswerving political willingness to form strong
partnerships that unite all the parties concerned will be
able to combat the effects of the overfishing, pollution
and acidification of the oceans and restore them to
health and productivity.
Strengthening cooperation and partnerships, as well
as deciding on concrete action, are also at the heart of
the preparations for the third International Conference
on Small Island Developing States, to which I want to
give my full support, along with a needed boost in the
solidarity that is essential to promoting sustainable
development.
The stakes are clear. Let us, who wish to reaffirm
the central place that the Organization occupies in
international governance, give it the means to assure
that leadership role by being ambitious and resolute
in our task. Let us remember the words of the novelist
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: “Being a human being
means being responsible”.