Ladies and Gentlemen,

Thank you very much for the words of introduction. Let me say how happy I am to be here with you this afternoon. I wish it had been possible for all of us to be under one roof but given the numbers and logistics, we all know that was not possible. Anway, the important thing is that I have come to hear you to talk and to engage with each other.

I know that some you may have experienced a bit of confusion in getting settled here in Johannesburg. But I'm sure that many, many more of you have been assisted, in one way or another, by the 5,000 volunteers who have been placed at our disposal by the Government to help the Summit.

The volunteers have been stationed at airports, hotels, conference rooms and elsewhere, or working behind the scenes in virtually every aspect of planning and logistics, and they are part of the glue that has held this event together. I also understand that the South African authorities have identified 5,000 more who are ready to fan out across the country to ensure that what we agree to here is implemented. And the name “Arise and act” is their slogan. “Arise and act” –and I hope it goes for all of us - that is just the kind of civic engagement we need if this Summit is to have a real impact in the years ahead.

Some people, when you talk to them about the Rio Summit, remember mainly for the agreements adopted there: the visionary Agenda 21 and the landmark conventions on climate change and biodiversity.

Others recall the controversies over who attended and who did not, or over what steps states were or were not prepared to take to protect the global environment.

What I remember most vividly is the mass mobilization of people -- groups small and large, individuals in suits or saris -- humanity on a parade, clamouring for action, demanding action.

Of course, citizens' groups and non-governmental organizations have been a part of the UN constellation since the very founding of the Organization. You have always been a part of us and we have always relied on you. But Rio was a turning point. Never before had so many gathered in one place. Never before had such a diverse collection of activists and groups come together around a common agenda.

And never before had they had such a profound influence on the proceedings. Civil society brought off something of a revolution, and the international community is far stronger for it.

But this of course reflects a worldwide change in society itself. More and more, the initiative in taking action to improve the human conditions comes from voluntary groups such as yours. In Southern Africa especially, I am full of admiration for the way civil society is coping with the terrible drama of HIV-AIDS and now also with the effect of drought and threats of famine.

I have had the good fortune to serve as Secretary-General during a time when civil society's presence at the United Nations conferences and in our day-to-day work has both widened and deepened, enriching our work and increasing our effectiveness. You have that capacity to keep us on our toes and to push the envelope and say and do things we do not dare but is helpful to the cause. In some areas, you often lead and we catch up with you. And I must confess, though much of my daily work involves contacts with Governments, it is with civil society that I feel a special affinity, particularly when it comes to matters of environment and development.

Like you, I am deeply troubled by the slow pace of progress over the past decade. Like you, I am alarmed at what may be in store for us 10, 20 or 30 years from now, if we continue with business as usual. I am baffled when urgent issues are ignored, when common sense suggestions fall on deaf ears, or when available solutions are not pursued. And I am dissapointed when old and long unfulfilled promises are trotted out as new proposals, or when it appears that those with power to do the maximum profess to be able to do only the minimum.

The question is what to do in a world of entrenched interests, political inertia, and hard-to-break habits on the part of Governments and individuals. Dire predictions, apocalyptic talk and doom-and-gloom scenarios are not enough to inspire change. But it would be irresponsible to downplay the problems we face, or to think that a technological breakthrough will come to rescue us.

Your challenge, or our challenge, is to calibrate the strategies and actions required. Purism and pragmatism both have their place, as do market solutions and mandates set out by Governments. There will be days when bold action is called for, and times when more nuanced approaches are more effective. Civil society, too, in challenging business as usual, must also be ready to make difficult adjustments in its own perspectives and points of view.

Sustainable development will not happen of its own accord –and certainly not without the efforts of civil society and the legions of volunteers who bring such energy to the cause. Whether working to advance women's rights or to build more liberal and liveable societies, whether you find yourself in air-conditioned conference halls or hot zones of despoliation and despair, your initiatives hold many of the keys to the future. Indeed, civil society occupies a unique space where ideas are born, where mindsets are changed, and where the work of development and conservation doesn't just get talked about, but gets done.

I want to on that note, thank you for your contributions and look forward to our continued partnership for the betterment of humankind upon our one and only earth.

And now I would be happy to take a few questions and hear your comments.

Q: Thank you Mr. Secretary General. I think the value of what you have achieved at least in terms of bringing the vision forward and this is not the first time and we bow to that but we all know that this is probably the most complex agenda we ever approached and addressed.

In relation to that, what would you think the most critical areas would be from this conference to really carry it through and forward and how can you see civil society engaging in that?

SG: Let me say that this has been a very important conference since Rio and I will tell you we all say that progress since Rio has been slow. I discovered that in a very painful way when I was preparing the document for the Millennium Summit, the document which I suspect most of you have seen, 'We the People'. In the preparation of that document we had about eighteen months of consultations and discussions and to my amazement the environment hardly came up. I therefore devoted about one-third of the report to environmental issues to try and get it back on the ladder.

And today here we are, leaders and delegates from all over the world, discussing sustainable development and you are asking me what happens when we leave here. Are we going to follow the same slow path as before? Are we going to go back home and forget this? I hope not. I hope not because over the past few years we had a certain momentum starting with the Millennium Development Goals which all Governments and all agencies have accepted as the common framework for development and we are pressing ahead on it. And we have also as part of this conference come up with WEHAB with the UN agencies, Governments, civil society have accepted as an organizing framework for action and we are going to press ahead with that. I think Governments, civil society and all of us coming together and working in these five areas and following through on the achievements at this conference and the agreements that we get here, I think will make it possible for us to maintain the momentum and try and ensure we get action.

But if we are going to get action we all have to remain engaged. We cannot leave it to Governments. It is not for Governments alone to tackle it. It is for you and me and each individual in society. As for the private sector, civil society, we all have to keep up the pressure to maintain the momentum that we do indeed give clean water and sanitation to the poor. That we work hard to give energy to the two billion people who do not have it. That we keep up the struggle to bring green revolution to Africa so that this continent can feed itself. That we act in consent and do something about the way we are exploiting the resources of the earth. So lets all become active and keep up the momentum. Thank you.

SG: Thank you Mr Secretary-General. The UN was formed in 1945 at a time when most of the world was in colonial bondage. The formation of the UN was driven by the victors of the Second World War and by those in part who had nuclear weaponry. Almost sixty years later the world has fundamentally changed. However, some of the frustrations that civil society has felt at this gathering and our attempts to influence the governmental process underscore for us the need right now for the UN itself to undergo fundamental restructuring in terms of its governance itself.

We welcome, Sir, the wonderful efforts, you have made in reforming the United Nations and the reform that we have seen has been reform with a small 'r' and we encourage that. But the time now has to be we have to ask the questions if we want a United Nations that is democratic should we not be considering such things as who has the veto. Should not that be determined by who has the population size rather than those that have the greater economic power and those with nuclear power. Thank you.

SG: You wouldn't get an argument out of me about reform. [laughter]

I have always been in favour of reform and in favour of change. Ever since I took over the UN I have been very actively involved in working with the member states and the staff to reform the organization. But reform is a process and not an event. And it is an ongoing process that we will pursue. I think over the past couple of years we have tried to make the organization much more responsive, much more coherent and much more effective. We have also tried to review our own priorities and I think that was one of the major achievements of the Millennium Declaration.

Fifty years after the establishment of the organisation, 160 Prime Ministers, Presidents, Kings and Heads of State came together to discuss what we should be doing as we entered the new century. It was not 'what is our business' but 'what should we be doing', what should the priorities be and they came up with the Millennium Declaration, giving us the priorities that they want us to focus on including declaring war on poverty for the first fifteen years of this century, making sure water reaches at least 50% of the people who today do not have it by 2015 including declaring war on HIV-AIDS and protecting the planet. Pushing education, particularly for girls and so forth. So we do have priorities that we are going to be focusing on for the next fifteen to twenty years. And luckily, this is a framework that has been adopted and accepted by all the agencies and Governments all over the world with a commitment to come up with their own strategies for meeting them.

In addition, the issue you raised about reform of the Security Council has been on the agenda for a long time but it is a decision that the member states have to take. They have not been able to take it yet. I think they all agree that the Security Council needs reform and that it reflects the geo-political realities of 1945, as you said, and that we should do something to bring it in line with today's realities. Beyond that agreement, the member states have not been able to agree on the nature and the form of the reform, the size of the Council if it is to be expanded. So the debate continues.

But the UN has changed in many other forms. I as Secretary-General undertook to bring the UN closer to the people, to open up the UN to civil society, to foundations, universities and the private sector. And I did that with the full knowledge that Governments alone cannot tackle the issues that we have. And other stakeholders have to become engaged and we need to work in partnership to tackle the big issues of the day and I think we all see the benefits and the progress we are making with this partnership. So part of the new governance is the role that you in civil society play. Take the Landmine Convention. Without the role you played, we would not have had that Convention. The International Criminal Court, without you and your pressure and your will we would not have had it. Do not underestimate your own influence and your own power and your ability to influence decisions. Yes we can perhaps improve the structures and have you in the room and be part of the formal decision-making. But until that happens, you are not powerless, and don't underestimate your power.

I, as Secretary-General, value the partnership with you and I hope we can continue our strong bonds and work together on the difficult issues of the day. Thank you.

Q: Thank you Mr Secretary-General for raising the issue of the huge divide between the North and South and I think nowhere more starkly has this been illustrated than when people went on the march in Alexandra township. To see Sandton and to see Alexandra is to be reminded of what afflicts Africa. At this moment NEPAD is being touted as the panacea for all of Africa's problems. We know of course that Africa is itself divided on the issue. Many African Government's feel that in fact NEPAD is just another way for countries in the North to exercise a new form of colonialism. So my question to you is: NEPAD is predicated on the notion of a peer review and good governance. What happens when we cannot deliver on that as we are seeing stark examples of that just beyond our borders. So what role do you think NEPAD can play in promoting sustainable development? But more importantly, what can we do about multinationals because in many countries in Africa, multinationals from the North determine African Governments' agendas. So what role can the UN play in ensuring that multinationals are held accountable and so that we can finally move Africa out of poverty and corruption? Thank you.

SG: On NEPAD, let me start by saying that I see NEPAD as an African initiative and not something that is imposed by the North. It is the African leaders who came together to agree on NEPAD and it was their initiative. And I think the basic premise behind NEPAD is extremely sound. It is something that Africa needs and we must all embrace. NEPAD is dealing with democratic governance, it is dealing with strong institutions. NEPAD deals with human rights and the building of states based on the rule of law. These are public goods that we all need. Nobody needs to threaten us or give us money for us to want those assets. Why should African countries and Africans need human rights less or good governance less? Or why should African governments and Africans not want to fight corruption? Corruption that has stunted development growth on the continent.

I am excited that the leaders have come together to want to tackle some of these issues and have agreed that they will have peer review among themselves but that peer review is going to be done by the Africans. Where I would advise the leaders is to engage the people and the public and civil society. So far, NEPAD is seen as a discussion between leaders and their Governments. They need to reach out to engage the public, to engage civil society and explain to them what all this is about. At the G8 Summit, they welcomed NEPAD and said that if the Africans do what they have promised themselves and deliver what they have done on the NEPAD, then we will be prepared to encourage investments, increase development assistance and work with us in developing infrastructure as an incentive, not a condition. I have seen many countries that on the surface appear to be doing very well, appear to be economically prosperous, appear to be politically stable. But the moment they encounter the first crisis, they appear to crumble like a deck of cards. I don't want to mention names of list countries but they did crumble because they were not built on solid foundations. And when African states, - and I am an African myself - when we are able to develop our societies, and build societies based on the rule of law, where the individual knows that his property and person is protected, where the individual knows that where there is conflict, it can be judged according to law and that the Government respects his or her views and they can express themselves without fear and we are prepared to work for a good education and health of all our populations. We are building solid ground for a prosperous future. We are creating an environment that will release the creative energies of our people. That is a dream and a promise I see in NEPAD and if we do it right I think we will really move forward. But I am not saying that NEPAD will bring everything that we dream about. But it will be a solid beginning if we can succeed. I think also to succeed to be able to develop our economies, no amount of development assistance can do it. We need to be able to attract investments, both domestic and international but under conditions that are fair to us, the African countries and the African people.

You refer to possible exploitation by multinational corporations, I think if we have the right regulatory systems and the rule of law, we should be able to check some of these. If we can clean up the correct environment, we should be able to check some of these things. And today it is a very transparent environment and others even beyond our borders will also be monitoring to see what is going on. We can work with the multinational corporations and we do need them and we should not behave as if it is a one-way traffic that they have the possibility of taking advantage of us and we are helpless and we can do nothing to stop it or to check it. But we are not that helpless. Often, where we get taken is because corrupt leaders and politicians close one eye and one ear. And this is why the promise of NEPAD, if we could implement it is so hopeful. To bring in a transparent and an accountable government, a government accountable to the people where the people have a say in the decisions that affect them and elect their Governments freely without interference and disturbance. So I will say, lets support NEPAD, but to the leaders, you cannot do it alone. Bring in the people, bring in civil society, they are the ones who are going to make it work. Thank you.