Few
women before you, Madam, have been elected to the
presidency of the General Assembly, despite the fact
that, as the Chinese proverb states, women hold up half
the sky. We are delighted by your election and
congratulate you and your country, Bahrain. Our
congratulations go also to the Group of Asian States,
which, happily, put your name forward. You can rest
assured that our delegation will always be ready to
support you as you carry out you lofty and challenging
task.
We would also like to congratulate your
predecessor, His Excellency Mr. Jan Eliasson, on
having so successfully guided the work of the General
Assembly during the previous session, as well as for
his understanding of the capacity of Member States to
overcome their differences. Because of his
perseverance, the majority of the reforms resulting
from the commitments entered into at the 2005 World
Summit have been implemented.
At the beginning of this debate we heard Mr. Kofi
Annan present his report on the work of the
Organization (A/61/1) for the last time. He clearly set
out for us his beliefs and accomplishments and his
recommendations for strengthening the United Nations.
My delegation associates itself with the numerous
tributes paid to the Secretary-General. We also wish to
convey to him our profound gratitude for his
courageous efforts over the past 10 years. Thanks to
the extensive experience he acquired at the
Organization, he was able to move the United Nations
forward — in an environment fraught with threats and
new challenges — to meet the expectations aroused as
a result of the upheavals caused by globalization. His
clear vision made it possible to establish the existence
of the nexus between peace, development and human
rights — Charter principles that have repeatedly
underpinned our common efforts.
Guided by the watchful motivation of His Serene
Highness Prince Albert II, the Government of Monaco
has worked to increase its contribution to development
and international cooperation through a significant
increase in official development assistance (ODA). In
that connection, cooperation credits have increased by
30 per cent in 2006. The Principality will continue its
efforts to expeditiously reach the goals set and
reaffirmed last year at this very rostrum by His Serene
Highness the Sovereign Prince.
The advancement of women, improving child and
maternal health and the alleviation of poverty are
among the Principality’s priorities on the international
sphere. The Sovereign Prince and his sisters, Princess
Caroline of Hanover and Princess Stéphanie of
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Monaco, are greatly involved in development efforts
intended to help the most destitute. In her capacity as a
goodwill ambassador for the United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Her
Royal Highness the Princess of Hanover is helping to
promote programmes to educate girls and women. Part
of that effort includes a project undertaken by Monaco,
Andorra, Cyprus, Luxembourg and San Marino on the
theme of human rights and education in combating
poverty and promoting the independence of girls and
women.
As President of the World Association of
Children’s Friends, the Princess has long led an
ongoing struggle to protect children. On the recent
occasion of being honoured by UNICEF-USA, the
Princess of Hanover stated that “today we are at war
against terror, especially against the terror in the eyes,
hearts and spirits of millions of children around the
world”.
This session will provide impetus to the effort to
promote and protect the rights of children with next
October’s publication of a study by the independent
expert Paulo Pinheiro, to which the Principality is
proud to have contributed. Let us not forget that, as
Jean-Paul Sartre wrote, violence, regardless of what
form it takes, constitutes a failure.
We hope that, following the Security Council’s
debates on the protection of children in armed conflict,
the effective implementation of Council resolution
1620 (2005) will lead to progress in this area of such
concern. It is unacceptable in human terms for the
perpetrators of such crimes to go unpunished.
During her presence here last June to attend the
High-level Meeting on HIV/AIDS, Princess Stéphanie
of Monaco expressed her solidarity with all those
fighting the disease or otherwise affected. Through her
Fight AIDS Monaco association, the Princess is
working to promote prevention, research and assistance
to those affected by the virus — especially sero-
positive people, who are often victims of
discrimination. In that regard, the Princess has
expressed the wish that the dignity of every sero-
positive person be respected. Her association will
support the establishment of an entity to provide
psychological support for those ill with the disease in
an African country where many non-governmental
organizations from Monaco have already carried out
development efforts.
The upcoming appointment of Princess Stéphanie
as a special representative of the Joint United Nations
Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) will further
strengthen her commitment to the fight against this
terrible pandemic, which is increasingly affecting more
and more women. To address that situation, the
Government of Monaco has decided that, in addition to
the support it provides to UNAIDS, it will begin this
year to finance a United Nations Population Fund
project in Africa focusing mainly on sero-positive
women suffering from extreme poverty and
psychological distress and providing them with
medical, psychological and social assistance.
Our heads of State or Government resolved to
take action when they accepted the responsibility to
protect. It is of course up to individual States to protect
their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic
cleansing and crimes against humanity. But when such
tragic events cannot be prevented, it falls to the
international community, working through the United
Nations, to be prepared to immediately provide
assistance to victims of such acts.
Whether a catastrophe is natural or man-made, it
is crucial that we be able to meet the most pressing
needs of civilian populations. In that regard, we would
like to commend the Under-Secretary-General for
Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief
Coordinator and his Office for their ongoing efforts,
especially as regards the restructuring of the Central
Emergency Response Fund. Monaco is a contributor to
the Fund and intends to continue its efforts to provide
financing for humanitarian assistance during the years
to come.
Before the end of this year, His Serene Highness
Prince Albert II will once again visit the fishing village
of Sirombu on Nias Island, Indonesia, which has twice
been struck by natural disaster: first by a tidal wave in
December 2004 and, a few months later, by an
earthquake. The village has been rebuilt thanks to the
effective and generous action of the Monaco-Asia
Association.
As the Sovereign Prince announced that it would
during the 2005 World Summit (see A/60/PV./6),
Monaco ratified the Kyoto Protocol last February.
Our head of State has a personal and ongoing
commitment to protecting the environment. That
commitment was recently evidenced in the polar
expedition he undertook 100 years after the one made
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by his great-great grandfather, Prince Albert I, a
pioneer of modern oceanography. Having reached the
North Pole with his team on 16 April 2006, following
four days on an arduous course on dog sleds from the
Russian base of Barneo, Prince Albert II launched an
urgent appeal regarding the dangers of global warming,
unfortunately in evidence in the Arctic in the
significant shrinking of the ice shelf. Back in Monaco,
His Serene Highness established a foundation devoted
to environmental preservation and sustainable
development that will serve as a permanent source of
dynamic and innovative efforts in the areas of climate
change, biodiversity loss and water resources. The
Principality is also pleased to have been elected to the
United Nations Commission on Sustainable
Development. We hope to contribute to improving the
United Nations environmental machinery.
The Principality of Monaco believes that there is
a need to establish and strengthen dialogue among
civilizations in order to prevent conflict. We support all
efforts aimed at actively promoting a culture of peace
and mutual respect among the world’s various creeds,
cultures and languages. As Secretary-General Kofi
Annan stated in 1999, “The greater the appreciation of
diversity, the deeper the sense of identity and the
sounder the enlargement of the common denominator
of values” (A/54/546, para. 13).
It is in that spirit that Monaco, aware of the
universal value of sport as one of the best tools to
establish inter-cultural dialogue, fully supports the
United Nations Action Plan on Sport for Development
and Peace.