unitex@rubbs.fidonet.org (unitex) (10/03/89)
1992 Conference on Environment and Development should be able to
draw up a blue-print for combined action, taking due note of the
development aspects of environmental problems.
The Secretary-General, Mr. Mahmud said, had underscored the
"social mission" of the United Nations. "All our efforts to
achieve economic growth would be meaningless if social aspects
of development are ignored." High rates of population growth,
low literacy, lack of primary health care and safe drinking
water, malnutrition, high infant mortality rates; all
seriously affected the process of development and even had wider
implications for stability of international relations.
Integrally linked with those issues was the need for improvement
of vulnerable components of society; women, children, the aged
and the handicapped. In recent years, the United Nations had
been the catalyst for international action in that area. He
looked forward to the adoption of the long-awaited United
Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child by the current
session of the Assembly.
"In the final analysis," he stated, "all our efforts are directed
towards improving intrinsic human worth. The United Nation's
contribution has been to draw up the rules that constitute human
rights and give them authoritative definition. The task today,
is to translate them into reality. To many Member States like
us, the right to development is inalienable and deserves topmost
priority. It is unacceptable to us that, when over a billion
people live on the bare margins of existence, any other right
can take priority over the amelioration of their condition".
RAUL S. MANGLAPUS, Secretary of Foreign Affairs of the
Philippines, said he supported a draft decision which would call
for the establishment by this Assembly session of an advisory
commission on debt and development composed of eminent persons
from the academic, political and financial sectors with
knowledge and experience in international finance, trade and
development. It would be asked to develop innovative approaches
and specific proposals relating to all types of debt in order to
solve the debt problem of developing countries.
Commenting on the new atmosphere of compromise in dealing with
external debt, Mr. MANGLAPUS cited the example of the United
States-Philippines Military Bases Agreement reviewed last year,
in which a portion of United States compensation money was
allowed to be used for a debt-reduction component of the bases
compensation package. He called that decision a historic
breakthrough. The United States had since announced a plan
which would encourage the financing of international debt
reduction and debt service by the International Monetary Fund
(IMF) and the World Bank. Due to that plan, Philippine
negotiators might soon sign with private banks an unprecedented
debt-relief agreement. It would be voluntary, for the extent of
debt relief was determined by the willingness of commercial banks
to agree to substantial discounts on debts repaid.
He went on to say that this was a new age of flexibility. He had
seen it happening in the Soviet Union, last month, when he met
with Mr. Gorbachev in Moscow, where flexibility is pronounced
perestroika and glasnost, and includes the ability to change, to
admit past imperfections and to dream new perfections. "Let us
abet this new flexibility", he added. "Let us speed its
momentum by providing it with global underpinnings, which can
only emanate from the peaceful processes of the United Nations
and the instruments that awaken its talent to create."
One such instrument could be the proposed advisory commission on
debt and development. The commission would come to life, not as
a challenge to the creditor nations, but as a tribute to them
and as a move of collaboration by debtor nations in that new
openness which creditors had begun to display.
"The commission could stimulate power generation and raise power
capabilities of debtor countries", he added. "It could ask a
question: If rich countries have often been ready to underwrite
slum clearance, can they not launch a programme to underwrite
power equipment on concessional terms for the development of a
slum-clear economy that in time will develop the capacity to
repay theses concessional loans?"
There is a conventional theological faith that every human being
is born with original sin, he said. "Today, a human being is
born, not only with original sin, but also with original debt",
he stated. "To quantify it, the third world now owes $1.3
trillion to creditors, and so every child in that world is
indebted up to $1,000 at the moment of birth. At the annual rate
of interest of 10 per cent compounded, these human beings at the
age of 21 will each owe $7,000, and if they marry at that age,
husband and wife will begin their married life yoked with a
joint burden of over $14,000."
Was this not a challenge worthwhile for 159 Members of the United
Nations to take up? he asked.
MARK EYSKENS, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belgium, said it was
a fact of history that equilibrium based on mutual deterrence
had been the contributing factor in the prevention of a third
world war in Europe. It had now become obvious; but the
obvious was not always apparent; that peaceful co-operation
was an infinitely more secure, a more moral and in the end a
less costly base on which to build peace than were relations
expressed in terms of pure military strength.
He went on to say the political and economic reforms recently
* Origin: UNITEX --> Toward a United Species (1:107/501)
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