I would like to congratulate you, Sir, on your
brilliant election to the presidency of the sixty-fifth
session of the General Assembly. That election is a sign
of the unanimous recognition of your personal
commitment to promote the role of this Organization
and to defend its ideals. It is also the crowning moment
in a talented diplomatic career that you have led with
skill and tact. It is therefore to you as a skilled
diplomat that I would like to pay warm homage.
It is also my pleasure to express to your
predecessor, His Excellency Mr. Ali Abdussalam Treki,
my delegation’s appreciation for the quality of the
work he undertook and the results achieved under his
presidency. Finally, allow me to pay tribute to the
Secretary-General, Mr. Ban Ki-moon, for his personal
commitment and tireless efforts to support peace and
development throughout the world. Furthermore, I
wish to convey my deep gratitude to him as well as the
gratitude of His Excellency Mr. Laurent Gbagbo,
President of the Republic of Côte d’Ivoire, as well as
that of the people and Government of Côte d’Ivoire for
his commitment to reach a settlement of the crisis in
Côte d’Ivoire.
By proposing the theme of reaffirming the United
Nations central role in global governance for this
session, Mr. President, you celebrate the primacy of
multilateralism over unilateralism as a method for
managing global affairs in the best possible manner.
Moreover, you are transforming our Organization into
the forum of choice for dealing with issues of global
concern. That vision is, without any doubt, in line with
that of developing countries in general and my country,
Côte d’Ivoire, in particular and can only take shape if
the United Nations retains its credibility by adapting to
an international context that has considerably changed
since its founding in 1945. This requires urgent and
thorough reform, because we believe that our
Organization has resisted the widespread changes in
the world that it was established to serve.
Because the United Nations is at the crossroads
of all of the world’s problems, it is here that we can
fully assess what has happened since it was founded.
This is the appropriate place to assess the progress
achieved as well as the failings. It is also here that we
can envisage solutions to problems that now confront
the world. Those issues include poverty, which is the
source of all evils, and which remains an open wound
on humanity, which continues to make progress to the
point where it is already considering human
settlements on the moon. But unfortunately, at the same
time, humanity is forgetting that more than a billion
men and women across the planet Earth suffer from
hunger. Women’s lives are lost as they give life.
Millions of children die before reaching the age of 5,
and access to drinking water is limited in Africa. The
AIDS epidemic and the malaria epidemic kill more
people than all the wars combined. If the world is
powerless, the United Nations must be adapted to
provide proper responses to those imbalances, because
there are not two worlds, there is just one world, which
is our common heritage. Managing that world must be
done in a joint manner, and it must be shared equitably.
The United Nations must demonstrate the example and
show the path forward.
In that regard, my country’s position has
remained unchanged. For Côte d’Ivoire, that long-
sought reform must aim for balance in the main bodies
of the United Nations, including in particular a larger
Security Council and improvement in its working
methods. That is why my delegation places much hope
in the successful outcome of the intergovernmental
negotiations that were launched by the General
Assembly on reform of the Organization in general and
the Security Council in particular.
This session of the Assembly is taking place at a
moment when the global economy is beginning a
fragile recovery, following the most serious economic
crisis the world has faced since the Great Depression of
the 1930s. That crisis has shown, and indeed has
exacerbated, the vulnerability of integrated world
economies, ruined development efforts and threatened
collective security. Many countries, mainly developing
countries, are continuing to suffer the effects of the
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crisis through a drop in the purchasing power of their
people, the growing shortage of official development
assistance, falling foreign direct investment and growth
in unemployment.
If, as the experts tell us, the global economy has
begun to recover this year, it nevertheless continues to
be fragile, with a growth rate of a mere 2.2 per cent. In
such a situation, we must seek, in solidarity and by
combining our efforts, the most appropriate solutions
to consolidate that tendency to growth. Meeting that
fundamental requirement will allow us to establish
throughout the world societies that are safer, more
equitable, more inclusive and more stable.
My delegation therefore calls on the
industrialized countries to make a reality of their
commitments with regard to developing countries,
especially in terms of official development assistance,
if the developing countries are to reach the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015.
Côte d’Ivoire also hopes to see the diligent
implementation of the conclusions of the United
Nations Conference on the World Financial and
Economic Crisis and Its Impact on Development,
which was held here from 24 to 26 June 2009,
particularly those calling for reform and strengthening
of the financial and economic system and of the
international financial architecture in order to adapt
them to current difficulties. It also desires that
that reform should not only allow developing countries
in general and those of Africa in particular to have
more adequate representation in international financial
institutions, but should also promote economic and
financial policies that are better adapted to their needs.
Along those lines, I would like to pay tribute to
the summit of the Group of Eight (G-8) held in June
2010 in Muskoka, Canada, which reaffirmed, inter alia,
the commitments of the G-8 with regard to official
development assistance and the guarantee of aid
effectiveness. It called for the effective mobilization of
all public and private resources for the achievement of
the Millennium Development Goals. It also
emphasized the urgent need for collective action to
achieve the MDGs, particularly improvement in
maternal health and reduction of infant mortality.
On that specific point, my delegation would like
to welcome the creation within the United Nations
system of UN Women, a special body responsible for
gender issues and the advancement of women. That
new body and the establishment of a trust fund to
support initiatives for women is a real cause for hope
for developing countries, particularly those in Africa,
in their struggle against poverty, discrimination and
social inequalities. In that connection, I wish to
warmly congratulate Ms. Michelle Bachelet on her
appointment to head UN Women and assure her of the
full cooperation of the authorities of Côte d’Ivoire in
fulfilling her mandate.
Food insecurity, which now affects more than
1 billion people, mainly in developing countries, is a
major and immediate obstacle to development and a
threat to world peace and security.
In the face of that situation, for which the entire
international community is responsible, we need to
find innovative, effective and lasting solutions in terms
of financing for agriculture. My delegation welcomes
the efforts being made by the World Bank, regional
development banks and the specialized funds and
agencies of the United Nations for financing the
agricultural sector. Similarly, it welcomes the launching
in 2009 of the L’Aquila Food Security Initiative, which
allowed the G-8 to mobilize $22 billion to finance
agriculture in developing countries over a period of
three years.
The delegation of Côte d’Ivoire welcomes,
finally, the reform under way of the Committee on
World Food Security and the launching of the Global
Agriculture and Food Security Programme.
Similarly, I would like to recall the proposals
made by President Laurent Gbagbo, at the meeting of
the Group of 77 and China that was held in June 2008
at Yamoussoukro, to set up a mutual support
mechanism for providing food products to importing
countries by producing countries while aiming to
create in the United Nations a stabilization fund for
food products.
Climate change is rightly seen as a global
problem and today represents a serious threat to
humankind’s equilibrium. It therefore requires clear
and committed responses at the international level.
Thus it is important that we rapidly find solutions that
can ensure that future generations will have a world
that is better balanced and guarantees a better future
for humankind.
In that regard, the delegation of Côte d’Ivoire
welcomes the significant progress of the United
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Nations Conference on Climate Change, held from 7 to
18 December 2009 in Copenhagen. Although the
principle of a legally binding accord to succeed the
Kyoto Protocol after 2012 was not reached, the hopes
promoted by that meeting largely justified its being
held. Moreover, the significant progress achieved
confirms us in that opinion.
Among the advances made we would mention,
inter alia, the consensus on the goals for stabilizing the
temperature rise at 2°C, the creation of a mechanism to
mobilize financial resources for the absorption of
greenhouse gas emissions by forests, and the
commitment of developed countries to provide
$30 billion for the period 2010 to 2012, and $100
billion as of 2020 for measures to adapt to climate
change in developing countries.
The diligent implementation of those measures
should allow vulnerable States such as my own to
establish plans to combat climate change, which is
becoming increasingly evident throughout the world in
an upsurge in natural disasters related to drought,
flooding and coastal erosion. The effects of all of those
events on the health of populations and on the
availability of land and potable water compromise the
economic and social development of many States that
have already been weakened by poverty and
pandemics. The United Nations, in line with its
Charter, has the duty to carry out the negotiations that
were begun in Copenhagen and must work resolutely to
that end.
Respect for human rights is a concern for my
country, which has endorsed the set of international
instruments in that regard. Though it was affected by
the socio-political crisis, the human rights situation in
my country is today on a path to normalization, thanks
especially to the valuable help of national and
international non-governmental organizations involved
in that area. The international community could see
that on 3 December 2009 in Geneva, when the Working
Group on the universal periodic review took up Côte
d’Ivoire. That review led to the adoption on 18 March
2010 of a final report that earned my country the
support and encouragement of the States members of
the Human Rights Council for our stated will to pursue
efforts to improve human rights.
The persistence of numerous armed conflicts
around the world continues to threaten international
peace and security. Once again, the role of the United
Nations is vital to resolving those conflicts, which are
hindering the harmonious development of the world.
That is particularly true in Africa, a region that, shaken
by hotbeds of tension, cannot ensure its peaceful
economic and social development, despite its enormous
potential.
In that regard, allow me to stress how happy we
are that the peace so much hoped for is now a reality in
Côte d’Ivoire, following the implementation of the
Ouagadougou Political Agreement, which will permit
the organization of free, transparent and open elections.
The first round of presidential elections has been set
for 31 October 2010. Besides setting that date, the
signing on 9 September 2010 of a presidential decree
finalizing the ballot list allows for the distribution of
national identity and voting cards to the 5,725,720
Ivorians who are on the list that has been validated by
the Independent Electoral Commission and the Special
Representative of the Secretary-General of the United
Nations.
Those signs of progress in the peace process and
the proven determination of political players and the
Ivorian people to move towards free, open and
transparent elections allow us to envisage, with
optimism, the holding of the presidential election on
the appointed date and thus of Côte d’Ivoire emerging
from its crisis.
On that hopeful note, I would like to conclude by
recalling that the various crises of security, food,
energy and finances, compounded by the threat of
climate change, demonstrate the extent to which in the
existence, balance and future development of humanity
are now threatened more than ever. In that context the
United Nations has a crucial role to play in
strengthening indispensable international solidarity and
in seeking effective, collective and appropriate
solutions to those crises and challenges.
However, to be fully engaged with its time and to
remain true to the objectives of its founding 65 years
ago, the United Nations must adapt to the realities of
the contemporary world if it wants to remain the
guarantor of international peace and security and of the
world’s socio-economic development. To that end, we
must strengthen the foundations of this Organization
and — as the theme of this session invites us to do —
reaffirm its central role in global governance. Côte
d’Ivoire therefore calls for international solidarity so
that our common Organization may find the necessary
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solutions to offer to coming generations the hope of a
fruitful and peaceful future.