Transcript of Secretary-General's Speech at the National Palace on the Millennium Development Goals

Mr. President and Mrs. Fernandez, Ministers, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen: Let me first of all thank you for this wonderful video presentation. My wife and I travel around the world and we have seen governments and communities trying to implement the Millennium Development Goals. But today you have demonstrated to us and you've shown us how one can organize this at the community level, getting the people and the communities involved and getting them to take ownership.

When the Member States and the governments approved the Millennium Declaration, I remember telling the leaders gathered at the General Assembly in New York that it is wonderful that we have adopted the Millennium Declaration out of which the goals were developed, but, don't think that you're going to leave it to me, the Secretary-General and the Secretariat to implement it. It is your declaration and it has to be implemented at the country level and at the local level, and it's wonderful today to see how you have translated it into action, how you've managed to get, you've shown me, President Fernandez, and got your whole government and the population involved. Because, I often describe the Millennium Development Goals as simple goals that are achievable, that is understood by the average man and woman in the street, it is their life, it affects them, it affects their children and it affects their future and if we can get them to buy into it and accept it as our program for development, with a bit of leadership you can see it done and its been wonderful to see this program and to see how you are working effectively with the UN agencies, with UNICEF, and I see the Director there and all the UN groups. I think what we are seeing here we often think of the UN as an organization for peace and security, but development is also peace and security. You cannot have security without development, and you cannot have development without security and you cannot enjoy either one for the longer term, unless there is respect for human rights and the rule of law. These three pillars reinforce each other, and this is the work of the United Nations: security, economic and social development and respect for human rights, and any program that is built on these three principles and we intend to reinforce them is bound to succeed. And I am really excited to see how [the] Dominican Republic has approached it and the Presidential Commission was a wonderful idea which also ties in the government, the ministers and the parliaments that pass the budgets and I think that once they have bought into it and they accept that it is a longer term proposition I hope there [inaudible] budgets to pursue the Millennium Development Goals will be achieved.

Globally, we are making progress; we have made progress in education, primary education, in most countries it has risen by 15% mainly due to enrollment of girls. We are doing well on water, clean water, in the provision of clean water, [the] maternal mortality rate is dropping. There has been huge reduction in object poverty in Asia, due mainly to China and India. But the performance is uneven. Many countries cannot meet the Millennium Development Goals target of 2015 unless they accelerate their efforts and the partnership that underpins that process has to work –the partnership between the developed countries and the developing countries that is Goal No.8 as underpinned by the Monterrey Consensus that the developing countries will try to improve their governance, fight corruption, strengthen their institutions, engage their own communities and create the environment that will release the entrepreneurship and the creative energies of their people, and that donor communities will deliver more quality development assistance, debt relief and hopefully work with us to get a development round at Doha but the last Doha is in crisis and I used the word crisis, I didn't say it's dead and I hope it can be revived. Because most of the countries would want to trade themselves out of poverty rather than live on handouts, and I think the way you are approaching it here, getting the communities involved, giving them technology, giving them clean water, looking after health, education and sanitation, is the way to go. A healthy and a prosperous nation is built on healthy and educated and enlightened citizenship. And I think, Mr. President, under your leadership you are heading the right way and you are setting a model here which I think will be of great interest to many countries in this region and around the world, so I want to thank you and the First Lady and the government and the people of the Dominican Republic for embracing the Millennium Development Goals and using it to reenergize your development activities, and I urge and I can assure you that my UN colleagues here in the Dominican Republic and those of us in New York will continue to work with you in partnership and it's a wonderful, wonderful example you have shown us this morning and thank you very much.