I
am pleased to congratulate you, Sir, on your election
as President of the General Assembly at its sixty-
eighth session, and to welcome the fact that this lofty
responsibility has been entrusted to a dear friend from
Antigua and Barbuda, a member of our community of
Latin American and Caribbean States. You can count
on the firm support of Peru in the execution of your
work.
At the outset, I wish to express our respect for and
solidarity with the people of Mexico and Pakistan,
who are suffering as a result of natural disasters. I also
wish to express the strong rejection and condemnation
of the Government and people of Peru of the terrorist
attack in Nairobi. We are relieved that this horrendous
attack has come to an end. We express our unwavering
solidarity with the families of the victims and with the
Government and people of Kenya at this difficult time.
The world is changing, the agenda is realigning,
new actors are emerging and new horizons are coming
into view for the future of humankind. All countries
and peoples are affected by such rapid transformation.
However, we note with concern that some fundamental
truths have not changed. Wars continue, mostly in new
forms, emerging from the shadows and exacting an
ever higher price from innocent populations.
Regarding the Syrian tragedy, we express our
solidarity with the Syrian people. Peru condemns
the use of chemical weapons as unacceptable in all
circumstances. It is an affront to humankind and a clear
violation of international law. The Syrian people deserve
an immediate solution to the bloody conflict ravaging
their country. We therefore urge all parties involved to
find a peaceful and negotiated solution that respects the
mechanisms for the settlement of disputes. We also call
on the Security Council to uphold its responsibility to
maintain international peace and security.
At the same time, inequality is becoming ever
more extreme. The gap marginalizing the poor from
the benefits of progress and development widens by the
day, robbing them of the rights enshrined in the Charter
of the United Nations.
It is crucial for us to strengthen, renew and
uphold our global commitment to developing peaceful
relations among peoples and to seeking solutions
that reject the use of force as means of solving our
problems. It is therefore particularly gratifying for Peru
and a source of genuine pride that we addressed our
maritime delimitation dispute with Chile in the most
constructive and cooperative way possible, through a
mutual commitment to abiding by and enforcing the
judgment to be rendered by the International Court of
Justice. This process will, I trust, transform the very
nature of our relationship into a profitable and enduring
coexistence for the future of our neighbouring peoples.
The rule of law and its principles in the conduct of
international affairs are therefore indispensable tools
for our conduct as members of the community of peoples
of the United Nations. However, the greatest threat to
international peace and security falls not in the realm
of relations between States, but transcends them and
may even use them as tools for shadowy schemes. We
are referring to terrorism, drug trafficking, organized
crime, mafias and corruption. All of these crimes pose
a genuine threat to life, progress and development,
affecting primarily the poorest, which means that such
crimes are increasingly becoming the main obstacle to
the realization of the goals of the United Nations.
The underlying problems remain the same. Peru
therefore welcomes the fundamentally important
theme you have chosen, Sir, for our discussions — the
development agenda for beyond 2015, which is the
deadline for achieving the Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs).
Our country, happily, has made progress and
attained some of the best benchmarks for achievement.
Since 2000, according to United Nations Development
Programme indicators, we achieved certain goals early,
in particular in the fight against poverty and extreme
poverty, hunger, child mortality, and access to safe
drinking water. In 2000, more than half of Peruvians
lived in poverty; today, only a quarter of my countrymen
still face that situation. Our goal is to reduce those
living in poverty to one fifth of our population by the
end of my term, in 2016.
We have undertaken to realign the growth
model by focusing on inclusion. In those efforts, the
State is implementing a number of connected and
interdependent policies. It is worth underscoring the
unprecedented measure of devoting expenditure to the
poorest and most excluded through a range of social
programmes aimed at improving the living standards
of the population, enhancing education for children
and young people and promoting gender equality and
access to health services, paying particular attention to
those in vulnerable situations.
We are deeply concerned to note that the
environment is deteriorating, which is having an impact
on our security, in particular that of the most vulnerable.
This is happening even as we remain unable to agree on
measures to ensure our sustainable development.
The development agenda must also pay particular
attention to the empowerment of women and the
protection of vulnerable groups. Our Government
attaches particular importance to the rights of
indigenous peoples. We were the first in the world to
legislate and regulate the right to prior consultation on
measures directly affecting such groups in accordance
with Convention No. 169 of the International Labour
Organization.
We are equally concerned about the rights of migrants
and the opportunities for integrated development, to
which they contribute, fostering inter-cultural dialogue
and economic exchanges between their countries of
origin and their host countries. In that vein, we have
promoted the free movement of people and welcome the
initiative of the Government of Spain to promote visa-
free entry for Peruvian nationals into the Schengen
Area .
We therefore welcome the commitments contained
in the document “The future we want”, adopted at the
United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development
held last year (resolution 66/288, annex). The process
proposed at that event to establish sustainable
development goals should converge with the post-2015
development agenda, leading to the greater capacity
of the Organization to contribute to solving urgent
problems and dealing with development challenges.
We urgently need to integrate the various separate
efforts. The United Nations should have a single,
comprehensive development agenda. But to do so, we
need to change the equation and place the fight for
equality and against inequality at the centre of our
efforts. Let us not make growth an end in itself; rather,
we should turn it into a tool. That is why in Peru we
believe that the right formula is “inclusion for growth.”
That is the direction Peru proposes for the post-2015
agenda.
Peru has made a quantum leap in its economy. We
are currently among the fastest-growing countries.
Responsible management of our economy has helped to
create 800,000 new jobs so far during my Administration
and has also helped to reduce unemployment by
7 per cent. We are gradually diversifying our economy.
Non-traditional exports account for one third of
our total exports — more than $11 billion dollars
today — and service exports account for $5 billion. We
are developing our immense potential for tourism.
The economic growth in recent years has been
extraordinary, and I must say it has been the result of
much effort, rigour and work, as well as democratic
continuity and perseverance. Peru has managed both
to avoid the worst effects of global instability and to
attract levels of investment flows that are unparalleled
in our country’s history. Our task is to strengthen
the foundations that have enabled such growth, in
particular by strengthening democracy, institutions,
the rule of law and security, building citizenship and
opening spaces for participation.
We have the means to do that, since we are a
country of entrepreneurs: 98 per cent of our businesses
are small or medium-sized. They employ 75 per cent
of the economically active population and contribute
42 per cent of the gross domestic product. Thanks
to our efforts, Peru is now considered an emerging,
middle-income country, with new middle classes and a
growing domestic consumption, and it is able to attract
long-term investments for large projects.
Thanks to that and to the extent that we have
strengthened our national capacities, we will be
able to encourage industrial policies geared towards
changing economic and social structures. For us,
industrialization is a national goal. In order to move in
that direction, in December Lima will host the fifteenth
General Conference of the United Nations Industrial
Development Organization.
Being centrally located on the map of South America
and having played a key role in Latin American history,
Peru views its region from the perspective of a country
that seeks consensus, both internal and external. Peru
is a country that perceives regional integration as an
effective way to improve the present and future of
our security and development. We Peruvians have an
overriding conviction that, on our own, we can move
forward rapidly, but together we can do that better and
reach farther.
Peru is part of the Pacific Alliance, along with
Mexico, Chile and Colombia. Together we are moving
towards integration with a strategic projection towards
the Asia-Pacific region and the world. In that region,
which is home to the most dynamic economies of the
twenty-first century, we are also part of the Asia-
Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum. We hosted the
Leaders’ Meeting in 2008 and will host it again in 2016.
We are also a member of the Union of South
American Nations, having recently completed our
term as pro-tempore president. We participate in the
Community of Latin American and Caribbean States,
which this year held its first summit with the Heads
of State and Government of the European Union.
We maintain our hemispheric roots through the
Organization of American States, and at the subregional
level, we are currently the pro-tempore president of the
Andean Community. We consider all those forums to be
complementary. We participate in them with a constant
call for integration, dialogue and consensus.
Peru is a reliable partner committed to global
causes. Our commitment to the values and principles
of the General Assembly brings us to point out the
need for reform. That is necessary in order to make the
United Nations system more legitimate, representative,
accountable and effective through the strengthening of
its principal organs, specialized agencies and various
organizations in the areas of security, development
and human rights. Peru shares the position held by a
large number of Member States on the need to reform
and expand the Security Council so as to reflect the
realities of the twenty-first century.
Our aspirations also entail more transparency
and accountability on the part of individual economic
actors and greater justice in the distribution of wealth.
With those objectives in mind, in 2014 Peru will host
the thirty-fifth session of the Economic Commission
for Latin America and the Caribbean and in 2016 the
fourteenth United Nations Conference on Trade and
Development. We thereby hope to contribute so that the
Doha Round can be resumed, in the scope of the World
Trade Organization, with better prospects.
In many parts of our Latin America and in Peru,
republican States were weak from the start, concentrated
in the capital city. Their core problem has been therefore
that they have been unable to deal with the entire nation
and have focused perhaps on one third of the country.
It was impossible to build citizenship, since in practice
there were different categories of Peruvians: those who
received Government services and those who did not.
Our efforts must be directed at the creation of a
twenty-first-century State, a State that serves all,
not just a few. While this includes an eminently
ethical component, its basis is not restricted to that
important dimension. It also has profoundly practical
repercussions for society at large. We cannot forget that
a State that does not serve the entire population breeds
and exacerbates inequality. As long as such degrees of
inequality exist – and I will never tire of saying this -
any policy aimed at combating poverty will have only
relative effects.
For that reason, my Administration has worked not
only on economic growth but in all areas of growth. The
history of my country has seen other periods of growth,
but they proved to be unsustainable and benefited very
few. Economic growth is a means and not an end; it
is an indispensable tool, but it is not sufficient. Our
people, especially those who are most forgotten, cannot
wait indefinitely for growth without the State actively
promoting the extension of its benefits.
In addition, that will set in motion a virtuous circle
in which progress for our most vulnerable countrymen
and the development of a population free of extreme
poverty, with health care and education for all, will
create the conditions for even greater economic growth.
That is why we stress the new political concept of
simultaneous growth and redistribution. That is what
I mean when I stress the necessity of “including so as
to grow”.
Two years ago, less than two months into my term
as President of Peru, I stood before the Assembly to
emphasize my Government’s commitment to social
inclusion. I said then that we were working to turn
our economic growth into development and quality of
life for my countrymen. I also said that we intended to
hone our democracy so that it could solve the problems
and meet the needs of all. The country we want is a
prosperous one where all the Peruvians, women and
men, without any distinction, can enjoy the benefits of
growth in a dignified, safe and free manner. After two
years in office, I reaffirm what I said; our commitment
remains the same.