AIDS, other health issues

[All-English; scroll down for trilingual as delivered version]

Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,

I want to start by expressing my deepest apologies for not being able to join you in person.

I want to thank you profoundly for your understanding, but I am very sorry I cannot go. 

As you know well, pressing global events are keeping me in New York.

My heart is very much with you.

I look forward to seeing all of you in person in the near future.

Belize is an inspired place to hold your joint Summit.

I am pleased to join all of you to launch this resource mobilization campaign for the ACT-Accelerator. 

I thank you for putting the focus on fairness.

If we want to ensure vaccinations for everyone to end this pandemic, we must first inject fairness into the system.

We are entering the third year of the pandemic – and the world is still far from meeting crucial targets.

To vaccinate the globe.

To increase testing.

To make lifesaving effective treatments available for all who need it.

Good afternoon. 
 
Today I briefed the General Assembly on what I see as I scan today’s global landscape.
 
I did not pull any punches.  It’s not a pretty picture. 
 
I see a 5-alarm global fire.
 
You heard the speech.  I won’t repeat it. 
 
The essence of my message is simply this:  we don’t have the luxury to just catalogue our challenges. 
 
We must do something about them – and we can do something about them. 
 
So my message was stark – because that is the state of our world. 
 

[All-English version; scroll down for All-French and bilingual as delivered versions]

Excellencies,

We begin another year in the grips of a global pandemic.

COVID-19 continues to upend lives, plans and hopes.

The only certainty is more uncertainty.
 
Meanwhile, inequalities are growing.

Inflation is rising. 

The climate crisis, pollution and biodiversity loss rage on.

We face a cauldron of political unrest and ferocious conflicts. 

Mistrust among world powers is reaching fever pitch.

Ladies and gentlemen of the media. Good morning. 

Allow me a few words on the nightmare unfolding in Afghanistan.

We are in a race against time to help the Afghan people.

Just two days ago, the United Nations launched our largest-ever humanitarian appeal for a single country. 

The scale of that appeal reflects the scale of the despair.

Babies being sold to feed their siblings. 

Freezing health facilities overflowing with malnourished children.

People burning their possessions to keep warm.

Good afternoon.
 
This is my final opportunity to address you in 2021 – so let me begin by wishing you all happy holidays.  
 
We are coming to the end of a difficult year.  
 
The COVID-19 pandemic raged on.  Inequalities kept rising.   The burden for developing countries grew heavier – with diminishing resources for recovery, rising inflation and mounting debt.
 
To add fuel to the fire, we are still off track in addressing the climate crisis – another amplifier of global injustice and inequality.
 
I am deeply worried.

Chancellor,
Vice Chancellor,
Academics,
Students,
Civic leaders,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

Thank you for this great honour.

I know that through me, you are recognizing the work of my United Nations colleagues around the world.

Cambridge has enduring links with global governance and the United Nations, from John Maynard Keynes, who played such an important role in establishing international economic institutions after the Second World War, to Margaret Anstee, the first woman to be appointed Assistant Secretary-General. 

Thank you very much, dear Tedros.

Ladies and gentlemen of the press,

Vaccine inequality is the best ally of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

It is allowing variants to develop and run wild, condemning the world to millions more deaths, and prolonging an economic slowdown that could cost trillions of dollars.

I have long been pushing for a global vaccination plan to reach everyone, everywhere, sooner rather than later. 

President Biden, Excellencies,

I want to thank President Biden for this important initiative to help mobilise the international community to boost our joint efforts to vaccinate everybody everywhere and to thank him for the announcements he made today.

Global health security until now has failed, to the tune of 4.5 million lives, and counting.

We have effective vaccines against COVID-19. We can end the pandemic.

And that is why I have been appealing for a global vaccination plan and I hope this summit is a step in that direction.

Well, thank you very much, Mr. President.  And I have to say that I am delighted to have this opportunity to meet you, as you have clearly affirmed the strong commitment of the United States to the U.N. and to multilateralism -- a multilateralism that we also want to see reformed, more effective, and more in line with the need to solve the dramatic problems of this world.