I am taking
part personally in this session of the General Assembly
in order to reiterate Benin’s commitment to the noble
purposes and principles of the United Nations, and to
express the readiness of the Beninese delegation to
cooperate and contribute, as best it can, to the success
of these deliberations.
But first, allow me, to once again warmly
congratulate Ms. Haya Rashed Al-Khalifa on her
unanimous election to the presidency of the General
Assembly at its sixty-first session, and to express our
appreciation for the remarkable way in which she
guided the work of the High-level Meeting on the
midterm comprehensive global review of the
implementation of the Programme of Action for the
Least Developed Countries for the Decade 2001-2010.
I also wish to pay tribute to the remarkable
efforts of her predecessor, His Excellency Mr. Jan
Eliasson, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom
of Sweden, who had the weighty task of leading the
sixtieth session of the General Assembly, which was
focused, essentially, on the implementation of the
major decisions taken at the 2005 World Summit.
Allow me to pay a resounding tribute to my
friend Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who over the
past 10 years has wisely and skilfully led our
Organization at a time of new challenges and threats
created by changes unprecedented in the history of
humanity.
My country, Benin, believes that the future
Secretary-General should come from the continent of
Asia. We hope that the new Secretary-General will be
able to take the measures necessary to lead the
Organization towards the achievement of the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
I am pleased to note that the Assembly is already
progressing in the preparation of this great endeavour:
the promotion of development is the key issue for the
general debate at the sixty-first session, focusing in
accordance with Ms. Al-Khalifa’s proposal, on the
establishment of a global partnership for development.
My country, the Republic of Benin, joins in this debate
with the conviction that we will make significant
progress in finding pragmatic ways of fulfilling the
commitments that have been adopted on many
occasions, for the promotion of economic and social
development throughout the world.
The question of development is at the heart of the
mission of the United Nations. In the Charter, Members
proclaimed their belief in the equal rights of men and
women and of nations large and small. They made the
commitment to use international institutions in order to
encourage economic and social progress for all people.
Hence, reform of the United Nations, if it is to be
viable and effective, must also help ensure that our
Organization can do better as a framework and an
instrument for development through the promotion of
the well-being of the poorest of our planet, ensuring
the economic growth of the most vulnerable members
of the community of nations, in particular the least
developed countries.
Financing for development is a factor on which
genuine partnership needs to be built between donor
countries and developing countries. In this context, the
Monterrey Consensus, as members know, continues to
be relevant. It is good to note that some donor
countries have achieved the objective of allocating
0.7 per cent of their gross national income to official
development assistance (ODA) for developing
countries, with 0.2 per cent earmarked for least
developed countries. It is also important to encourage
those who have already established a specific timetable
for achieving those objectives. Given the inadequacy
of official development assistance, it is important to
examine new sources of financing for development
activities, and some are already doing so. I would like
to take this opportunity to welcome the proposals that
have been made by some countries, such as the French
Republic and President Jacques Chirac.
Identifying new sources of financing thus
deserves special attention. We are pleased that
mobilizing the remittances of migrant workers can in
some respects also contribute to development action.
Nonetheless, it is important to facilitate those transfers
so that they can effectively contribute to improving the
living conditions of the beneficiary populations and
their impact on poverty reduction can be maximized.
But it should be stressed that the resources that come
from remittances by migrant workers cannot be
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considered part of ODA and should not be included in
ODA calculations.
We must also mobilize resources through
microcredits for the poorest sectors. The support of the
international community should contribute to
strengthening microcredit systems, which could be
extremely useful in the context of efforts to counteract
unemployment among young people and to promote
the empowerment of women in order to improve their
living conditions and enhance their contribution to the
national income of the countries concerned.
We must ensure the full insertion of developing
countries, particularly the least advanced, into
international trade so that they can be sure that,
through that mechanism appropriate resources for
financing their development are mobilized. Here we
express our disappointment at the failure of the
multilateral trade negotiations in the framework of the
Doha Round. Among other reasons, they floundered
because of the crucial question of agricultural
subsidies, which are stifling the producers in
developing countries. My country, Benin, will continue
to work with other affected countries to ensure the
abolition of those subsidies. or at least to get
compensations equal to the harm we suffer.
In order to promote development, our countries
are seeking to implement democratic reforms.
However, as I said at the opening session of the
meeting of the least developed countries, any
democracy that does not go hand in hand with
development is doomed to fail. Also, our efforts to
promote development will not bear fruit if we do not
succeed in maintaining peace in our own countries and
throughout the world.
That is why in 2005 Benin, while it was on the
Security Council, sought to contribute to the efforts to
enhance the effectiveness of that body in preventing
armed conflicts. We welcome the Secretary-General’s
prompt action through the inspired and wise
recommendations he recently submitted on questions
related to the prevention of conflicts. Resolving
various conflicts enables the affected developing
countries to resolutely get themselves back on the track
of reconstruction and national development.
From this rostrum, my country pays tribute to the
decisive action being taken by the United Nations in
the area of peacekeeping, and we repeat that we are
willing to contribute actively to it. The Government of
Benin is ready to continue participating in
peacekeeping operations in order to allow peoples
affected by armed conflicts to overcome them and to
create the conditions for stability that are necessary to
ensure the reconstruction of their countries and their
economic and social development.
For us in Benin, another word for peace is
development. This is the message that I wished to
bring, on behalf of the people of Benin and of the least
developed countries, during this general debate.