Esteemed Secretary-General,
Distinguished Permanent Representatives,
Excellencies,
Friends,
I am deeply honoured to address you today for the first time as the President of the General Assembly.
When taking the oath of office yesterday, I was reminded of my obligation to discharge my functions in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.
I reaffirm to all of you my commitment to the Charter and to upholding its highest ideals.
As we start a new session, I would like to thank President Shahid and congratulate his Presidency of Hope. It was a Presidency marked by many achievements.
A particularly joyous moment happened just days ago when this body adopted a landmark resolution creating the United Nations Youth Office. This was a successful outcome of President Shahid’s leadership in follow-up to the report on Our Common Agenda.
Mr. Secretary-General,
There is still much to do so that we could realize the vision of Our Common Agenda in order to have a United Nations ready and able to tackle all the interlinked crises affecting our world.
I look forward to work with you and Member States to continue bringing this vision into fruition.
Excellencies, dear friends
As we begin our 77th session, we do so in a world of widening geopolitical divides and protracted uncertainty.
While more manageable, the pandemic continues to wreak havoc across the globe.
Acute food insecurity, soaring energy prices and global supply chain disruptions mean even less food for those already being short of that, while record inflation threatens to rock our societies.
Conflict is creating humanitarian upheavals not seen since the Second World War and testing the strength of our institutions.
The conflict in Ukraine has been a turning point for all of us. Unless we are vigilant, a method called “war” – rightly despised and denounced for decades – could reappear more frequently in the toolkit of our international life. We must do our utmost to uphold and protect the values and principles of the UN Charter. There can be no cherry-picking, certainly not in these most tumultuous and uncertain times. We must adopt a preventative approach and end conflicts and crises before they happen.
This war must be stopped. It kills people, it kills development, it kills nature and kills dreams of millions.
As our planet heats up and natural resources grow scarce, conflicts will worsen. The water crisis is poised to become our next greatest threat.
Recent weeks have seen record-setting temperatures, raging fires and devastating floods. It looks as if Mother Nature is fighting back.
But few of her weapons are as destructive as the ones that we have created ourselves.
Never in the past 40 years has the risk of using nuclear weapons been greater than it is today. This ominous reality calls all of us to unite around the issue of disarmament.
This also holds true for small arms and light weapons, the proliferation of which is a great obstacle to our development and progress around the world. We must work to stop their illicit trade.
We simply cannot go back to “business as usual” as we understood that before the pandemic. We will not be returning to the old normal. The only way to achieve better outcomes is to transform.
The contours of the transformation we need are already known. The Agenda2030 for Sustainable Development, the Sendai Framework, the Paris Agreement and Our Common Agenda all point us in the right direction.
What remains to be seen is whether we will deliver.
Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,
The world is looking to the United Nations for answers. As the Organization’s chief deliberative body, the General Assembly bears a special responsibility.
Having begun my tenure as President, I aim to harness the great talents of this community of Member States in forging the systemic solutions needed to transform our world.
In accepting this privilege, I vowed to serve as an agent of multilateralism, multiculturalism and multilingualism. I pledged that impartiality would be the hallmark of our operation.
My team and I will do our best to push for “solutions through solidarity, sustainability and science” – the motto I have chosen for this Presidency.
It is my intention to stand firm on the principles of the United Nations Charter, which brought us together 77 years ago – and which hold us together today. Anchored in international law, they provide us with a solid foundation from which to build.
From here, I wish to pursue integrated approaches and enhance the role of science in our decision-shaping.
I will work to foster measurable progress in the sustainability transformation – and cultivate the solidarity we need to achieve breakthroughs or to avert the future disasters.
Taking stock of the Sustainable Development Goals is simply not enough. We need to have more science by our side if we want to realize the Goals by 2030.
And we all must put in more effort, because, as said by Abraham Lincoln, ‘you cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today’.
Excellencies,
While humanitarian needs are at an all-time high, the solutions to them are well known.
The United Nations is able to bring resources to provide life-saving assistance. We must use them to the best of our abilities.
We cannot let geopolitical tensions or distrust be ultimate obstacles to the preservation of human rights and human dignity.
Human rights are inherent to us all. Justice and the rule of law are essential to shaping a world in which the respect of human rights and fundamental freedoms will prevail.
Next week’s High-Level Meeting to mark the 30th anniversary of the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities will be an opportunity to embrace human rights and take a holistic approach to them.
I invite all Member States to incorporate voluntary pledges in their national statements to jointly advance the implementation of the Declaration and ensure that this meeting has a positive and forward looking outcome.
In that realm, I look forward to working in partnership with the Human Rights Council and take this opportunity to congratulate Mr. Volker Türk on his appointment as UN High Commissioner on Human Rights.
I will do my utmost to bring our offices into closer communication.
Excellencies,
Throughout my work, I will engage closely with the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council and other relevant UN bodies.
I intend to further the critical revitalization process, as well as pursue the ongoing key reforms led by the Secretary-General, to make the General Assembly and the United Nations fit for purpose.
But Governments do not have a monopoly on good ideas.
Listening and learning must transcend these walls. As we deliberate, we must meaningfully engage with our civil society partners, academics, the private sector, enabling researchers and practitioners to lend solutions that are rooted in facts, verified information and science.
Civil societies hold first-hand knowledge which is critical to the identification and implementation of context-specific solutions. It is vital that we seize this opportunity to be inclusive, ensuring that civil society feels ownership over and belonging in multilateralism.
We must also reach out actively to young people, engaging them in what we do so that when they sit in these seats, they could come with better plans and better ideas than we did.
My door will also be open to faith-based organizations. Many ideals of them do overlap with those of the United Nations.
I am also reaching out to the private sector and key financial institutions. I intend to work closely with them, listen to their concerns and their ideas, and search for implementable solutions together with them.
As Covid-19 restrictions are lifted, this will be the first year since the pandemic. However, due to the saddening pass-away of a head of state respected by millions across the globe, the beginning of this high-level week might be effected by coinciding obligations of many leaders. I offer my sincere condolences to the people of the United Kingdom and the member states of the Commonwealth of Nations.
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
The United Nations was created out of the ashes of war and destruction with the intention of being a well of solutions.
Responding to humanity’s most pressing challenges demands that we work together, and that we reinvigorate inclusive, networked, and effective multilateralism and focus on that what unites us.
It is our mission to come together when there are disagreements and to build bridges when there are deep divides.
This Hall was created as a place to build trust – to bring about peace and security, development and human rights.
We owe it to our 8 billion constituents, the people we are here to serve, to succeed in our aims.
Thank you.
