Thank you, Foreign Secretary, for that very warm introduction.

I am very grateful to you and Sir David for the warm and supportive words you have said about my organisation and myself. Listening to you and hearing this warm applause I wonder why I spend so much time on the other side of the Atlantic.

Dear Friends:

First of all, let me thank you for this invitation, thank you for being here, and for holding this meeting in this place, at this time.

Last year we celebrated the 60th anniversary of the Charter of the United Nations. Today we celebrate the UN's 60th birthday as a working Organization.

In this very hall, on 10 January 1946, the General Assembly met for the first time. On 17 January, in Church House just across the road, the Security Council came into being. On 1st February Trygve Lie of Norway was elected, and on the following day formally installed, as the first Secretary-General.

Aha! You had forgotten that bit. Don't worry. We Secretaries-General are used to being overlooked. Sixty years ago, when the American ambassador rose in this hall to recommend the candidate chosen by the Security Council, he had to get Brian Urquhart to point Trygve Lie out to him –and then proceeded to mispronounce his name.

(The best thing about that story, of course, is that Brian is still very much part of the UN family, and still helping to point us in the right direction.)

But what, you ask, was Brian doing there, and how had the Assembly and the Council managed to organize themselves without a Secretary-General to tell them where to sit, and how to vote?

The answer is that Brian was working for the acting Secretary-General, who was a famous British diplomat, Gladwyn Jebb. Right from the start, you see, the Brits had quietly put themselves in charge.

And so it has been ever since. You may have noticed that one of your compatriots has even infiltrated himself as my Chef de Cabinet.

In the United Nations, as one of Jack Straw's predecessors said, you punch above your weight.

One such skilful pugilist is Lord Hannay. He was kind enough to serve on my High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, and made an enormously valuable contribution.

David, I'm delighted that you have taken on the chairmanship of UNA-UK. You and Sam Daws will make a dream team. I am very grateful to Sam, to Richard Jolly, and to the Association as a whole, for all they have done to publicise my “Larger Freedom” report and organize public consultations about it –just as I am grateful to Jack and his colleagues, including notably the Prime Minister and the Chancellor, for the wonderful support they have given.

Thanks to your work, many people in this country have grasped the message of my report, which drew on the High-Level Panel report and also on the Millennium Project report, “Investing in Development”.

Put simply, that message is twofold. First, we are all in the same boat. More than ever before, the human race faces global problems –from poverty and inequality to nuclear proliferation, from climate change to bird flu, from terrorism to HIV/AIDS, from ethnic cleansing and genocide to trafficking in the lives and bodies of human beings. So it obviously makes sense to come together and work out global solutions.

And secondly, the three freedoms which all human beings crave –freedom from want, freedom from war or large-scale violence, and freedom from arbitrary or degrading treatment –are closely interconnected. There is no long-term security without development. There is no development without security. And no society can long remain secure, or prosperous, without respect for human rights and the rule of law.

That is the premise on which the “Larger Freedom” agenda is based –and since you have taken such a keen interest in it, I owe you a progress report.

It was, as you know, an agenda for the World Summit last September. So let me start by mentioning the areas where the Summit took important steps forward. Obviously I didn't get everything I had hoped for, but they did take some important steps forward.

First, it helped stimulate major new commitments of aid and debt relief –amounting to a doubling of aid for Africa –and won a strong and unanimous reaffirmation of the Millennium Development Goals. There especially I must salute the UK's leadership, both in the Group of Eight and in the European Union.

The developing countries, too, gave very important commitments –starting with an undertaking to produce, by the end of this year, national strategies for reaching the MDGs by 2015.

In the area of humanitarian relief, the Summit has given us a much improved emergency fund, which should enable us to respond promptly whenever disaster strikes.

In the area of peace and security, member States agreed to “strongly condemn terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, committed by whomever, wherever and for whatever purposes”. And they instructed the General Assembly, “without delay”, to develop, adopt and implement a comprehensive global counterterrorism strategy, built on the elements that I set out in Madrid last March.

But their most concrete decision in this area was the creation of a Peacebuilding Commission. This body will fill a real institutional gap –and ensure that attention and resources are devoted to countries emerging from violence, long after peacekeepers have left.

In the area of human rights, we have got a strengthened office, with significant new resources, for the High Commissioner. We got a warm endorsement for the new Democracy Fund. And I hope in the next week or two we may see agreement on a new Human Rights Council, to replace the discredited Commission.

Most precious of all to me is the Summit's acceptance that States, both individually and collectively, have a responsibility to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. This is a major breakthrough, which I had been advocating for years.

Finally, the Summit opened the door to big changes in the way the United Nations is managed. Some of these I have already been able to move ahead with, such as creating an ethics office and guaranteeing stronger protection for whistle-blowers. But the main ones are still ahead.

Indeed, many of the Summit's decisions are only commitments in principle. The hard struggle now is to get them implemented, in detail and in practice.

Take, for instance, the commitments for development, from both donor and developing countries. Pushing these through each country's political system, against powerful vested interests, will require a sustained political effort. And a similar effort will be needed to achieve the breakthrough on trade, giving developing countries a real chance to compete in the global market.

On peace and security, member States have yet to respond to the need, which the Summit stressed, “to make every effort” to reach agreement on a comprehensive convention on terrorism, within the present session of the General Assembly. It is vital that they do so, as well as developing a comprehensive counterterrorism strategy with the urgency the Summit called for. You in this city know all too well that terrorism is a global scourge, and how important it is that all nations work together to defeat it.

Much the same applies to the commitments for human rights. Negotiations on the new Human Rights Council need to be completed by mid-February, before the old Commission on Human Rights begins another annual session. And those negotiations are by no means guaranteed to succeed. Now is the time when all who really care about human rights must make the maximum effort, to ensure that we do get an authoritative Human Rights Council, able to command respect and to stand up for the rights of the oppressed throughout the world.

And that applies also to the splendid declaration of willingness to take action “in a timely and decisive manner, through the Security Council” to protect populations whose own governments fail to do so. This will only be meaningful if the Security Council is prepared to act on it. And the Council faces a clear test right now, since the African Union has signalled its wish to see its mission in Darfur transformed into a UN peace operation.

That gives the Council an inescapable responsibility to act swiftly and decisively to halt the killing, rape and ethnic cleansing to which people in Darfur are still being subjected.

It remains to be seen, too, whether we shall get the thorough overhaul of all our rules governing personnel and resources to which the Summit opened the door, and which we badly need if we are to have a management system that is up to handling the operational responsibilities given to us by member States over the last fifteen years. For this, it is vital that member States agree to act on the proposals I shall submit next month.

At the same time the General Assembly is going to undertake a review of all the mandates still in force which were given to the Organization by member States between 1946 and 2001. You can imagine the challenge. This should make it possible to avoid much duplication and waste, and ensure that our work reflects the current priorities of member States, rather than those of yesteryear.

None of these reforms are easy for member States to agree on, because of the profound suspicions between developing and donor countries, between small States and big, and often between the single remaining superpower and everyone else.

Those suspicions affected the Summit, too. There are areas where world leaders failed to reach any agreement at all.

The biggest disappointment, for me, was their failure to chart a way forward on disarmament and non-proliferation.

Can there be any threat more alarming, in today's world, than that of a nuclear or biological weapon falling into the hands of terrorists, or being used by a State as a result of some terrible misunderstanding or miscalculation? The more States have such weapons, the greater the risk. And the more those States that already have them increase their arsenals, or insist that such weapons are essential to their national security, the more other States feel that they too must have them, for their security.

For 35 years the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty has been remarkably successful in protecting mankind from this danger. But now it faces a very serious challenge.

Today's headlines concern Iran –rightly so, for basic treaty obligations and commitments are at stake. For signatories of the NPT, the right to develop nuclear energy is conditional on the solemn obligation not to build or acquire nuclear weapons, and to comply with standards set and monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

But when we step back from the headlines, it should be clear that we cannot continue to lurch from crisis to crisis, until the regime is buried beneath a cascade of nuclear proliferation.

Twice last year governments had the chance to strengthen the foundations of the NPT regime, by agreeing on more robust IAEA inspections; incentives and guarantees for countries to forgo the enrichment and reprocessing of fissile materials; and energetic steps to meet disarmament commitments.

Both times, they failed. We cannot afford any more such squandered chances.

Foreign Secretary, I greatly appreciated the efforts to rebuild the non-proliferation consensus that you made last year, working with six other foreign ministers. This is one of the few serious multilateral efforts that have been made recently to strengthen a key pillar of collective security. I urge you to continue it.

The Summit's other great failure, of course, was that it did not agree on enlargement of the Security Council.

Although the UK supported enlargement, I suspect that in London, as in other capitals of existing permanent members, not many tears are shed over this failure.

But do not underestimate the slow erosion of the UN's authority and legitimacy that stems from the perception that it has a very narrow power-base, with just five countries calling the shots. I have in the past described this as a democracy deficit.

It is this feeling of frustration and exclusion that prompts many States to exercise the only power they do have: the power to block other reforms, such as better management –since some see even this as an attempt by the big boys to grab yet more power for themselves.

So the base must be broadened. Sooner or later, the Security Council will have to be enlarged. But meanwhile there are other ways to give more States more of a say in UN decisions.

The permanent members could pay more attention to the elected members –and the General Assembly could take more care to elect members who are up to the responsibility.

And the Council as a whole should be more willing to share power with other organs of the United Nations, including the new Human Rights Council and Peacebuilding Commission, a reformed Economic and Social Council, and the General Assembly itself. If these institutions win more respect and greater powers, there will be opportunities for more member States to exercise those powers –which in turn will give them a renewed feeling of commitment to the Organization, and a stronger interest in making it work.

Britain has the experience and prestige to play a leading role in reforming the governance of the United Nations. It has in fact already increased its prestige, by showing readiness not to put all its eggs in the permanent membership basket.

What looks like giving away power can increase British influence –because, if the UN is a ring in which you punch above your weight, it's in your interest to ensuring that it's a ring the rest of the world really respects and cares about. In fact, the Gladwyn Jebbs of today or tomorrow could play as big a role in re-casting the UN edifice as their forebears did in the great institution-building exercise of sixty years ago.

If we are to have a UN capable of coping with today's crises and tomorrow's –from Doha to Darfur, from global terrorism to global warming –a real effort of Statesmanship and confidence-rebuilding is required. And Britain has a major role to play. Yours is a unique position, given your ties of language and friendship with the United States, your link to many developing countries through the Commonwealth, and your role as a leading member of the European Union.

I fervently hope that, at the end of this year, I shall be able to hand on to my successor an Organization better equipped to meet the challenges of the 21st century, and to serve the peoples in whose name it was founded. And I count on Britain to play, not a supporting, but a leading role in making that come about.

Thank you very much.<

Questions and Answers

Nadhia Ahmad, from Glasgow UNA

The Secretary-General mentioned the on-going negotiations to create a new Human Rights Council. What changes are required to make the new Council an improvement over the existing Commission on Human Rights?

Secretary-General: Let me say that the current Human Rights Commission has been discredited to a great extent. Its been politicized –in fact sometimes governments joined the Council, not to promote the human rights of their people, but to ensure that they are not condemned by the Commission. And at the end of the day, when they have fought each other, protected each other and tried to accuse each other, it's very difficult to define the rights and the peoples whose interests that they are there to defend. The new Human Rights Council - and the Commission meets only 6 weeks a year –the Human Rights Council will meet throughout the year. It will have the right to intervene or sound the alarm in cases where there are gross and systematic abuses of human rights. It would also have the mandate to look at the human rights record of any of the members. In fact, I have suggested they should start with those who are fighting to serve on the new Council. They should start reviewing their own records and then move on to the others. This would also remove the accusations of selectivity. I recall that the Human Rights Commission sent a delegation, a rapporteur actually to United States to look into capital punishment, and former Senator Helms was very upset. He said “why are they doing this. Do they think we are some sort of banana republic?” And this is the United States. But of course if you set up this new system, they have the right to look at everyone's record. But I think the most important thing is that we also hope that we will be able to raise the level of participation in the Council by insisting that to get elected you need two thirds vote in the General Assembly. As it works now, we have a regional distribution of the positions and if a region has two seats and they put forward two countries they go in automatically. Under the new system, even if a region puts them up, they need to garner two thirds of the General Assembly's support, otherwise they do not get in and the region will have to make a fresh submission. So I think these things should be able to help us. Thank you.

Richard Bartlett, from Harrogate UNA

The Secretary-General, in his speech, urged the international community to act swiftly and decisively, under the responsibility to protect principle, in respect to Darfur. Should this principle also be invoked in the cases of the Congo and Uganda?

SG: Yes, you heard what I said about Darfur. In Congo we are already on the ground. We have about 17,000 troops and we had hoped to get more which the member states had not been able to oblige us. We are working out arrangements with the European Union where they are setting up this rapid reaction force and what we are doing is work out standby arrangements with them so that if we need additional support they will come in and support us just as Britain did in Sierra Leone when the peacekeepers got into trouble.

Northern Uganda is now on the radar. For a long time it was ignored. There is a serious humanitarian situation there and it is also important to know that the head of the Lords Resistance Movement is one of those accused by the International Criminal Court. So they are seeking to arrest him and put him on trial. So even though we haven't sent in peacekeepers we are taking action. We are active on the humanitarian front. We are trying to make those who have committed these atrocities accountable. And I hope in time, I will not exclude that, in time, the organization may want to do more.

Marina Faggionato, from Westminster UNA

Mr. Annan, you have now served as Secretary-General of the United Nations for nine years. Do you have any regrets and what are you most proud of having achieved?

SG: How much time do I have?

Yes, you cannot do this kind of job for as long as I have done in the world we live in and not have regrets. I do have regrets. I regret that I was unable to breach the divisions amongst member states over the Iraq war. The divisions are still there. They are healing, but I was really deeply disappointed that I could not help bridge the differences. [applause]

And of course, recently you have all heard a lot about the Oil-for-Food Programme. And I think I regret that I did not pay attention sooner to the problems in the Programme. Whether I would have been able to deal with it or not, given the way it was set up and the responsibility centres were distributed, but I should have probably paid more attention to the difficulties in that.

And I think the other thing that has hurt the organization, myself and the staff, is the distraction that has been caused by these politically-motivated campaigns against the UN and against instances of corruption by staff members blown completely out of proportion. In fact when you look at the records and the facts, up to $36 million of investigation, and the kind of scrubbing the UN was given, only one staff member was found to have, maybe have taken $150,000 out of a $64 billion programme. If there was a scandal, it was with the companies and not so much with UN individuals. There may have been instances of mismanagement, yes, maybe we didn't manage it effectively, but not corruption. Accusations which have really hurt quite a lot. We have very serious dedicated staff members who give their all, who go to places around the world to serve the needy, they serve in places that governments do not dare send their soldiers and I think they deserve a little bit of thanks and a bit more respect than the badgering?.[applause]

On the things I am proud of –I think I am proud that I have been able to broaden the constituency of the UN, reminding the public and the members that they should not be only an organization of governments talking to each other, that we needed to bring in the peoples, we needed to work with NGOs, with the private sector, foundations. When I took over I sort of looked at what we had to do and our responsibilities were expanding and spreading and there was no way we were going to be able to go back day after day, month after month, to the same government asking for more and more money to do what we had to do. So the only way we could expand our capacity was working in partnership with other people who were working in the same area whether private sector, civil society, and the issues we were dealing with couldn't be solved by governments alone anyway. So, reaching out and working with them in partnership has been one of my proudest achievements. And of course, with the issuance of the report “We, the Peoples”, we have also been able to provide a common framework for development which has been accepted by governments, by NGOs, and all the agencies and I think it is a unique example where we have a common framework for development, which is so simple that the average man and woman in the street understands it. And we are putting lots of energy behind it. And of course, in the “Larger Freedom” document, which the Foreign Secretary spoke about, I have tried to energise the member states to take a critical look at the organization and prepare it for the 21st century. I was very pleased that at the end of the last Summit the member states have come to accept the inescapable links between security, development, human rights and the rule of law. And that because of the work Sir David and others did, they had also accepted a broader definition of threats rather than the conventional one of conflict and war between states or civil war. Today we consider poverty, infectious diseases and environmental degradation a threat, along with terrorism, along with weapons of mass destruction. Look at all the excitement over the avian flu. It is a threat for the whole world. We saw it with SARS. We all worried about terrorism. But we also have to remember that depending on where you live and where you stand, your perception of threat is quite different. I live in America and if you were to ask me because of the way the press plays it and the speeches you hear, I would probably tell you terrorism is the most important threat. But if I go to South Africa, they would probably tell me HIV/AIDS. Someone else will tell me hunger. And if I lived on a small island, which could be washed away through global warming, I would tell you it is environmental degradation and climate. So, we have really opened up a debate and I think intellectually it was quite an achievement to get the member states to walk away with that understanding.

Thank you very much.