Annan urges world leaders to re-focus on threats such as poverty and hunger

The world’s leaders must re-focus their energies on such threats as extreme poverty, hunger, endemic diseases and environmental degradation after a year in which they were distracted by other threats, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said today.

Mr. Annan told a handover ceremony in New York for chairmanship of the so-called Group of 77 developing nations there were many promising signs that 2004 would be a positive year.

Qatar takes over from Morocco as chairman of the group, now a coalition of 135 countries, whose aim is to promote the developing world’s collective economic interests and give it a stronger voice in international forums.

“I hope it is an auspicious sign that Qatar will be guiding the G-77 in the year when we hope to push forward the Doha ‘development round’ of trade negotiations,’ he said.

The Secretary-General observed that if the world is to achieve the Millennium Development Goals – such as halving extreme poverty – by their target date of 2015, then “we must move quickly to give developing nations free and fair access to global markets and to spare them from subsidized competition. Rich countries must recognize that it is in their self-interest to open up trade on fair terms.”

He said the global economy is showing signs of improvement after the recent slowdown, pointing to a UN report that forecasts a global growth rate of 3.5 per cent this year.

Mr. Annan added that particular attention should be given to the world’s most vulnerable countries, such as small island developing states and many nations in Africa.

The Secretary-General paid tribute to Morocco’s leadership in 2003, which he said was a year “marked above all by the war in Iraq and the tragic events related to it – including the attack on the UN in Baghdad.”

He noted: “The events of 2003 distracted the world’s leaders from dealing with other threats which, to most people, are equally immediate and real.”

Video of handover ceremony