STATEMENT DELIVERED BY PRESIDENT ERNEST KOROMA AT THE 65TH SESSION OF THE UNITED NATIONS ON THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 23, 2010
Mr. President,
I would also like to convey my sincere appreciation to your predecessor, His Excellency, Mr. Ali Abdulssalam Treki, for the efficient and effective manner in which he conducted the previous session. My gratitude also goes to the Secretary-General for his comprehensive account of the United Nation's work and his analysis of the challenges facing our global community.
In my statement to you I would like to talk about both the successes that my country has achieved with the help of the international community, and the reforms that are now needed to the way in which we interact and govern ourselves globally.
Mr. President,
My Government is sincerely grateful for the international community' s engagement with Sierra Leone' s efforts to put the country on a path to sustained economic growth and development. Building on this engagement, our country has significantly improved our international standing in many areas:
The Global Peace Index now ranks Sierra Leone as the 53rd most peaceful country
in the world;
• The Mo Ibrahim Index records that we are one of the five crisis- affected countries
that have made a significant leap forward in democratic governance;
• A recent IMF review shows improvement in public finances, with our 4% annual
economic growth rate higher than the average 2% growth rate of Sub Sahara
Africa;
• And we have also made steady progress in our rankings on Doing Business,
Corruption Perception and Democracy.
In addition:
• Earlier this year I was a proud recipient of the peace prize awarded by ACCORD
on behalf of the people of Sierra Leone:
Only last week my country received the Millennium development Goal award for showing outstanding Ieadership in the fight against HIV/AIDs, malaria and other diseases - MDG 6;
Mr. President,
My Government has also continued to emphasize the protection of the basic rights of the
people of Sierra Leone:
• We have put in place comprehensive justice sector reforms in response to both
national and global demands - to ensure both that the rights of citizens are
preserved, and that we achieve access to justice for all.
• And the Human Rights Commission of Sierra Leone has assumed a lead role in
advising my Government on building a culture of human rights. It ensures that my
Government ratifies international treaties and protocols and fulfills its reporting
obligations. A case in point is our recent validation of the Common Core
Document that forms the basis for all reporting on international treaties.
Sierra Leone is among the few countries emerging from conflict that have formulated a
comprehensive action plan for Security Council resolutions 1325 and 1820. My
government is determined to ensure its effective implementation, particularly in
addressing gender-based violence as well as the enhancement of women ' s participation in politics and the public sector.
Mr. President,
My Government' s commitment to free media is equally strong:
• No journalist has been imprisoned in my country since my assumption of office .
• We have transformed the Government - owned Broadcasting Services into what is
only the second independent public service broadcaster in Africa, the Sierra
Leone Broadcast ing Corporation (SLBC). Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon
witnessed the launch of this historic and groundbreaking initiative in June this
year. It is the beginning of a new era of access to independent, unbiased, and
impartial information in our country.
FRIENDS OF SIERRA LEONE CONGRATULATE PRESIDENT KOROMA
Mr. President,
My Government is also delivering results on the key priorities in my Agenda for Change
to improve the lives of all Sierra Leoneans :
• We have launched free healthcare for pregnant and lactating women and children
under 5 for the first time in our history, improving access to around 300 ,000
women and over a million children .
• We have also begun to seriously commercialize agriculture, the mainstay of our
economy, through commercializing particularly smallholder farmers, where we
are facilitating improved mechanization, irrigation and the establishment of
farming cooperatives.
• We have successfully made significant progress on road construction and the
rehabilitation of electricity supply in key provincial cities and towns, to generate
economic activity across the country .
• We have made large strides in attracting large-scale private sector investors from
international companies, following the Sierra Leone Trade and Investment Forum
in London last year.
Further, to maintain macro- economic stability and make these achievements sustainable, my Government also remains firmly committed to the fight against corruption.
Despite this progress , many challenges remain. I am proud of what Sierra Leone has achieved so far , but we still need to further enhance our capacity to promote and protect human rights, establish good governance and managerial capacity across the whole public sector, and fight corruption and narcotic drug trafficking. For this our country will need further technical assistance and cooperation, private capital investments and transfer of technology.
Most importantly we are also not oblivious of the imperative of consolidating peace through enhanced political dialogue, tolerance and ensuring fair electoral process. With this and our political resolve, we will make further progress towards peace , security and a stable, open democracy.
Mr. President,
Let me now turn to the theme of this session: "Re-affirming the central role of the United Nations in global governance." It could not have been better timed than at a moment when the global community is grappling with myriad challenges within the international system. The end of the 'cold war' , together with an explosion in information and communication technologies gave rise to a new paradigm of ' flexible or lose', functional coalitions involving state and non-state actors.
A new configuration of interdependent relationships of economic, social, political and ethical nature has emerged from these historical circumstances. There are fears that ' globalization' nurtures dominance of power politics, a growing disparity between the North and the South, intolerance of different values, a tendency to resort to force to solve international conflicts, and a neglect of the environment; at the same time, it has Ied to a multi-level governance that is beginning to address global issues ranging from economic interdependence, migration, financial crises, drug trafficking to pandemics such as tuberculosis, Avian flu , HIV/AIDS and malaria.
It is in recogntion of this imperative of promoting multilateralism and of building synergies with both state and non-state actors, that I commend your choice of theme. More than any other organization, we support the United Nations as a centre of global governance. It has a unique characteristic of global mandate and universal membership. This makes it an indispensable and neutral catalyst for the achievement of " international cooperation in solving international problems of an economic, social , cultural, or humanitarian character". This centrality of the role of the United Nations in global governance cannot be over-emphasized.
The recently concluded High-Level Stakeholder Meeting on the Millennium Development Goals revealed that progress has been uneven and developing countries, particularly those in Africa, continue to be most vulnerable to the effects of globalization. The prevailing global recession resulting from the economic and financial crisis that struck developed economies has further compounded this challenge . In this context, my Government believes that the UN remains the crucial hub for norm- setting and harmonizing the actions of nations for the maintenance of international peace and security as well as the attainment of our development goals.
Mr. President,
This Assembly, meeting at the turn of the millennium, decided that reforming and making the Security Council more accessible, transparent equitably representative and accountable was long overdue. This brings me to the crucial issue that has led us in Africa to consistently reiterate that there can be no meaningful reform of the Council without allocating permanent seats to the continent.
No one continent should have an exclusive monopoly over membership of the Security Council. There is no justification for a discriminatory allocation of seats, nor can we debate endlessly and ignore the realities of our rapidly changing global circumstances. While the 5th round has not genuinely led to compromise-oriented solution, to distill all positions into a single negotiating document has been a significant step in the right direction. We in Africa look forward to and support a process that will allow the text to evolve during the next session of the GA in an open , inclusive and balanced manner, towards a solution that can garner the widest possible political acceptance by Member states . We urge all delegations to muster the political will required for progress.
I would like to conclude my statement by saying that the moment is here to address the historical injustice inflicted on Africa by allocating no less than two seats with all its attributes and privileges , and two additional seats in both the non-permanent and permanent categories of the Council. I do not need to emphasize that at the inception of the United Nations most of Africa was not represented and that, as a result, Africa to this day remains the only continent without a permanent seat in the Council. To ensure greater relevance of the Security Council within a revamped United Nations system, Africa demands permanent representation in the Security Council with all the requisite attributes.
I thank you for your kind attention.