At the outset,
I would like, on behalf of the Head of State, the Head of
Government and the people of Togo, to congratulate the
General Assembly on the occasion of its sixty-eighth
session. I wish to warmly congratulate you, Sir, on your
el..ti.n to the presidency of the General Assembly
and to assure you of Togo’s full willingness to support
your actions throughout your mandate. I also take this
opportunity to pay tribute to Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon, who continues to take bold initiatives to
enable the Organization to effectively fulfil its mandate
in promoting peace and sustainable development.
The theme that you have chosen for the sixty-eighth
session, “The post-2015 development agenda: setting
the stage”, is indicative of the particular attention that
the countries of the South give to development issues.
At the same time, it is an invitation to the United
Nations not only to keep sight of that concern, but also
to implement a sustainable development programme for
all countries. The Millennium Declaration (resolution
55/2) set forth specific Goals that each country should
attain by 2015 in order to usher in a world in which
every individual can live in dignity. On the eve of that
deadline, it is appropriate to reflect on the progress
made since the Millennium Summit and to discuss
new prospects for shoring up the progress that has
been achieved in combating hunger, malnutrition and
disease.
The United Nations has the primary responsibility
for the maintenance of international peace and security.
However, those objectives can be sustainably achieved
only if abject poverty does not become a breeding
ground for all sorts of societal ills. That is why, when
we embark on a collective discussion of what should
happen post-2015, we must think above all about ways
to increase the economic and social development and
prosperity of nations and to prevent conflicts before
they even occur. That applies to all countries, but
particularly to African nations that have been weakened
by recurrent crises and are now facing various threats.
More than a decade after the launch of the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), when
efforts have been made to achieve the Goals, it is
clear, as the deadline of 2015 approaches, that many
challenges remain, in particular for developing
countries. For those countries continue to experience
the impacts of the financial, energy and food crises
of previous years, given their economies’ dependence
on external sources — crises that unfortunately have
been exacerbated by climate change. The net result is
to reduce their chances of achieving the Millennium
Development Goals within the set time frame.
Moreover, the various initiatives and commitments
undertaken by the leaders of this world in the context
of the great international forums are far from achieving
the desired results. The arrival of official development
assistance in pledged proportions has been delayed. That
is the reason why, at the United Nations Conference on
Sustainable Development, the international community
was called upon to uphold its commitments, in
particular those made in the Millennium Declaration,
the Monterrey Consensus, the Johannesburg Plan of
Implementation and the United Nations declarations on
the New Partnership for Africa’s Development.
At the same time, the Heads of State and
Government reiterated the need for their States to adjust
their policies in order to further integrate economic,
social and environmental factors at all levels and across
all disciplines, to ensure sustainable development
across the board. And indeed, to achieve sustainable
development, there must be, at the national and
international levels, conditions conducive to continuing
and strengthening international cooperation in areas
such as debt, trade, technology transfer, innovation and
entrepreneurship and capacity-building .
Achieving the MDGs is one of the Togolese
Government’s priorities. Enormous efforts have been
made to significantly reduce poverty in the country. In
the field of education, the introduction of free primary
education since 2008 has encouraged an increase in
school enrolment, especially among young girls.
With regard to health issues, the HIV/AIDS
prevalence rate has been reduced by half. The care
of infected people has improved considerably, and
more than 26,000 patients are cared for by the State.
The integrated programme providing vaccination, the
distribution of insecticide-treated mosquito nets and
improved nutrition has yielded promising results in the
area of maternal and child health.
In addition, significant progress has been made
in other areas of development, including agriculture,
which, thanks to a far-reaching and ambitious national
agricultural investment programme and food security,
has contributed to reducing poverty, hunger and food
insecurity.
The progress achieved by Togo received recognition
from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the
United Nations (FAO) in the form of an award made
by that Organization during the thirty-eighth FAO
Conference in June in Rome.
On the social front, for some years now the
Government of Togo has been taking proactive measures
enabling us to tackle in a sustained way the problems of
joblessness and underemployment among young people
and their marginalization in decision-making. Among
them I can point to a national youth council, a national
volunteer programme, the creation of a support fund for
youth economic initiatives and a support programme
for the integration and development of employment
opportunities.
The Government of Togo, aware of the great
challenges of the twenty-first century, is continuing to
work with faith and determination to gradually build
a democratic society capable of guaranteeing to every
citizen, without exception, the peace, harmony, well-
being, justice and freedom that are prerequisites for our
society’s full flourishing and that must go hand in hand
with our economic and social development goals.
For nearly a decade, the Government of Togo
has adopted a policy of dialogue and consensus in
managing State affairs. It is in that context that it has
continued to urge the country’s political class to engage
in dialogue in order to ensure that election processes are
definitively free of violence and that the new cycle of
peaceful political life becomes more solidly entrenched.
Thus, in addition to the reshuffling that has taken place
since May 2012, following the recommendations of the
electoral observation missions, particularly that of the
European Union, new measures have been adopted.
They have to do with the reorganization of the national
independent electoral commission, the new electoral
code and laws on electoral districting, the financing
of political parties and the status of the opposition.
Those measures enabled us to hold free, democratic,
transparent and calm elections to the legislature on
25 July.
This is the moment for me to thank all the partners
who supported my country throughout the process, as
well as the various observation missions, which, on the
completion of their work, expressed their satisfaction
with the good conduct of the elections. The new
Parliament that emerged from the elections will continue
with the institutional and constitutional reforms
stipulated in the global political agreement signed in
Lomé in August 2006 between the Government and the
political parties, in order to ensure that Togo will finally
possess an institutional framework that strengthens
democracy and the rule of law and consolidates our
economic and social gains. Similarly, the Government
elected in the legislative elections of 25 July has been
given the primary mandate of stepping up its work in
priority social areas such as health, education, access
to safe drinking water and sanitation, and youth
employment.
That road map keeps the 2015 deadline in view as
it seeks first and foremost to continue Togo’s efforts
to meet the Millennium Development Goals in the
established time frame. Our new frame of reference
for development in the medium term, the strategy
for accelerated growth and job promotion, reflects
that determination to focus squarely on the MDGs.
Togo is fully aware that effective achievement of the
MDGs requires resources. That is why we are actively
committed to promoting good governance.
Under that heading fall our strategic plan for
mobilizing the Togolese diaspora, our accession to
the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative,
the establishment of a regulatory authority for public
contracts in order to improve the business climate,
the restructuring of public enterprises and the finance
sector and especially the establishment of a revenue
office responsible for the collection of both customs
and tax receipts. None of this progress and success
would have been possible for Togo without the support
of our development partners, whom we would like to
thank once again, and to whom we turn for increased
support within the framework of the partnerships that
bind us together.
Togo remains deeply convinced that our efforts to
meet the targets we set ourselves through the MDGs
cannot succeed in isolation. While every State has its
own challenges, the international community must
commit to working on them collectively, owing to the
interdependence that is the hallmark of today’s world.
In the face of accelerating global change, worsening
insecurity and the urgency of finding a collective
solution to the challenges our Organization is dealing
with, I can assure the Assembly that Togo remains
committed to seeking a vision of a united, integrated
world where every State must cooperate to promote
peaceful coexistence and good neighbourliness and to
combat poverty and underdevelopment in all its forms,
as well as political, ideological, ethnic and religious
intolerance.
Here I would like to touch on the case of Mali, where
the danger represented by terrorist groups and extremist
jihadists, coupled with a serious humanitarian crisis,
prompted the United Nations to action with a speedy
military intervention and peacekeeping operation. In
that regard, the adoption of an integrated United Nations
strategy for the Sahel, in the months after Security
Council resolution 2100 (2013) established the United
Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization
Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), has been crucial. The
holding of the presidential elections on 28 July and
3 August was an unquestionable success not only for
the Malian people and their leaders but also for the
international community.
Togo is pleased that regional and subregional
organizations, along with the international community,
were able to speak with one voice and coordinate their
actions in order to achieve the results we welcome
today. From this rostrum, Togo, which is currently
chairing the West African Economic and Monetary
Union, of which Mali is a member, would like to
reiterate the community’s pleasure at this success of
the highly diverse Malian people, who demonstrated
their political maturity and the ability to overcome their
differences in the national interest.
In accordance with its ongoing commitment to
peace, security and stability, internationally and in the
West African subregion in particular, Togo continues
to work within the entities and institutions of which it
is a member and, through its MINUSMA contingent,
to contribute to helping the Government of Mali. That
is why my country invites the community of nations to
continue to support Mali on the road to rebuilding both
the infrastructure that was destroyed in the north of
the country and its economic development, which was
severely damaged in the crisis.
There are other situations in Africa that deserve our
close attention by reason of the degree to which they
contribute to the continent’s insecurity and undermine
our efforts to achieve the MDGs. The Central African
Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo,
Libya and many other countries are currently sources
of concern, since peace and security are still tenuous
in those brotherly countries. While we commend the
bold actions that have already been taken to halt those
conflicts, we would like to urge the international
community to continue to work to that end alongside
the African Union, which has made extraordinary
efforts to overcome all the obstacles to the continent’s
economic rebirth.
Among the scourges that have the potential to slow
African States’ development is that of transnational
organized crime, whose pernicious impact on our
economies is clear. Where the States of the Gulf of
Guinea are concerned, piracy and armed robbery
on the high seas have recently become a new type of
scourge that is more and more worrying and whose
seriousness demands general involvement and a strong,
firm and uncompromising response on the part of the
international community as a whole, as well as the
countries concerned.
In that regard, my country, which is currently
a member of the Security Council, welcomes the
commitment whereby the Council has included the
issue in its agenda, on the initiative of our States. The
Council’s position has enabled the United Nations
Office for Central Africa and the United Nations Office
for West Africa to be a strong presence in the quest for
solutions to the problem, through the Summit of Heads
of State and Government of the Economic Community
of Central African States and the Economic Community
of West African States on maritime safety and security.
The summit that was held in Yaoundé on 24 and
25 June led to the adoption of a code of conduct for the
prevention and suppression of acts of piracy and armed
robbery against ships and illegal maritime activities.
The fight against those scourges calls for enhanced
international cooperation, in particular among United
Nations and regional and subregional organizations, in
line with the Charter of the United Nations. However,
regional and subregional organizations will not be able
to effectively tackle those current major challenges if
they are not granted substantial resources.
The Syrian conflict continues with its atrocities
and daily tragedies, which culminated in the use of
chemical weapons on 21 August. The international
community has long stood by, powerless, as the conflict
has taken its gruesome toll. However, we express the
hope that Security Council resolution 2118 (2013)
will open up promising new prospects for peace and
an inclusive political transition in Syria. That means
that the international community must do more on the
humanitarian front by providing aid to Syrians in need,
both inside and outside the country. In that regard,
we ardently hope that the holding of the “Geneva II”
conference will provide an opportunity for ending
the crisis through the establishment of a transitional
Government based on consensus and an inclusive
process.
I cannot fail to mention the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict by welcoming the resumption of direct
negotiations between the two parties, thanks to the
sustained efforts of President Barack Obama. Togo calls
on the Israeli and Palestinian authorities to negotiate in
good faith to reach, in the shortest possible time, an
agreement that finally allows for the creation of two
States living side by side in peace and security and
within internationally recognized borders.
The challenges facing our States are numerous
and vast, but we believe in the ability of the United
Nations to deal with them. It is therefore important that
we re-establish the United Nations on the basis of the
values that led to its creation, which are, essentially, the
maintenance of international peace and security and
the strengthening of international cooperation.
In conclusion, I would like to emphasize, with
regard to the MDGs, the need to stay the course,
regardless of the results achieved by each individual
State. Better yet, the international community must be
more ambitious in the goals that it will establish for
the post-2015 period, because, given the challenges of
the contemporary world, it is no longer simply a matter
of reducing the proportion of persons suffering from
hunger, malnutrition and endemic diseases. Our aim
must be to eradicate them. Only by mobilizing all our
efforts in the pursuit of those very important goals will
we increase our chances of actually achieving them.