Speech by the Secretary-General in response to Bavarian Prime Minister Edmund Stoiber's welcome, (unofficial transcript)

SG: [Opening words missing from recording] ........to be here in this historic state of Bavaria. Yesterday I had the chance to walk around the city for over an hour and I had a feel for your city and the mood of the population and I walked back to the hotel, while I was waiting for my wife, quite exhilarated with the walk and the encounter with the population. And this morning I have a chance to discuss with you some very key issues affecting our world and, as I indicated, poverty and the fight against poverty is one of the key ones; and when about 150 heads of states and government met at the UN last year during the Millennium Summit the fight against poverty was on the top of the agenda, along with the fight against HIV AIDS, which is also a global problem. Even though Africa is the hardest hit today, it is spreading very fast in Asia, in Eastern Europe and in the Caribbean, and we all have to face it as a common tragedy. In today's world there is no "us and them" and when it comes to diseases no-one lives on an island. There is so much inter-dependency and interaction that we cannot be insulated from what is happening elsewhere in the world, and this is why I have come up with a call to action, and ask the entire world to embrace the fight and to do whatever they can in addition to making contributions to the global AIDS and health fund. We are off to a good start but we need lots of help. We need lots of help to make the fight against AIDS successful and I believe that your state, with its wealth and its capacity, has a contribution to make, and as Mr. Stoiber said, as Secretary-General of the UN, I have tried to reach out, to work in partnership with NGOs, with private corporations, with foundations and individuals for us to be able to tackle the major crisis we are all fighting. The UN alone cannot do it, the Secretary-General alone can do very little, and we need you, we need you to work with us and help us in tackling the major issues we confront in this area of globalization, from the environment, the fight to improve the world for our children and their children, and the fight against poverty, education, the attempts to bridge the digital divide, is a fight for all of us. Thank you very much. *****