UNITED NATIONS, 3 April 2000 -- Urging world leaders to make globalization
work for people in every nation, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi
Annan today offered his 21st Century action plan, a detailed report that
sets the agenda for the United Nations Millennium Summit. The plan calls
on all Member States to commit themselves to ending poverty and inequality,
improving education, increasing security, reducing HIV/AIDS, and protecting
the environment.
"We must put people at the centre of everything we do," said Mr. Annan.
"No calling is more noble, and no responsibility greater, than that of
enabling men, women and children, in cities and villages around the world,
to make their lives better. Only when that begins to happen will we know
that globalization is indeed becoming inclusive, allowing everyone to share
its opportunities."
The Secretary-General's report will be considered by a special Millennium
Summit on 6-8 September 2000, a rare meeting of Heads of State and Government
from around the world, scheduled on the eve of the first UN General Assembly
of the new millennium. The report, "We the Peoples: The Role of the United
Nations in the 21st Century," is the most comprehensive presentation of
the UN's mission in its fifty-five year history, containing numerous
specific goals and programme initiatives Mr. Annan will ask world leaders
to consider.
Central to Mr. Annan's proposals is the view that globalization is an
extraordinarily powerful force offering both unique opportunities and challenges
for nations and people. The benefits of globalization are plain to see:
faster economic growth, higher living standards, accelerated innovation
and diffusion of technology and management skills, new economic opportunities
for individuals and countries alike," Mr. Annan writes in his report. But
these benefits "remain highly concentrated among a relatively small number
of countries and are spread unevenly within them". And while there are
now "strong and well enforced rules facilitating the expansion of global
markets", efforts to secure "equally valid social objectives", such as
labour standards, the environment, human rights or poverty reduction, have
"lagged behind".
As a result, globalization has "begun to generate a backlash". The challenge,
Mr. Annan concludes, "is clear: if we are to capture the promises of globalization
while managing its adverse effects, we must learn to govern better, and
we must learn how better to govern together".
There are still billions of people whose lives are not free of fear
or want, despite the enormous progress made in the past fifty years, Mr.
Annan contends. The report observes that globalization has eluded Africa,
where many of the world's poor live, including up to 40 million children
who will be orphans by 2010, largely because of HIV/AIDS. In addition,
growth is anemic, trade and investment are low, and national debts are
crushing.
The report also notes that less than 10 per cent of all health research
is spent on the health concerns of 90 per cent of the world's people, leaving
millions vulnerable to chronic illness or death from easily preventable
sicknesses like pneumonia, diarrhoea, tuberculosis, malaria and others.
On issues of conflict and peacekeeping, Mr. Annan observes that nations
must address both old and new threats. He explains that there are still
too many nuclear weapons, as well as a growing proliferation of small arms
that serve to prolong and deepen already vicious conflicts. He adds that
peace operations must be strengthened, while sanctions should be better
targeted, to make them "less harsh on innocent populations, and more effective
in penalizing delinquent rulers".
But perhaps the most alarming chapter of the report deals with the environment.
In addition to freedom from want and from fear, Mr. Annan writes, the world
now faces an urgent need to realize a third freedom, which the UN's founders
could not have anticipated: "the freedom of future generations to sustain
their lives on this planet". "We are failing to provide that freedom,"
he says. After detailing the multiple threats of climate change, water
shortages, soil erosion and the destruction of forests, fisheries and biodiversity,
he concludes by calling for a "new ethic of stewardship" and a system of
"green accounting" - to ensure that environmental costs and benefits are
integrated into economic policies.
The report urges nations to commit themselves to an ambitious 21st Century
agenda including:
- Cutting in half by 2015 the proportion of people living in extreme poverty,
and the proportion lacking safe and affordable water;
- Ensuring that by 2015 all children complete primary education, and
eliminating the gender gap at all levels of education;
- Reducing HIV infection rates for persons 15-24 years old by 25 per
cent within 10 years;
- Upgrading slums, through support of the "Cities without Slums" action
plan, which aims to improve the lives of 100 million slum dwellers by 2020;
- Granting free access to the markets of the industrialized countries
for goods produced in poor countries and, as a first step, adopting a policy
of duty-free and quota-free access for essentially all exports from the
least developed countries by March next year;
- Implementing the expansion of the Highly Indebted Poor Countries programme
agreed last year, and cancelling all official debts of the heavily indebted
poor countries in return for those countries making demonstrable commitments
to poverty reduction;
- Doing more to ensure the security of people and communities, as well
as nations, through firmer enforcement of international humanitarian and
human rights law;
- Creating greater transparency in arms transfers, supporting regional
disarmament measures, and extending to other areas the "weapons for goods"
programmes that have been successful in Mozambique, Panama, El Salvador
and Albania; and
- Implementing the Kyoto Protocol to lower greenhouse gas emissions and
prevent the dangerous warming of the planet.
In the report, Mr. Annan also strongly embraces new information technology
and sees a major role for it in fighting poverty and promoting human
development, as well as in improving United Nations operations. In this
vein, Mr. Annan announces several new initiatives. First, he proposes
development of a network of 10,000 online sites to provide tailored
medical information and resources to hospitals and other health care
facilities throughout the developing world. This initiative will be
led by the WebMD Foundation, in cooperation with other foundations and
corporate partners. Second, he announces development of a United Nations
Information Technology Service (UNITeS), a consortium of high tech volunteer
corps, including Net Corps Canada and Net Corps America, which will
train groups in developing countries in the uses and opportunities of
information technology. And thirdly he announces a disaster response
initiative, "First on the Ground", led by Ericsson, which will provide
uninterrupted communications access to areas affected by natural disasters
and emergencies.
Mr. Annan also proposes an ambitious series of changes for the United
Nations itself. Building on a number of reform measures that have already
made the world body a leaner and more effective organization, he says it
is time to reform the Security Council and adopt sunset provisions for
certain initiatives. He also argues that the United Nations must find ways
to expand its relationship with civil society, and suggests the establishment
of global policy networks to engage all stakeholders as one way of achieving
this.
Mr. Annan plans to use the Millennium Summit as an opportunity for Member
States to renew and rededicate themselves to the mission of the United
Nations. He invites them to recommit themselves to what he sees as core
values of the United Nations: freedom, tolerance, equity, non-violence,
respect for nature, and shared responsibility.
But Mr. Annan believes we should not be content with merely repeating
the progress of the past fifty years. His report declares: "The world's
people are telling us that our past achievements are not enough, given
the scale of the challenges we face. We must do more, and we must do it
better."
For requests for interviews with the Secretary-General and his advisers
who worked on the Millennium Report, contact: Office of the Spokesman for
the Secretary-General, telephone: (212) 963-7161 or 7162.
For other information contact: Public Affairs Division, United Nations
Department of Public Information,
Telephone: (212) 963-6870 or 1453, Fax: (212) 963-0536.
Published by the United Nations Department of Public Information
DPI/2106 - March 2000
