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SPEECH
DELIVERED BY HIS EXCELLENCY MR MATHIEU KEREKOU, PRESIDENT OF THE
REPUBLIC OF BENIN, HEAD OF STATE AND GOVERNMENT, AT THE CLOSING
CEREMONY OF THE MINISTERIAL CONFERENCE OF THE LEAST DEVELOPED COUNTRIES
(LDCS) – Cotonou, 7 August 2002
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Ladies
and Gentlemen, Chairpersons of the Constitutional Institutions;
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Mr
the High Representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations,
in-charge of the LDCs, LLDCs and SIDS;
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Ladies
and Gentlemen, Honourable Ministers, Heads of Delegation;
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Ladies
and Gentlemen, Members of the Diplomatic and Consular Corps;
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Ladies
and Gentlemen, Representatives of the International Institutions;
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Honourable
Guests;
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Ladies
and Gentlemen.
As you know the 3rd Conference of the United
Nations on the Least Developed Countries held in Brussels from 14th
to 20th May 2001 clearly identified the major obstacles
to the development of our countries.
These are, in particular, the constant and paradoxical
reduction of Development Public Aid, the heavy debt burden, the
unfavourable condition of access to the industrialized countries’
markets, the lack of foreign investments and bad governance.
The Conference also provided the opportunity for the
International Community to renew unambiguously its commitment to
assist our countries on their ways to sustainable development by
firmly tackling the mechanism of the vicious spiral of poverty.
Concerned with the necessity to implement very diligently
the Brussels Programme of Action, we felt the need to gather in
Cotonou, in Benin, from 5th to 7th August
2002, to assess together what we have been able to achieve in a
year after our Brussels Meeting, despite the many impediments that
confronted us.
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Ladies
and Gentlemen, Honourable Ministers;
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Ladies
and Gentlemen, Honourable Heads of Delegations;
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Ladies
and Gentlemen, Honourable Participants.
Wiser with your various experiences, you searched, in
the process of your deliberations, for ways and means likely to
enable our peoples and countries to improve on their performances
and get free from the vicious poverty circle.
In this context, you exchanged and harmonized your view-points
so as to be able to determine what must constitute the most relevant
stakes for our Group in the up-coming meetings of:
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The World
Summit on Sustainable Growth planned for Johannesburg in South Africa,
from 24 August to 4th September 2002;
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The 57th
Session of the United Nations General Assembly.
For us, globalisation and international trade should
benefit each and all of us, in helping to promote development and
growth in the Least Developed Countries.
Faced with all the incoherence that has marked the implementation
of the:
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The 1st
United Nations Conference in Paris in 1981, when the Industrilized
Countries committed themselves to allocating 0.15% of the GDP to
LDCs as Public Development Aid;
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LDCs Programme
of Action for the 90s of the United Nations 2nd Conference
on LDCs held in Paris in September 1990, the main objective of which
was to prevent further deterioration of the economic situation and
speed up their growth and development;
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Programme
of Action of the 3red United Nations Conference on LDCs, held in
Brussels in May 2001, designed so as to give a real and obvious
boost to LDCs economic take-off.
It is up to us as LDCs to do everything possible in
Johannesburg so as to have the World Environment Fund be declared
as one of the financial mechanisms of the United Nations Convention
on Combating Desertification, with the view to increasing agriculture
productivity in rural areas, facilitating access of produce originating
from LDCs to the international market, thus paving the way for poverty
eradication.
While taking good note of the outcomes of the 12th
Ministerial Conference of the Least Developed Countries, whose quality
reflects the serenity of your discussions, I must acknowledge, with
a real feeling of satisfaction, that you worked out clear and relevant
orientations to ensure that the New Programme of Action for LDCs
is not met with the same fate as confronted the preceding ones.
While drawing lessons from your experiences, you measured
the progress made in the implementation of the 20th May
2001 Brussels Programme of Action, listed the challenges to be taken
up so as to allow for its diligent and efficient implementation,
recognized that 80% out of the six hundred million (60 000 000)
LDCs inhabitants live in rural area, emphasized the necessity of
giving special attention to this important stratum of the population
and reaffirmed the priority to be given to the pre-eminence of combating
poverty.
Toward this end, national mechanisms for the implementation
of our programme should fall within the framework of a three-phase
process, namely:
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Integration
of the Programme of Action into National Development Programmes;
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Establishment
of a National Forum for consultation and follow-up of the implementation
of the Programme of Action;
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Designation
of national focal points.
Among the relevant recommendations, it is worth noting:
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Establishment
of an LDCs Special Fund;
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Mobilization
of the International Community toward LDCs external debt cancellation;
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Exchange
of experiences between LDCs so as t share the best practices as
recorded in development promotion;
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A better
management of natural resources;
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Assessment
of LDCs economic and social performances;
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Measuring
up the level of implementation of our commitments as well as the
ones of our development partners;
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The necessity
of dynamic diplomatic and political concerted actions to trigger
the needed reforms within the international economic and trading
system and the mobilization of sufficient resources.
Toward this end, the United Nations Agencies and other
international organizations could mainstream the LDCs Programme
of Action into their programmes of activities and the governmental
processes.
At national level, we should popularize the Brussels
Programme of Action and watch out on the proper operation of its
implementation mechanism.
It is thus necessary for our Governments to make our
own strategic choices that should fall in line with local realities
which constitute a determining factor in setting up the order of
priority and rationality of policies to be made and consequently
implemented.
That being the case, all stakeholders in LDCs Programme
of Action should bear constantly in mind, the obligation to achieve
results; that only may enable us to reach the objectives se set
for ourselves.
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Mr
the High Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General;
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Ladies
and Gentlemen, Honourable Ministers and Heads of Delegation;
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Ladies
and Gentlemen, Dear Participants.
It is high time for me to seize this opportunity to
reaffirm, on behalf of the people of Benin and their Constitutional
Institutions, our sincer thanks to your eminent Heads of State and
Governments for the confidence granted in the Republic of Benin
in electing Benin to the Chairmanship of LDCs Coordinating Burueau.
Benin is fully aware of the importance and scope of
the challenges to be taken up in order to consolidate the effective
solidarity and internal cohesion of LDCs Group in asserting their
shown political will to work together for poverty eradication and
for the emergence of a New, more equitable and globalized World
Order.
I would like to solemnly reaffirm here, that poverty
is not a fatality; poverty is a situation inherent to the world
economic and trade system that confines our countries to a mere
role of suppliers of raw materials and commodities paid at very
reduced costs.
Firmly determined to combat corruption and poverty,
LDCs Governments represented here in Cotonou, in collaboration with
the international organizations that unrelentlessly support our
development efforts, openly expressed their political will to organize
themselves methodically, in order to graduate from the category
in which their historic heritage placed them.
To give all peoples the opportunities for a full development
through a better control of their resources and potentials in perfect
harmony with the exigencies associated with human dignity, it is
obvious that radical changes are necessary in our national development
policies and strategies as well as in our relations with our partners
ready to assist us in our legitimate combat against poverty.
It is with these words of commitment and hope that I
wish all of our guests, Sisters and Brothers, taking part in the
12th Ministerial Conference in Cotonou, a safe journey
back to their respective countries.
I declare closed the 12th Ministerial Conference
of the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries
and Small Island Developing States.
Long live solidarity among LDCs!
Long live International Cooperation!
Thank you.
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