Bangkok--Feb 14--UNIS
BANGKOK (United Nations Information Services) -- The following is the text of Secretary-General Kofi Annan's remarks at the High-level Round-table with Heads of UN Agencies, Programmes and Related Institutions, Bangkok, 12 February 2000:
It is good to see you all here together for this round-table discussion. To look around this room is to feel confidence that the United Nations family and its many partners can work more cohesively for our clients: the nations and peoples of the world who look to us for answers and assistance.
All of us in this room are keenly aware of the contradictions that mark our time. At a time of unprecedented wealth, poverty is all around us. Despite significant progress in living standards in the past decades, there is rampant human deprivation and under-development. Globalization knits us together in webs of commerce, communication and cooperation, and yet the gaps both within and between nations are widening. The multilateral trading system -- one of the great success stories of the past half century and a pillar of the global economy -- is itself under fierce attack. There is a legitimate clamour for an open free and fair global trading system.
The great challenge as we enter the 21st century are the twin problems of inequity and exclusion. Opportunity for some, life on the margins for others, seems to be the order of the day.
Each of your agencies and programmes has done an excellent job of documenting and describing the challenges we face. Thanks to you, we understand the world much better. Now, as two radical philosophers said 150 years ago, ?our problem is to change it! We are here today to explore and prescribe some possible responses. Let me just make two general points that I believe are worth keeping in mind:
First, the members of the UN family must continue to reach out to each other and improve the way they work together. Our network of international institutions remains fragmented. All too often, issues are addressed piecemeal. In the worst cases, the result is substantive confusion, bureaucratic strife, political stalemate and, most damaging, a loss of public confidence.
Many analysts have dreamed of rebuilding the United Nations and its system of specialized agencies from the ground up. I say we need better coherence among them, and I believe we are demonstrating that this can be achieved. We must also learn from each other, never thinking that our own particular group or agency is the sole repository of wisdom.
I know you each have governing boards and other bodies to which you must answer, but the peoples of the world are your ultimate constituency. And while those people may be somewhat familiar with your individual identities, it is the United Nations they see as helping or failing them. The entire system's credibility rises and falls with the way its individual parts do their job.
Second, in addition to reaching out to each other, we must continue reaching beyond the system. I am speaking, of course, about civil society groups, private sector enterprises and trade unions. Citizens are increasingly conscious of their rights. They want to be heard, to participate, to have a greater say in the decisions affecting their future.
Private corporations, meanwhile, as the main engines of globalization, have great resources and expertise at their command to be harnessed for development. But with that power comes responsibility and obligations -- such as applying universal standards. One of the main goals of the Global Compact I proposed last year at Davos is to find ways of reconciling these demands and to embed global markets in universal values.
We have all made important steps towards bringing these actors into our work, in a way that advances everyone's agenda. But we must go further. Only with popular legitimacy, participation and support will we achieve real progress.
I am sorry that I cannot stay for the discussion. As you know, my visit here involves not only UNCTAD X but also an official visit to Thailand, and the Thai authorities have set up an ambitious programme of meetings and events for me. So I will leave you in the good hands of Mark Malloch Brown and Raghida Dergham, who as moderator will no doubt do what she does best as a journalist: ask provocative questions and refuse to accept simple answers. I look forward to learning the outcome of this valuable round-table and wish you the best for an illuminating discussion.
UNCTAD X is a chance to chart a bold new course that offers all people, particularly developing countries and the poor, no matter where they live, the prospect of a better life. Let us rise to the occasion. Thank you very much. End.