Mr. Chairman

Honourable Ministers,

H.E. Dr. K.Y. Amoako

UN Under Secretary General and Executive Secretary of the ECA

Distinguished Participants,

Invited Guests

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I wish, first of all, to express my appreciation to Dr. K.Y. Amoako for the invitation he has extended to me to participate in this important gathering which is intended to brainstorm on issues and challenges of concern to Africa as the United Nations enters a new millennium.

This regional meeting and other similar meetings in other regions, we are being told, are meant to prepare the ground for the Millennium Assembly that will be taking place sometime in the year 2000 under the auspices of the UN for identifying the challenges that the United Nations would be called upon to respond to in the new millennium that we are entering.

Obviously therefore, this is indeed a very useful gathering or a regional hearing which affords us the opportunity to raise issues of particular concern to Africa that we wish to be highlighted by the planned "Millennium Assembly" and to be an integral part of the vision of the United Nations in the twenty-first century.

It is therefore with particular pleasure that I welcome all those who have come from outside Ethiopia to participate in this what I believe to be a useful undertaking.

Excellencies,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It appears to me that it is indeed very critical, in order to succeed in identifying the issues that we feel, from the African perspective, should form part of the vision of the UN for the new millennium, to review and assess the achievements and the weaknesses, if there are any, of the United Nations since its formation with regard to matters that have been of particular concern to Africa and with respect to discharging its responsibilities under the Charter.

It would, however, be pretentious on my part if I were to claim that I intend to do this exhaustively in this brief remark. But I do hope that in the course of this deliberation we will in fact make the assessment and review of the UN’s part performance part of the basis for our identification of the challenges that we wish the UN to make part if its vocation and vocation and vision in the twenty-first century.

As an input to this exercise, let me state in broad terms what I feel should be highlighted in terms of the UN’s performance since its creation in the mid-forties.

There is little doubt that the United Nations has made substantial difference in the past half century in areas that have been identified in its Charter as falling within its purview. Whether in the areas of international peace and security and in those related to economic, social and cultural cooperation, and to humanitarian and human right matters, the UN has played a critical role in the past more that fifty years in contributing to making the world safer and the people of the world, in particular those in Africa and in other developing countries, a little better economically and socially that would have been the case without the United Nations. It would only be fair and proper to acknowledge the very good work that have been done by the UNDP and other members of the UN family such as UNICEF and others. Obviously, even with respect to the developed world, modern life would have been inconceivable without the very critical role of coordination and standard setting carried out by the United Nations working through the specialised agencies in a myriad of activities, ranging from civil aviation to transport and communication and to the areas of health and others.

One can of course go on and on talking about the achievement of the United Nations since its creation. But as often is the case, self-congratulation is not always a good basis as an impetus for greater achievement and for doing more by those from whom mush is expected.

It is therefore in this spirit that I wish to say a few words with regard to the minus side of the ledger in the performance of the UN over the past more that five decades of its existence.

Here I would like to focus specially on issues that have been, and still are, vital to Africa and which constitute the challenges faced by our Continent and its people.

Africa’s main challenges could be put ins imple terms. They are challenges of peace and security onone hand and of pooverty and the difficulties of achieving sustainable developmetn on the other ---- challenges which are very much interelated and which have been seen inour continent to reinforce each other putting our peoples in a vvicious circle. Recent indications make it absolutely clear that the absence of durable peace that affects many parts of our continet and the difficulty of achieiveing sustainble development might continue to haunt our Continent well into the next century. Has Africa received the requisite solidarity and co-operation from the international community within the context of the UN for it to be able to overcome these challenges? Has the UN played an effective role for peace in Africa in conformity with the provisions of its Charter and to the same degree that it had in other parts of the world? the responses to these questions need not be extensive and belaboured. It might only suffice to refer to conditions in Somalia and to a number of other conflict situations in our Continent at present and in the past. Liberia, Sierra Leone, Angola and the history of the Horn are additional examples if one were pressed to name names.

Most of all, the genocide in Rwanda which failed to be averted because of inaction is a reminder of this state of affairs of neglect of africa and of the double standards applied to the Continent.

It would not be fair in any way accuse Africa of being ungrateful or of engaging in an act of shifting of the blame. The question of ungratefulness cannot arise because the values of the UN Charter can have validity and usefulness through universal applicability. As to who should carry the blame for the African predicament in the area of peace becomes problematic if genuine and fair accounting is made with regard to who did what in our history, including during the cold war. For newsmen and reporters, present facts have no history and no background and Africa appears outside world history until the moment of writing about the sensational. The UN cannot be guided by these principles and a fair assessment of the African dilemma needs to go beyond this narrow perspective. As such, though as Africans we cannot continue to blame others for where we are today, it is nonetheless obvious that we remain absolutely justified in demanding effective and genuine co-operation from the UN and its member states for establishing durable peace and security in our Continent. That this has not been –forthcoming so far, and that the Organization of African Unity has not received the necessary support from the UN in this regard is something that can hardly be denied. I shall return to this theme in a short while but at this point I would like to add that the same could be said with regard to economic co-operation and in connection with the task that Africa has in combating poverty.

Excellencies,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It appears to me very obvious that, despite the various efforts that have been made by the UN to mobilize international co-operation for Africa in the economic and social area, all these have not added up to creating the necessary condition for assisting our Continent and its peoples to embark onthe path of sustainable economic development. The level of international co-operation for Africa in this area has indeed been meager and far from effective. The debt burden is an obvious illustration of the problem we are facing in this regard---a problem which by universal consensus makes development in Africa unthinkable but regarding which no effective steps are taken within or outside the UN system.

Your Excellencies,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I do not wish to be misunderstood. While emphasizing the weaknesses that we have seen in the performance of the UN in the areas that I have identified, I am not intending to leave the impression that we Africans are beyond blame or that we should leave the responsibility for our future to others, including the UN.

That we often have made a mess of the narrow opportunities that we have had for peace and for economic development because of lack of good governance, mismanagement of the economy and because of human rights abuses cannot be denied for a moment. In this regard, regardless of the kind of co-operation we manage to secure, unless we put our houses in order, it is undeniable that our aspiration in the areas of both peace and economic development would always remain distant dreams.

But here again, the question remains whether even when all the conditions are fulfilled or near fulfilled, we have been made to count on fair and the appropriate kind of co-operation from the UN and from the international community.

In the area of peace and stability, we have seen how those who abuse the rule of law have been applauded for reasons of either strategic calculation or for reasons that make little sense in terms of principles of international law and of broader peace in specific regions, or in Africa as a whole. Accordingly, the lamentations that we often hear about the Africa condition are as empty as they are hypocritical. The same applies in the economic area as we often see how economic co-operation made available lacks transparency and how for reasons that are not always clear hopes that are created are made to dissipate.

Your Excellencies,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Now I would like, on the basis of what I said in the foregoing, to lay out a few thoughts on what I believe should be, from the African perspective, part of the vision for the UN in the twenty-first century and in the millennium that the UN is entering. I have chosen to focus on general principles, which should guide the UN so that it could carry out its mission better with greater effectiveness and in line with the principles of its Charter. In fact, I wonder whether these are in fact solely the concerns of Africa and therefore should not be regarded as the concerns of all.

The following are then my thoughts on the challenges that should form part of UN’s vision for twenty-first century:

1. No one in his right mind would deny that our world has become so much interdependent in so many ways that the reference to the "we the peoples" in the preamble of the Charter of the UN is indeed most appropriate and is far from hyperbolic.

But while the reality of our interdependence is real, it must appear obvious that the commitment to that imperative has however been limited and has not gone beyond slogans.

The "we the peoples of the United Nations" I already mentioned referred to in the UN Charter has to be made to include in a genuine manner all peoples, including africans, and the developing world in general, so that the World Body can the truest sense of the term be made representative of the peoples of the world.

2. One of the supreme reasons that made the creation of the UN necessary was "to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war." This is an objective that can succeed only when international law is respected by all and when charter principles are adhered to by all. There can be no place for selective application of principles of international law – as we often see happening- if these principles are to provide a robust basis for peace and security and for the rule of law. As the UN is, and should be, the guardian of international law, it must in the following century pass the test of helping ensure the universal application of principles of international law. Double standards in this regard is sure to undermine the credibility of the World Body in the eyes of the bulk of humanity.

In fact, it is all the more necessary at present for the UN to enhance its credibility as the defender of the principle of the sovereign equality of nations which is one of the corner stones of its Charter, no matter the existing ambiguities introduces because of veto conferred on some.

3. For Africa and for the rest of the developing world the democratization of the World Body, in particular, some of its organs, such as the Security Council, has to be considered a matter of top priority for the twenty-first century. The reform of the United Nations appears to be indispensable for the organization to maintain the confidence and trust of Africa and for the voice of Africa to be heard, including on matters that affect Africa. Coordination between the UN and the OAU on important issues would be impossible to achieve without Africa having an effective voice in decisions made by various organs of the UN, and consultation between the two would remain only formal and perfunctory unless the UN takes the OAU and Africa seriously which, I am sad to say, is not always the reality today.

These are the thoughts I have on some of the issues and challenges that should form part of the UN’s vision for the next millenium we are entering. I know what I tried to lay out is a far from exhaustive set of concerns and challenges seen from an African perspective. I am not sure how much I have succeeded in reflecting the African sentiment but I have no doubt most of the ideas are widely shared in our Continent.

Allow me to conclude by highlighting one of the themes that I have already touched upon. We see at present at the level of states, despite setbacks here and there, including in Africa, a continuing process of growth in democratization. This is a very welcome trend which needs to be encouraged and pushed forward.

But the manifest improvement at the level of states in this regard is accompanied by a reverse process internationally. International life from all indications is becoming not more, but less democratic. The number of the voiceless is increasing as decisions that affect all being made increasingly by the few, including at the level of the UN. Whether the world would be less dangerous or more, time would tell, but on matters that affect Africa both in the political and the economic sphere, the trends do not appear to inspire confidence. Can the UN make a difference? I suppose the answer lies in what we do. After all, the UN is not some entity existing independent of its members. What the UN will become is going to depend on what we do individually and collectively to protect the interests of Africa and its peoples.

I Thank You.