– As delivered –

Statement by H.E. Mrs. María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés, President of the 73rd Session of the UN General Assembly

20 May 2019

Your Excellency, Ms Inga Rhonda King, President of the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations,

Your Excellency, Ms Elizabeth Thompson, Permanent Representative of Barbados to the UN,

Professor Steven Pinker, our keynote speaker today,

Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,

Let me start by congratulating my colleague and friend – Her Excellency Inga Rhonda King – on this fantastic initiative.

With its focus on cutting-edge research, the Economic and Social Council has long recognized that if we are to tackle the challenges we face and – in the spirit of Professor Pinker’s optimism – harness the opportunities that lie ahead, it is essential that we engage with leading academics.

And especially ones like Professor Pinker, who are not only brilliant thinkers but also brilliant communicators.

If we want to make this Organization more relevant to people out there, then we need more people in here who can draw a crowd like this on a Monday morning.

And we need more people who can challenge our assumptions, with logic and figures to back it up.

I’m sure I don’t need to issue a “spoiler alert” when I say that Professor Pinker’s book tells the story of progress. It is a story that I know well. Indeed, I often tell a version of it myself, when recounting the progress we have made since the creation of the United Nations.

And it is a story that we should all keep in mind, even as we focus on the grave risks that humanity faces, such as climate change and nuclear weapons; and longstanding ills, like the fact that one in two of us – one in two – still lacks access to basic services such as health care and social protections.

At a global level, we have made progress on many of the metrics of development. Now, through the Sustainable Development Goals, we have the opportunity to ensure every single one of us can benefit from these gains.

At a global level, we have made progress on many of the metrics of development. Now, through the Sustainable Development Goals, we have the opportunity to ensure every single one of us can benefit from these gains.

María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés

President of the UN General Assembly

To get there, we will need reason, science, humanism – and multilateralism – which is an extension of all three. It is common sense. It is evidence based and analytically sound. It is the only option we have.

So I thank Her Excellency Inga Rhonda King once again for initiating this lecture series. And I thank Professor Pinker for delivering what I know will be a fascinating inaugural lecture.

Truly, we need “enlightenment now”, we need multilateralism now, and we need action now.

Thank you.