On behalf of the Government and people of the
Dominican Republic, I am pleased to extend our
warmest congratulations to the President of the General
Assembly, Father Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann of the
sister Republic of Nicaragua, on his recent election. We
also take this opportunity to greet our fellow Member
States in this General Assembly.
Eight years ago, in this same place,
representatives of 189 countries undertook a crucial
commitment, possibly one of the most transcendental
commitments that such a large number of nations ever
made. They agreed on the Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs). In the year 2000, it was believed —
and this is still the case today — that the objectives
established at that time would go down in the common
history of humankind as the bravest ethical decision
ever taken in the face of extreme poverty, the shame of
generalized injustice and the heartbreaking tragedy of
social inequity. It was an agenda of work and
dedication that required a large dose of political will,
actions laid out in conformity with the goals to be
reached, a reorganization of budgetary priorities and a
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greater flow of aid resources and support for
development.
We did not undertake the Millennium
Development Goals in vague terms. We did not couch
the Millennium Declaration in abstract and
grandiloquent concepts lacking in substance. Quite the
contrary, we analysed with the greatest possible rigour
the situation that we wanted to correct. We measured
with mathematical precision its overwhelming scope
and the magnitude of the political and financial effort
that its reversal would require.
We committed to the MDGs with such supreme
responsibility that we even set a date for their
achievement: the year 2015. Now we are halfway to
that date, and we face the disheartening situation of an
international landscape full of obstacles to overcome if
we are to conclude what we set out to do in the year
2000. We knew there would be difficulties. We
recognized that we would have to overcome immense
obstacles, and we had identified every type of major
challenge that would await us in the quest to carry out
our plans.
In the Dominican Republic, we have been able to
achieve some progress towards the achievement of the
Millennium Development Goals. Since 1991, we have
reduced by more than half the percentage of five-year-
old children who are underweight for their age. We
have also made progress in achieving our goals related
to health development and have the spread of
HIV/AIDS under control.
However, we now know that over and above the
limited progress achieved, not just by the Dominican
Republic but by developing countries on all continents,
more than half a million women still die every year
from complications of pregnancy and childbirth that
could be treated and prevented. We now know that,
unless an extraordinary effort is made from now on,
instead of reaching the goal of reducing by half the
proportion of children of low birth weight, their
number will grow to over 30 million. We also know
that in 2006, the number of deaths caused by AIDS
rose to almost 3 million and that the preventive
measures against that ominous pandemic remain
grossly insufficient. Also disheartening is the fact that
more than 600 million people will not have better
health services than the ones they currently have access
to.
Now, at the same time that this is occurring, the
richest nations, which committed to providing
extraordinary official development assistance in order
to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, have in
general fallen short in carrying out their pledges. Only
five of those nations — Norway, Sweden, the
Netherlands, Denmark and Luxembourg — have
honoured their commitments, making contributions
equal to and in some cases greater than the 0.7 per cent
of their gross national income established as
appropriate by this world Organization.
Nonetheless, we can be sure that, in order to
achieve the Millennium Development Goals, we will
now require a financial rescue plan from the
international community — in a sort of bailout, as it is
referred to nowadays. According to studies by the
World Bank, a yearly average of approximately
$50 billion in foreign aid would be needed to achieve
the Millennium Development Goals. That is to say that
achieving the goals of improving the quality of life and
dignity in the living conditions of the poorest nations
of the world would require an international economic
financing plan as bold and as urgent as that currently
being undertaken to save Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae,
Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, AIG and other financial
institutions. In other words, over the next seven years,
until 2015, the date established for the achievement of
the Millennium Development Goals, according to the
criteria of the World Bank, we would need $350 billion
of foreign aid. That represents half of the amount that
is being debated at this very moment in the United
States Congress to save from bankruptcy the financial
businesses of Wall Street responsible for their own
failures.
The people of the world affected by hunger and
misery are crying out to the international community to
lend the same urgent attention to the resolution of their
plight that has been given to efforts to rescue banking
institutions on the brink of collapse. We cannot
entertain the idea that rescuing the dignity of the
world’s poor is less important or urgent as rescuing the
institutions operating in the world’s most important
financial centre.
We would like it to be clear that we have not
come here to condemn anyone. We have not come to
point a finger at any friendly nation that is a Member
of the United Nations family. Rather, we wish to sound
the alarm and be a voice that troubles the conscience
and calls for a solution to a problem that affects all
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poor nations and is socially unjust and ethically
unacceptable.
We would like to use this forum, however, to
highlight other factors that hinder the achievement of
the Millennium Development Goals and the progress of
our nations. Such is the case, for example, of the
unregulated speculation in the buying and selling of
futures contracts for oil and food. There is no way to
hide the fact that, without regulation, the futures
markets are mechanisms that lend themselves through
excessive speculation, fraud and manipulation to a
distortion of the fundamental principles of economic
activity. We do not question the fact that, with respect
to the determination of oil prices, supply has not
increased significantly while demand has increased;
that there has been insufficient investment in new
refineries in recent years; that there are geopolitical
tensions in various parts of the world, or that the
United States dollar has decreased in value. All of that
is true.
What we do question, however, is the fact, that in
just 12 months, the price of a barrel of oil rose from
$70 to almost $150. In July, we were stupefied to see
the price of a barrel of oil rise $10 in a single day. Just
two days ago, while we were here in New York, we
saw with great perplexity an increase of not just
$10 but $25 per barrel in a single day. How can we
explain that? Is it that suddenly, in just one day, the
whole world increased its demand so abruptly, or did
the world’s oil wells unexpectedly disappear?
In reality, there is but one explanation: excessive
speculation in the futures markets. It is
incomprehensible that some can sell something they do
not have while others can buy what they do not expect
to receive. However, that is what has been happening
recently, in the clearest example of so-called casino
capitalism.
In just five years, hundreds of billions of dollars
have entered the commodities futures markets, largely
directed towards energy, while prices shot up by more
than 200 per cent between July 2003 and July 2008.
That has occurred not just with a few commodities, but
with every single one of the 25 products on the world
market index for commodities. In the past five years,
the price of wheat has gone up by 177 per cent, soy by
196 per cent and corn by 214 per cent.
Nevertheless, we must reiterate here that what
has the greatest impact on the achievement of the
Millennium Development Goals is skyrocketing oil
prices. In the Dominican Republic, our oil bill has
risen from $1.667 billion in 2004 to a projected
$6.5 billion this year. That represents a difference of
almost 500 per cent. With that difference of $5 billion,
the Dominican Republic could have financed every
public investment laid out in the cost analyses of the
Millennium Development Goals from 2008 to 2015.
The world does not aspire to be a gambling den.
The world does not want continuous manipulation or
permanent fraud in regard to factors that have a
decisive effect on the quality of life. The world, in fact,
has very simple aspirations: to live in conditions of
social justice and equity, with the creation of
opportunities so that every human being can develop
his or her creative potential, both material and
spiritual.
For the achievement of such noble objectives, the
States that have committed themselves to realizing the
MDGs as an agenda of true and genuine social
transformation turn to the United Nations system with
optimism and hope that it can correct and make up for
existing distortions.
We trust that with so many intelligent persons
meeting here, working towards a better life for all of
humankind, important solutions will be brought to the
table with the same speed, urgency and interest that are
being shown in drawing up rescue plans for bankrupt
banks during these turbulent times in the world of
finance.