In keynote speech, Annan urges action to implement World Summit’s decisions

Last month's United Nations World Summit established a starting-point for a host of reforms, from human rights, terrorism and peacebuilding to economic development and management overhaul, and the challenge now is to implement its decisions and fill the gaps, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a keynote speech today.

“It is up to us – the Secretariat, the representatives of governments, and people like you who are in a position to influence governments – to move boldly through the door that our leaders have opened, and forge ahead with real and positive change,” Mr. Annan told a Conference on Reforming the United Nations at Columbia University.

As he has done frequently in the days since the Summit, he decried as a “disgrace” the leaders’ failure to tackle the threat of weapons of mass destruction, and he pledged to back the “absolutely essential” efforts to find a way forward on “one of the most urgent challenges of our time,” working with a group of countries led by Norway.

He also said the failure to agree on Security Council reform was “certainly a disappointment,” but the thrust of his speech was on the promise and opportunities for reform offered by the Summit, if only there is follow-through action.

He noted that many of its results were in line with the report of the Task Force on the United Nations headed by former United States Senator George Mitchell, who was in today’s audience, and former Speaker of the US House of Representatives Newt Gingrich as well as with his own blueprint for reform “In Larger Freedom,” presented earlier this year.

He stressed the importance of non-governmental think tanks in suggesting ideas and pushing governments to action and highlighted the Summit's achievements in economic and social development by stimulating commitments, from both donor and developing nations, to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that seek to cure a host of socio-economic ills, including halving extreme poverty and hunger by 2015.

“Can we really call the Summit a failure, when it clearly endorsed the MDGs (as we call them), when it prompted a doubling of aid to Africa, and commitments from many donors to timetables for scaling up their overall development assistance to 0.7 per cent of gross domestic product?” he asked.

“On the contrary, if progress continues I think there is real hope that this will be remembered as the decisive moment when mankind at last broke out of the vicious cycle of global poverty,” he said, voicing particular appreciation for US President George Bush’s endorsement of the MDGs and his pledge to help poor countries trade their way out of poverty by ending tariffs on their goods and unfair agricultural subsidies.

“In other areas where your (Mitchell-Gingrich) report called for change, I would say that we got our foot in the door, but that only with a lot more pushing will we actually get through it, and convert the general statements in the outcome document into specific, tangible improvements in the performance of the United Nations – improvements that make a real difference to the lives of people around the world,” he declared.

“The pushing and shoving will go on between governments and their representatives in the General Assembly,” he said. “But governments generally move forward best when they are under pressure from behind – from domestic constituencies who care profoundly about the issues involved.”

Highlighting four areas where change was called for, he noted that the Summit produced an unqualified condemnation of “terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, committed by whomever, wherever and for whatever purposes,” but left it to the General Assembly to conclude a comprehensive treaty on the issue within a year.

“The ball is clearly at the feet of the member states. We need further strong pressure, from them and on them, to push it over the line,” he said.

On human rights, he noted that the declared readiness to take collective action to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity was “a historic breakthrough” on the conceptual level. “But it by no means guarantees that the Security Council will act swiftly and decisively – in Darfur, or anywhere else where action is needed,” he added.

The third area was for the Peacebuilding Commission to be operational by December. “But its establishment still requires a final General Assembly resolution, and I hope that will be forthcoming,” Mr. Annan said.

Finally on management reform the Summit leaders took many decisions that “you and I must surely welcome, because they correspond to requests that I had made, and which your report endorsed,” he declared, adding that he would have proposals ready by the end of November for an independent committee to ensure the independence of the UN's oversight bodies.