Madame President,
Secretary-General,
our Excellencies,
I extend my congratulations on your election,
Madame President and my respects to His Majesty
King Hamad Bin Isa Al Khalifa and my very best
wishes to the Government and People of the
Kingdom of Bahrain. I assure you of Brunei
Darussalam’s full support in the coming year and
wish you great success during your term of
office.
I would also like to thank your predecessor, His
Excellency Jan Eliasson for his excellent
leadership of the Assembly over the past year.
Finally, Madame President, may I express my
special appreciation to our Secretary-General.
For many years, he has been the United Nations’
most public figure. This has never been easy but
he has served us with great distinction. His
programmes of action have strengthened our
voice. His personal leadership has inspired us
and I thank him most warmly for this.
Madame President,
During the past few years, we have regularly
discussed United Nations reform and I am sure
discussions will continue in the coming years.
At the opening of the Sixty-First Assembly, I
would like to take the opportunity to mention a
few of our own feelings in Brunei Darussalam
about the question of United Nations reform.
I would like to start, Madame President, by
acknowledging the fine work done for so many
years by our United Nations’ agencies in the
field, particularly by the WHO, ESCAP, UNICEF,
UNDP, UNESCO and by the United Nations
volunteers all over the world. These agencies
can truly be called our body’s life blood and at
times literally so. Every day of every year they
are attempting to bring hope, confidence and
meaning to the lives of ordinary people. They
provide people with the simplest and basic
definition of security. By this, I mean giving
people a feeling that even the most severe
problems can be faced and solved.
I thank them with great respect for their
dedication and their professionalism. They
represent the United Nations at its best.
Consequently, I believe that any reform of our
organisation should be considered with one
crucial primary question in mind.
Does it directly strengthen the work of our
agencies and people in the field?
Madame President,
This is becoming more and more important to the
ordinary people we represent.The new century
has brought a host of new challenges.
The past year, like every year in this new
century has presented problems that are typical
of those the United Nations is increasingly
going to face and expected to solve.
They are sadly all the stuff of regular
“breaking news”. Natural and environmental
disasters, health, economic and security
disasters, countless political failures and the
enormous human suffering that follow.
The immediate impression is a dramatic one. Our
new century seems to be defining itself in
images of disaster; landslide, earthquake,
tsunami, terrorist bombs.
The most lasting images are human ones.
These are the countless victims of events over
which they had no control, knowledge or warning.
The long term result is a deep sense of
insecurity. It is reaching into the lives of
every individual and every family and every
community in every country we represent.
Many people are feeling so insecure and that
they are engaged in finding any way to salvage
some hope for themselves.
In Asia, Africa and the Americas, they are doing
this in their hundreds of thousands. They are
leaving their families and homelands to
emigrate. They are often putting their lives at
enormous personal risk in a search for somewhere
where they hope to find hope.
It presents a bleak vision of the future for
millions of our people. It would be even bleaker
without the United Nations.
Sometimes, in the refugee camps, in the disaster
areas and in all the other arenas of destruction
the United Nations offers all they have by way
of hope.
Hence, the second consideration we give to
proposals for reform is a human one. We ask a
simple question.
Is the proposal relevant to ordinary peoples’
personal lives and problems?
Madame President,
Those lives are increasingly dominated by the
extremely complex challenges of our new century.
These are global. They are scientific,
technological, economic, environmental and
political.
They now involve over six and a half billion
people. These people are becoming more and more
dependent on each other for survival.
I believe that means that we must continue to
stress the need for more than just
administrative reform.
So, our third consideration about reform is
practical.
Does the proposed reform reflect the current
century, its priorities, its special challenges
and its changing character?
In other words, are we certain that we are not
trying to solve 21st century problems with the
mechanisms, priorities and procedures of the
twentieth century and sometimes even the
nineteenth century?
Madame President,
We look forward to continuing our discussions
with colleagues in the coming year on this
critical matter of effective and lasting reform.
We are starting to see what the twenty-first
century is presenting, both the good and the
disturbing.
We are also seeing the demands it is making on
the United Nations. They are considerable. We
believe, however, that the considerations I have
mentioned are the essential basis for reforming
the United Nations. It is reform in a manner
that will ensure that our world body is well
capable of meeting the 21st century on 21st
century terms.
Thank you.
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