I'm very pleased to be able to address you at this new Trygve Lie Center for Peace, Security and Development.

The UN's first Secretary-General was convinced that if the great powers could move from confrontation to cooperation, the United Nations would be much more effective in securing peace in the world.

Although Trygve Lie didn't live to see the collapse of the Berlin Wall, his hopes were, at least partly, realized. When the Cold War ended, the Security Council united and opened a new chapter in the UN's history. Since then we have been more engaged than ever before, and today, there are over one hundred thousand UN blue helmets deployed across the globe –a record high.

But the spread of democratic values and market forces has not brought all of the peace, prosperity and stability we might have hoped for. People everywhere are suffering the effects of unstable financial markets and volatile capital flows. We're facing a crisis in food prices that threatens to push one hundred million people deeper into poverty. It's getting harder for poor families to put meals on the table. And people are understandably frustrated. They're taking to the streets. In some countries, this unrest could even trigger deadly conflicts.

Soaring oil prices are raising concerns about energy security and adding to financial burdens, especially in the poorest parts of the world.

All this is happening amid new global threats. There's climate change, the defining challenge of our era. Warming temperatures are wreaking havoc on weather patterns with disastrous results.

We can't just dismiss these risks as being beyond our collective control and hope that the market will resolve them. We need a political solution based on sound policies.

Ultimately, this will strengthen democratic institutions. After all, they have to answer to their constituencies, and they can only do that when they stay engaged.

National governments need the requisite policy space to manage the economic prospects of their citizens. This is exactly what successful countries have done to eradicate poverty and climb up the development ladder.

But international cooperation is also essential. We need a more effective aid architecture, especially for countries that are vulnerable to natural disasters or recovering from conflict.

Developed countries should strive to reach the longstanding target of 0.7 per cent of gross national income for official development assistance –but that will not be enough. We need a proper framework of organizing principles to encourage and complement domestic efforts to mobilize resources. It must be consistent with local priorities and it must support the recipient government's own development plans.

The benchmark for aid effectiveness was set over 60 years ago by the Marshall Plan. Of course the times and the challenges have changed, but the principle of coordinating national development plans with international assistance still holds.

Ultimately, multilateral rules, checks and balances remain the best hope for providing a secure future for all.

This is where the United Nations comes in. We view global security in its totality. That means seeing the security implications of climate change and of the food crisis. It means including human rights components in our peacekeeping operations. It means promoting development in order to consolidate peace in war-torn areas. And it means working for disarmament so that we can build a more secure and prosperous world.

The United Nations has been advancing on all of these fronts, bringing governments together to forge international solutions to global problems. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has led the effort. He's spearheading action on climate change through very intensive personal diplomacy. Soon after the food crisis broke out, he convened a high-level Task Force to address it –in the short term, by feeding the hungry, in the medium term, by increasing food production and over the long-haul, by examining what we need to do to ensure food security in the future, including by addressing trade and subsidies related matters.

This year in September, the Secretary-General will convene a summit on the Millennium Development Goals. That meeting will help galvanize global action to achieve the MDGs with a view to raising living conditions in poor countries. And by doing that, we'll improve security everywhere.

When Trygve Lie was inaugurated as Secretary-General, he said the world had given the United Nations a sacred mandate: to build a firm foundation for peace. “We may find difficulties and obstacles ahead of us,” he said, “but the harder the task, the higher the prize. It is the future of the whole world which is at stake.”

Together, we can aim for that high prize and build a better world for all peoples.

Thank you.

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