Women and gents of the media,
Let me to start with, categorical my deep gratitude to Prime Minister Gonsalves for having invited me to take part on this CELAC Summit and to intervene within the opening session. However this go to goes past the participation in a Summit. It’s a go to by which I wish to pay a couple of tributes and to specific a deep solidarity.
The primary tribute is to Latin America and the Caribbean as a continent of peace, in a world the place we see a proliferation of wars and conflicts of every kind. At the moment, I used to be shocked to know that, in one other episode of the conflict in Gaza, 100 those who have been queuing to obtain humanitarian assist have been killed.
I believe {that a} scenario like this could require an efficient impartial investigation to detect the way it was doable and people liable for it. And on the similar time, there’s the reported variety of greater than 30,000 civilians which have died in Gaza since 7 October, making it an unprecedented variety of civilians killed in a battle since I’ve been Secretary-Basic.
Now, on this context, to see Latin America and the Caribbean as a continent of peace, and to see that when an issue arises, and lately we had one with two neighbours, Guyana and Venezuela, there’s a mediator that emerges and is ready to carry the events collectively and to keep away from a battle. And so, I wish to pay tribute to Prime Minister Gonsalves for his everlasting position, at all times very attentive to any risk of battle, and his engaged, lively and efficient mediation, as I even have seen in relation to his very robust dedication to the answer of the issues in Haiti.
And paying tribute to him, I wish to pay tribute to the braveness, the resilience and the solidarity of the folks of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. When the volcano exploded, and when this island and its inhabitants confronted the dramatic tragedy, I might witness the way in which this nation was in a position to mobilize all the things. The solidarity of the folks, the braveness of the folks, the dedication of the folks – that’s one thing that’s an instance for all of us, in all places. And as soon as once more, I wish to categorical my huge appreciation for what was finished within the instant response and within the reconstruction that adopted.
However I additionally wish to categorical a deep solidarity to the nations of Latin America and the Caribbean. Most of the economies of the continent are in serious trouble. When COVID-19 devastated the world, the reality is that developed nations, like mine, within the European Union, have been in a position to print cash in massive portions, to help their folks and to help their economies.
International locations in Latin America and the Caribbean, the overwhelming majority couldn’t print cash as a result of, in the event that they must print cash, their currencies would undergo enormously. And so, they needed to borrow to be able to clear up the issues of their folks and their economies after COVID-19. And we see now so many economies on this continent drowning in debt, and we see that an unfair, ineffective, and outdated worldwide monetary structure has confirmed unable to help these nations on this second of misery. To make issues worse, with the conflict in Ukraine and with different impacts, costs went up, rates of interest went up. The affect on their economies has been horrible. However most of the economies of the area are middle-income nations, and middle-income nations haven’t any entry to concessional funding, they usually haven’t any entry to debt aid that’s efficient.
It’s time for a reform or our worldwide monetary establishments. It’s time for a brand new Bretton Woods motion by which growing nations can see a world monetary system in a position to deal with the big challenges that they face.
And the final phrase of solidarity is for Small Island Creating States. They’re on the entrance strains of the struggle towards local weather change. They’re those that undergo extra with the impacts of local weather change, they usually haven’t contributed to local weather change. However even not having contributed to local weather change, they’re additionally on the entrance strains of adopting the measures of mitigation to scale back emissions which are, after all, very restricted from the start, however to point out their solidarity with the world. And it’s completely important that there’s not solely a a lot larger ambition in relation to the discount of emissions. And that’s basically a duty of the G20 nations that symbolize 80 per cent of the emissions. However we want rather more local weather justice. Which suggests rather more finance out there at affordable value for adaptation and mitigation for growing nations, and particularly for Small Island Creating States.
And so, that is the second to acknowledge that nations of Latin America and the Caribbean which have been victims of an unfair worldwide monetary system, and that a lot of them particularly are victims of a runaway local weather change, have the correct to assert for the reforms which are needed to be able to create the circumstances for his or her governments to have the ability to act offering their peoples with the response to the wants that have to be addressed. As a result of it’s completely unacceptable that lack of funding in schooling, or in housing, or infrastructure, is the value paid for an unfair worldwide monetary system within the second of a worldwide multiplication of wars and conflicts that represents the menace to worldwide peace and safety.
Query: We stay in a hemisphere that has numerous completely different points and likewise we’ve varied varieties of organizations at varied ranges? How do you see CELAC taking part in a specific position together with these points within the hemisphere?
Secretary-Basic: I’ve at all times been supportive of integration. Financial integration, political integration, as the important thing instrument for areas to have the ability to enable their nations to cooperate extra strongly and cooperating extra strongly to have the ability to higher defend the pursuits of their folks. So I consider that CELAC is a particularly necessary software to push for a progressive financial and political integration within the Latin American and Caribbean world.
Query: July 6, 2023 you spoke on two points. And also you talked about that to handle the issue in Haiti a funds of about $720 million was wanted, however on the time of your deal with in Trinidad and Tobago solely 23 % of that financing was collected. How a lot of that financing has been collected and the way a lot is required to carry peace to Haiti?
Secretary-Basic: I believe that in Haiti we want three issues. First: we want efficient, political progress for a political resolution.
Second: we want a safety system that permits to finish domination of the gangs and the criminality that’s destroying the nation. And I hope that a world pressure for which I fought will have the ability to quickly be in Haiti, however we additionally want rather more worldwide help from the humanitarian and financial standpoint.
Certainly, the humanitarian enchantment of final 12 months was insufficiently funded. We simply launched a brand new humanitarian enchantment and I hope that this time the world will perceive that the folks of Haiti are struggling a lot that at the least within the minimal of the minimal that corresponds to the essential wants – there’s an efficient response of the worldwide neighborhood.
That’s my robust enchantment. However that won’t exchange the necessity for a political resolution and the necessity for institution of safety.
Query: You have been speaking about Haiti. I needed to ask concerning the CARICOM Summit. They arrived with a date for elections on 2025. What’s your opinion about this?The second query is expounded to local weather justice that you just have been speaking about and this want for a reform of the monetary system. Is that this going to be one of many important points through the CELAC Summit to speak about? How is it doable to work with them?
Secretary-Basic: To start with, in relation to Haiti, there was some progress with the structure of the presidential council, with the checks and balances that have been established and with the scheduling of the elections. The issue that we have to be completely positive is solved is implementation. And that issues are usually not postponed or that issues, or that no person is dragging his or her ft.
So, we completely want now to maneuver rapidly within the implementation of what was determined as a result of let’s be clear, you may put as many police forces as doable in Haiti [but] if there is no such thing as a political resolution, the issue is not going to be solved.
It isn’t for me to outline the agenda of CELAC. However two issues I can assure – these two points can be raised by me very clearly in my intervention tomorrow.
And, once we speak about local weather justice, we’re nonetheless ready for a significant availability of sources for the loss and harm fund.
We want rather more than what was promised. We want a clarification of how the variation funding will double, and dedication that ought to emerge of creating 50 per cent of worldwide funding on local weather for adaptation. We have to make clear as soon as and for all how the $100 billion that developed nations have promised per 12 months are carried out.
And we have to do the reforms in the way in which worldwide monetary establishments work – each the necessity to enhance their capital stage and the necessity to change their enterprise mannequin so as to have the ability to mobilize rather more sources and to draw personal capital at affordable value for help of growing nations in local weather motion.
Query: Over time, quite a few resolutions have been handed by the United Nations Safety Council. How a lot of a hinderance in direction of attaining peace in quite a few areas, the newest is what’s taking place in Gaza, how a lot of a hinderance is the veto energy of the 5 everlasting members of the UN Safety Council?
Secretary-Basic: The geopolitical divides that sadly have been aggravating within the current occasions have remodeled the veto energy into an efficient instrument of paralysis of the motion of the Safety Council.
In a world the place these geopolitical divides wouldn’t exist, in all probability issues can be simpler. I bear in mind the Nineteen Nineties by which there weren’t many vetos. However the fact is, within the current scenario, with the deep divides that we that we’re witnessing among the many important powers, the veto energy turned, certainly, an instrument of paralysis of the Safety Council, and an instrument that limits its capability to handle the disaster, the dramatic crises we face.
One instance. I’ve been claiming for months that we want a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, as we want the instant and unconditional launch of hostages. Till now it was not doable to have the Safety Council undertake this place. And when one sees the incident that I discussed – about 100 those who have been killed – we see how necessary this humanitarian ceasefire [would be.]
There are, after all, negotiations which are going down and I want success for these negotiations – to be doable to have the discharge of quite a few hostages, to be doable to have an interruption within the preventing – however I’m completely satisfied that we want a humanitarian ceasefire and we want the unconditional and instant launch of hostages and that we must always have a Safety Council in a position to obtain these targets.
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