Benin

As I take the floor on behalf of the delegation of the Republic of Benin, I would like first to associate myself with the words of congratulations and deep appreciation expressed to Mr. Hennadiy Udovenko by previous speakers. They spoke so eloquently that I will confine myself to saying how hopeful I am that this session will benefit from his proven competence and his remarkable analytical mind in order to draw from our debates constructive conclusions that preserve a just balance between the different suggestions and recommendations contained in the various statements. The particular significance and nature of this session do not reside only in the impressive gathering of leaders from 185 Member States. That has long been customary, and has even become ritual, during this period every year since the establishment of the United Nations in 1945. What confers on this fifty-second session a distinctive character, and what promises it an excellent place in the annals of the United Nations, is the central focus of its agenda, which, as we all know, is devoted to structural reform. What is our assessment of the specific reform provisions that are to be discussed and decided upon in the course of these meetings? What are the ins and outs of reform, the issues at stake and the real objectives? Are the reforms capable of giving the Organization the means for productive and effective action to meet the complex problems and numerous challenges on the horizon of the next millennium, whose effects are already strongly felt in the everyday realities of today’s world? These are a few of the major concerns of countries, such as mine, that are today experiencing both hope and doubt: hope based on the enormous potential of our Earth, whose intelligent, rational and well-directed use should make it possible to ensure the progress, prosperity and development to which all peoples legitimately aspire; but also doubt, a feeling of stubborn and profound uncertainty constantly fuelled by misery and poverty, ignorance and disease, technological lags, and the economic backwardness that over 1.5 billion human beings suffer from. Since his election in January 1997 our Secretary- General, Mr. Kofi Annan, has resolutely tackled, with commendable diligence, strength and motivation, the preparation of a programme for reform, which he himself rightly describes as “the most extensive and far-reaching reforms in the fifty-two year history of this Organization.” (A/51/950, Letter of Transmittal, first paragraph) It is reform aimed at giving the United Nations “the ways in which the United Nations can more effectively and efficiently meet the challenges that lie ahead as we enter a new century, and a new millennium”. (ibid.) We regard as appropriate the global approach taken by the Secretary-General, his view of general and sectoral problems, the thrust of the measures and solutions he advocates, in accordance with a methodology that combines pragmatism and the need for democratic and more effective functioning. Therefore, the delegation of Benin is in favour of the bulk of the proposals in the report. Nonetheless, I must draw attention to the following considerations to which my country attaches great importance. First, Benin believes that it would not be appropriate to eliminate the Committee for Development Planning, which is, inter alia, entrusted with developing the performance criteria for the least developed countries. We believe that rather than having it replaced by groups of experts created by the Economic and Social Council we should consider purely and simply retaining the Committee. Secondly, since the situation in Africa is one of the priorities on which the Secretary-General would like to focus in the next five years. My country would hope that the Office of the Special Coordinator for Africa and Least Developed Countries might be strengthened in terms of human and financial resources in order to be better able to play a full role within the United Nations system. 25 Thirdly, although on 20 June 1997, following over three years of negotiations, the General Assembly adopted the Agenda for Development, it is regrettable that the Secretary-General’s reform programme made no mention or explicit reference to mechanisms and means for implementation and assessment of the Agenda. My delegation hopes that this question will be taken into account in the framework of measures envisaged in order to bring about the renewal of the Organization. Lastly, I would like to anticipate the results of our session by saying that, both individually and collectively, we must firmly commit ourselves to implement the decisions and measures that will be taken in the framework of this long-awaited reform. Our consensus will be not a triumph for the ideas of one State or group of States over another, but, rather, the fruitful result of a shared political resolve to adapt our universal Organization to the changes and developments of this end of the century period. Here, and with specific reference to reform of the Security Council, Benin strongly recommends that the following principles should be taken into account: an increase in the membership of the Security Council truly reflecting the political and economic configuration of today’s world; equitable geographical representation of the five regional groups, with the African group entitled to four seats, two permanent and two non-permanent; and protection of democratic and transparent functioning, ultimately involving the elimination of the right of veto. By formulating the 15 priority objectives of his reform programme as a series of profound changes of major scope which should enable the United Nations to embark resolutely on a course of radical reform, the Secretary- General produced a document of undeniably high quality, whose title — “Renewing the United Nations” — is significant in more than one respect. Given the noble and legitimate aspirations of the entire international community for the future of the planet, the Organization certainly needs to be renewed in order to confront effectively and successfully the exciting yet disturbing challenges posed by globalization. Renewing the United Nations requires a new vision of the world, new conceptions and approaches to partnership among nations, and new methods for the Organization and for handling relations among States in a new world. That is the real problem. Those are the real stakes at a time when we are inexorably approaching a new millennium. Globalization is both a phenomenon and a process; it has become the recurrent and omnipresent theme of all debates and of all concerns. Like other members, I noted with particular interest that President Clinton — first at the Waldorf Astoria hotel on the evening of 21 September, then the following day in this Hall — forcefully and germanely stressed the need for the United Nations to ensure that the globalization of the economy does not create deep disparities between rich and poor and that it establishes innovative partnerships between the private sector, non-governmental organizations and international financial institutions. As the representative of a least developed country, Benin, I cannot but welcome this great and noble idea, imbued with generosity, pragmatism and a spirit of solidarity. But, looking the facts in the face, what do we see? When on 18 December 1991 the General Assembly adopted the United Nations New Agenda for the Development of Africa in the 1990s, it created a new political covenant, one of whose vital features was the principle of shared responsibility and the international community’s full and complete involvement with Africa with a view to achieving development objectives including a real growth rate of at least 6 per cent per annum in gross domestic product, and a minimum net total of $30 billion in official development assistance for 1992, with an annual increase averaging 4 per cent beginning in 1993. Today, six years after the adoption of the New Agenda, in spite of all the efforts of African countries to make better use of official development assistance, and in spite of the express intention of a number of developed countries to support the development of Africa, the total volume of official development assistance to Africa has declined considerably: by about one third compared with the forecast of $30 billion. It was in this context of the decline in official development assistance that the famous United Nations System-wide Special Initiative for Africa was launched in March 1996 in order to lend fresh momentum to the New Agenda. But it is obvious that this great initiative can be successful only with the support of the international community, through a massive mobilization of financial resources to carry out the programmes and projects that have been set up. While, to be sure, it is first and foremost up to the African countries to make the greater 26 part of the effort, the excessively restrictive procedures and conditionalities for the granting of loans, and the lukewarm reaction of certain creditors to the idea of simply cancelling the foreign debt of poor countries, are obstacles to the effective mobilization of the expected financial resources. In a publication issued at Washington just a few months ago, in May 1997, the International Monetary Fund defined globalization as “the growing economic interdependence of the entire world caused by an increase in the volume and variety of transborder transactions in goods and services, and in international capital flows, along with the rapid and broad dissemination of modern technology”. Welcomed by some, feared by others, globalization has become an unavoidable economic reality for all nations. For most experts and other analysts, this process marks the success of the global spread of an economic liberalization that began in Europe half a century ago with the Marshall Plan. In their view, it brings unprecedented possibilities to billions of people all over the world. For us in Africa, that optimistic vision needs to be tempered, for possibilities are not realities. So that it can become a reality, the harmonious pursuit of the globalization process, in the context of real development for all those billions of people throughout the world, especially in Africa, necessarily presupposes a new international programme of solidarity and cooperation for the poor countries, without which globalization will very soon transform their regions into a poor and marginalized periphery of a hyper-rich and hyper-developed world. In fact, the developed countries are already doing a great deal for Africa, if we consider the sum total of the loans made to the continent through bilateral and multilateral assistance. And yet, contrary to what statistics, curves, graphs and growth rates would have us believe, African populations have not yet felt any tangible improvement of their standard of living in their daily lives. In spite of all this, for the immense majority of Africans the will to survive is stronger than despair, and hope prevails over resignation. The ministerial meeting of the Security Council devoted to Africa, held on the commendable initiative of the United States last 25 September, led to a fruitful exchange of views that showed us a real will on the part of the international community to become more actively, more significantly and more concretely involved in a new type of partnership with Africa in order to contribute to its development. The signs of this real readiness on the part of the developed countries have proliferated in recent years, as we can see, inter alia, from the resolutions of the G-7 adopted in Lyon and in Denver, assistance programmes of the eighth European Development Fund, President Clinton’s initiative for a partnership for economic growth and opportunity and the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD I), and so on. All in all, it can be said that the will exists to help Africa emerge from poverty and underdevelopment, that concrete actions are being undertaken in this direction and that new commitments are being made. Nevertheless, there still remain, unfortunately, enormous problems, and Africa continues to present to the world the desolate spectacle of endemic poverty, aggravated by crises and fratricidal conflicts. In order to put an end to this distressing situation, Africa’s development partners should envisage a comprehensive and integrated mechanism for flexible, operational and effective financing, free of bureaucratic impediments and red tape, with the aim of establishing a centralized funding entity to receive resources from all sources to be devoted to economic and social development. The end of the cold war, the process of economic globalization and the progressive realization of the concept of sustainable development offer the opportunity for profound change, calling into question some of the traditional solutions and conventional answers to development problems. In the dark centuries of the slave trade, Africa contributed blood, sweat and the toil of its strongest arms to the building of the bases of the economy of the New World. The collective memory of humankind must not forget this important historical fact. Today the developed countries have the moral duty to be as concerned as Africans themselves about the destiny of Africa, not to abandon Africa along the roadside of globalization and to make available to it part of their enormous material, technological and financial strength, in order to support Africa’s efforts in the struggle to emerge from underdevelopment and to enter the modern age. In order that the implementation of the United Nations New Agenda for the Development of Africa in 27 the 1990s (UN-NADAF), the United Nations System-wide Special Initiative on Africa, Agenda 21 and other programmes of action can be truly successful, it will be necessary to establish a global system of operations and financing for Africa, like the Marshall Plan, which contributed greatly to the reconstruction and economic and social recovery of Europe after the Second World War. The establishment of this mechanism before the year 2000 will make it possible for Africa to stride confidently, not slouch, into the twenty-first century. Shortly before the statement that was made on 5 June 1947 at Harvard University by General George Marshall to define the foundations of his well-known European Recovery Programme, President Harry Truman stated: “Our duty is to help free peoples to fashion their own destiny in their own way. I believe that our assistance must be first of all economic and financial, because this is essential to economic stability and political order.” Fifty years later, this magnificent and noble spirit of solidarity, displayed voluntarily by the great American people and its Government, still retains all its validity and all its historical meaning. There are cases in which, because of the requirements of its own unfolding, history repeats itself. Here at the end of a century, we are experiencing one such case: it is necessary to meet the urgent need for a new Marshall Plan for Africa. And the upcoming second Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD II) could provide one of the best opportunities to do so. If the international community works resolutely in this direction, we will have laid the solid and indestructible foundations for a road on which we will all be able to march triumphantly into the third millennium. For its part the Government of Benin, while awaiting the fulfilment of that hope, has developed the concept of a shared social minimum level in order methodically and effectively to take actions and measures aimed at eliminating poverty, hunger, disease and illiteracy, providing adequate housing, guaranteeing productive employment, improving standards and conditions of living and ensuring the sustainable use of natural resources. This concept was the subject of an international symposium, supported by the United Nations system, which was held in Cotonou from 4 to 6 August 1997. The consolidation of our process of democratic renewal, which began after the historic National Conference of the Active Forces of the Nation in February 1990, necessitates immediate and short-term social and economic successes. That is why we are endeavouring, with our limited resources, to take multifaceted actions to improve the living and working conditions of our rural and urban populations. However, we know that we can rely on international cooperation, founded not only on solidarity, but on mutual interest and partnership, to overcome the difficulties confronting us, to support our efforts at economic and social recovery, to build a State genuinely based on the rule of law and to construct a free, democratic, modern and prosperous nation.