Statement by H. E. Dr. Pascoal Mocumbi

Prime Minister of the Republic of Mozambique


Geneva: 27 June, 2000

 


Allow me to express, on behalf of the Government and People of Mozambique and indeed on my own behalf, my appreciation to your initiative in convening this Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly on Social Development.

My appreciation goes equally to the Government and People of Switzerland, and to the United Nations Office at Geneva, for the warm hospitality they have extended to me and to my delegation since our arrival.

This Special Session, which takes place at the dawn of a new millennium, is of great importance, for it will allow the United Nations member States to take stock and reflect on the progress achieved and the difficulties faced in the context of implementation of the Copenhagen Declaration and Plan of Action. It constitutes an excellent forum for the exchange of views on how to devise new and more effective strategies aimed at facing the challenges lying ahead of us.

This august Gathering takes place at a particularly important moment for my country - the celebration of its 25 anniversary of independence, on the 25 of June.

The social sector has always been a top priority on my government's agenda. The FiveYear Programme we implemented from 1995 to 1999, which reflected the main recommendations of the Copenhagen Declaration and Plan of Action, resulted in a good economic performance at national level.

Thanks to government's efforts, results in the area of health showed a positive year-on-year trend, with increased numbers of health units, trained staff, vaccination programmes and basic drugs kits. However, in Mozambique seven to eight hundred people are being infected by HIV/AIDS daily, in particular the young. The government has designed a strategic prevention and combat plan aimed at halting the rapid spread of the disease of the century.

Controlling HIV/AIDS and other endemic diseases absorbed large amounts of resources, and in the context of an extreme shortage of human, material and financial means, it diverted the attention of the health authorities form other important programmes.

In the field of education, the number of first level primary schools as well as the number of pupils increased substantially over the same period. Despite these developments, the average illiteracy rate in the country remained high.

I hope you will all agree when I say that in order to achieve the harmonious social development we desire, the challenge is to move beyond the rhetoric, to unite our efforts, and to fight and overcome illiteracy in our countries, through practical actions. We have to continue to invest in the education of young generations, in particular girls. We must invest in human development.

With regard to food security, our production of grain has been increasing from 1,377 thousand tonnes in 1995/96 to 1,528 thousand tonnes in 1996/97. With this trend we hope to reach self-sufficiency. We have to produce more until such time that food is available to everyone.

The opening of new boreholes and wells for potable water supply has increased significantly. About 4,000 new boreholes and wells were built over the period of 1995 to 1998, and 1,600 were rehabilitated.

Despite these achievements, only 24% of the Mozambican population have access to potable water, of which 44%% in urban areas and 12% in rural areas. Our rural population continues to walk long distances to obtain water. I am sure this is not only the case in Mozambique, but also in many developing countries represented in this Assembly.

In the field of job creation, over 16,000 Mozambicans have been trained in various skills and over 8,000 credit lines have been granted to new micro, small and medium-sized entrepreneurs. These efforts have secured about 54,000 new jobs, particularly in favour of the poorest and most vulnerable groups in the country.

In the area of social integration, the Government has been implementing diversified programmes of direct assistance to individuals and households in need, ranging from food aid to subsidies for income-generating projects. In this context, 90,000 households in absolute poverty benefited from these programmes between 1995 and 1999.

Another area of serious concern to our Government is that of gender inequality, in a world where there is an increasing evidence that any development strategy must involve an active participation of women.

It is our strong conviction that the reduction of gender inequalities entails changes in attitudes and beliefs of men and women. In this regard, our efforts are directed to finding effective mechanisms for gender mainstreaming, including the need to raise awareness on the issue through education programmes.

We have, therefore, adopted policies in favour of women, particularly in the rural areas. We are creating the necessary conditions for the expansion of micro-credits and rural savings systems to the most remote areas of the country. At the central level, we have created the Ministry for Women and Coordination of Social Action. We have established Gender Departments in the Ministry for the Coordination of Environmental Action, in the Centre for African Studies of the Eduardo Mondlane University, and a Nucleus for Women in the Public Service. In the field of general education and training, we have adopted a strategy that prioritise girls.

Over the past few years, the participation of women in all sectors and at all levels has been growing in number and strength in our country. At the Cabinet level, women have increased their participation from 15% in 1995/99 to 20% currently. Women today represent 30% of our Parliament, against 28% in the 1995/99 legislature. This is an important step towards what we mean by gender mainstreaming.

Although these encouraging developments can be seen as signs of a promising fixture for the Mozambican People, they do not constitute an indication that all the problems in the country have been overcome. Many more challenges still lie ahead.

These developments have been made possible by viable social policies, including the creation and strengthening of social institutions and the adoption and implementation of the Plan of Action for Poverty Reduction, but extremely high levels of poverty still prevail in our country.

Mr. President,

Mozambique went through a difficult period early this year. Torrential rains and cyclones resulted in the most devastating floods ever seen in Southern Africa. This natural catastrophe brought death, destruction and misery.

They caused enormous damage to public infrastructures such as roads, bridges, railways, power transmission lines, telecommunication systems, schools, health posts, water supply systems, and a wide range of private business facilities. About five million Mozambicans were hit by the floods, of which 700 have lost their lives and many more have been missing since then.

The significant improvements achieved over the past five years in our efforts to eradicate absolute poverty have been seriously jeopardised by this disaster. New challenges have been imposed on our Government with a view to bringing the country back to the economic and social development pace of the past few years.

I would like to seize this opportunity to express, on behalf of the People and Government of Mozambique, my sincere thanks for the generous support and solidarity, and prompt response of the international community to our appeal for the support of the flood victims.

I equally thank those countries and Organisations who have pledged to assist us in the postemergency reconstruction phase, in particular those who have already made resources available. I appeal to those who have not done so to exercise their best endeavours, in order to allow us to speed up the reconstruction work before the next rainy season starts.

The regional dimension of this catastrophe and the humanitarian situation caused in Southern Africa, bear a clear testimony of the enormous challenges on international cooperation in disaster prevention, reduction and management:

This calls for a need to devise effective long-term and multi-sectoral mechanisms, strategies and programmes for disaster reduction to be implemented at international, inter-regional, regional, sub-regional and national levels, in order to meet the challenges ahead. In this regard, we are of the view that rehabilitation programmes should support capacity-building for disaster reduction, thereby reducing socioeconomic losses and advancing our poverty reduction agenda.

Mr. President, Excellencies,

We strongly believe that the Copenhagen Plan of Action is an important instrument for the promotion of social development in order to make sure that the social benefits of global economic growth and the scientific and technological progress are shared by the all peoples of the world in an equitable manner.

As Mr. Secretary-General has stated "we are all impoverished if the poor are denied opportunities to make a living". The Copenhagen consensus reflects the growing awareness that the sustainability of social development at global level depends on the reduction of absolute poverty currently affecting about 1.2 billion human beings on earth.

Despite the efforts undertaken by governments worldwide, we all know that the implementation of the Copenhagen decisions falls short of what we had committed ourselves to achieving. The vast majority of targets contained in the Copenhagen Declaration and Plan of Action have not been implemented.

Today, the question is how to give concrete substance the commitments undertaken in Copenhagen. The poor doubt our seriousness when our decisions do not translate into direct and tangible impact on the quality of their lives.

It is our view that all countries, both developing and developed, should leave rhetoric behind and embark on concrete actions such as the adoption of economically more viable and more inclusive programmes aimed at reducing poverty and eliminating absolute poverty.

We need to evolve a new global partnership that involves necessarily advancing sustainable development strategies in which people are placed at the centre stage of development, through the provision of basic human development levels to all peoples.

How to move from those general principles recognised by all of us to practical actions? I do not have a conclusive answer to this question. But I would like to invite you to reflect on two aspects that appear fundamental to me.

Firstly, the need to institutionalise dialogue among all social actors on the objective of combating poverty. This would allow to place the poverty reduction agenda above all circumstantial political contingencies and interests, at national as well as international levels. It would also provide a means of evaluating progress on implementation of the Copenhagen Plan of Action.

In our regional co-operation efforts, in the context of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), we envision a partnership based on a constructive dialogue between governments, the private sector, the NGOs, the civil society at large, and ultimately, a partnership that entails ownership over the entire development process.

The creation of a Social Development Body and the adoption of Regional Plan of Action bear a clear testimony to our common determination to foster social development in the region.

Secondly, the need to ensure accountability vis-a-vis our political commitment. In this regard, it seems important to adopt both at national and international levels effective mechanisms that bind governments in the implementation of these commitments. If we fail to do this we run the likely risk of turning our commitments into repetitious declarations of principles without any meaningful social impact worldwide.

It is our view that these issues are sufficiently important to deserve a deeper reflection at the upcoming Millennium Summit.

Mr. President, Excellencies,

Our efforts to implement the Copenhagen commitments have been severely affected by the heavy burden of external debt and lack of financial resources.

It is a well-known fact that the continuing external debt burden on developing countries, particularly on the LDCs, hampers all their economic and social development efforts, for, its servicing deprives them of the financial resources needed for the development of infrastructure and for the creation of an enabling environment for economic growth and social development.

The external debt crisis is the major cause of the deterioration of the economic and social situation of the vast majority of developing countries such as ours. In fact, its persistence and deepening deteriorates their economic and social position.

We would like to join our voice to others who have, on many occasions, urged the Bretton Woods Institutions to speed up the implementation of all viable initiatives leading to a coherent, consistent and durable solution to this problem, including the improved HIPC initiative.

There will be no social development if we fail to address this problem.

Financial resources are the basic pre-condition for the attainment of a harmonious and sustainable social development. A significant number of our development partners, who had taken the commitment of allocating at least 0.7% of their GNP to social development have frustrated our expectations by failing to rich that target. This has resulted in an increasing inability by developing countries, particularly in Africa, to undertake tangible social development programmes.

Mr. President,

The eradication of absolute poverty is the backbone of our Government's Five-Year Plan (2000-2004), which incorporates all the relevant aspects of the Copenhagen Plan of Action. It is our strong conviction that social disparities and inequalities are the major sources of political and social tensions and conflicts.

The vast majority of conflicts we are witnessing around the globe today have their root causes in social inequalities and injustice. We are committed to accountability and transparency as some of the most effective ways of ensuring the rational allocation of our scarce resources in the best interest of our countries, including the promotion of social development and the elimination of social inequalities and disparities.

Let me now conclude by suggesting that we conduct our deliberations in this Special Session in a way that all the objectives outlined in Copenhagen, and reinforced at this Summit, be translated into tangible results.

We should not spare any efforts in our fight against poverty and for a harmonious social development. If we put our minds together and join hands we will be well equipped for the implementation of the Copenhagen Plan of Action.

We need to adopt new partnership approaches while we strengthen the existing ones, if we are to succeed in our fight against poverty and social inequalities and disparities. We all stand to gain if we succeed in doing this.

I thank you, Mr. President!