Address to the World Food Summit in Rome
(Presented by President Cheddi Jagan on November 13-17, 1996)
Mr. Chairman, Distinguished Heads of State and Government, Secretary-General of the World Food Summit, Distinguished Delegates.
The 1974 World Food Conference proclaimed that "every man, woman and child has the inalienable right to be free from hunger and malnutrition in order to develop their physical and mental faculties." This was to have been achieved "within a decade," but we have failed, despite improvements in science and technology. Today, hunger, poverty and social disintegration stalk the globe, not just in the South but also in the North, and the gap in living standards between the North and the South continues to widen.
As we approach a new century, the South is faced with aid cuts and the North with "jobless recovery" and "jobless growth." Consequently, we need a new global partnership for sustainable human development, good governance and a development strategy, which will provide the world with sufficient food to have such food resources equitably distributed. Poverty is the root cause of food insecurity and only its rapid and permanent elimination will produce improved economic and social relations for a more equitable world order.
In an increasingly globalised environment of disorder and confusion, there is little room for concepts of development which place prime emphasis on the promotion of narrow national interests above the common good of humanity. A stop must be put to an unjust global economic order; an order which robs the South of about US$500 billion annually in unjust, non-equivalent international trade; an order where the poor South finances the North with South to North capital outflows of US$418 billion in the 1982-90 period as debt payments - a sum equal to six Marshall Plans which provided aid for the rehabilitation of Europe after World War II. Those payments did not even include outflows from royalties, dividends, repatriated profits and underpaid raw material.
In this decade, for the eradication of poverty, we need an Agenda for Development, with the right of nations to development, and, as His Holiness the Pope said, the right of the individual to food. Democracy must mean not just civil and political rights, but also economic, social and cultural rights. We must eliminate under-development, which threatens to undermine the very foundations of the global economy and society.
A new North/South partnership must be fashioned in the search for more positive and innovative ways to cope with the effects of globalisation and liberalization, which are marginalizing millions of people and even many nations.
Many are of the opinion that these economic strategies constitute a panacea for development, but I stand here to say that the facts do not support such a view. The distinguished Gustave Speth, Head of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), exposed the myth that privatisation, free markets and foreign direct investment will obviate the need for development aid. If the real decline in aid to poor countries is allowed to continue, he says, the world will pay dearly through the tragic consequences of joblessness, environmental decay, conflict and violence.
During the 1980-1993 period, total official development assistance to agriculture fell by 55%. But there was also a reduction in the share of such assistance to such key areas as land and water development, research, rural development initiatives and agricultural extension. In this regard, I applaud the new emphasis by the World Bank on more development aid to the agricultural sector.
To stave off the danger of marginalisation and to prevent being submerged by the rising tide of free trade, my Government at the 1994 Miami Summit, which approved a Free Trade Area of the Americas by the year 2005, proposed the establishment of a Regional Development (Integration) Fund, debt relief and a corps of development specialists/volunteers. Regrettably, the view is generally expressed that these realistic proposals would not materialize.
Poor Third World countries, such as Guyana, recognize the symbiotic links between the environment, economic development, food security and human existence. We cannot therefore expect to eliminate starvation and food insecurity while so many countries continue to be ensnared in debt and thus lack the means to provide the basic services, which underpin economic development. For example, the attraction of foreign direct investment is dependent on civil peace, a basic productive infrastructure and a healthy and educated population. Yet my country has spent a total of US$308 million on foreign debt servicing over the last three years - an amount which was greater than all our capital inflows, a sum which was US$200 million greater than if debt payments did not exceed 10% of export income. As is the case in so many other debt-distressed countries, this situation has prevented my Government from channelling much-needed resources into such critical areas as poverty alleviation, rural development, agriculture, health, education and law enforcement. The Pope’s call for a solution on moral and ethical grounds to Third World debt must be heeded.
My friends, we need a scientific, realistic and people-centred development strategy. This is why I have advocated the need for the development of a New Global Human Order, premised on sustainable economic development, equity, social and ecological justice, and based on the creation of a separate Global Development Fund for assistance to both the North and the South. We must put in place a system whose objectives will be to invest directly in the poor, to seek out opportunities for entrepreneurship among the marginalized, and to provide the social and infrastructural services which would enable the poor to become self-reliant and productive members of the global community. Specifically, I wish to advocate the following:
1. a limit on debt repayment equivalent to not more than 10% of export earnings;
2. the creation of regional integration funds to enable small economies to withstand the effects of globalisation, liberalization and the formation of regional trading blocs. These funds would be used to invest in physical and social infrastructure, research and development initiatives designed to yield productivity gains among the poor, and to improve the competitiveness of under-developed
3. the time span for the realization of a Free Trade Area of the Americas to be the same as in the Asia-Pacific Economic Community (APC) - the year 2010 for the more developed countries and 2020 for the less developed countries;
4. a new and enhanced Lome Convention for the Third World;
5. a refashioned Alliance for Progress for Latin America and the Caribbean;
6. a democratic, lean and clean government; and
7. the earmarking of 20% of budgets by developing countries, and aid donors providing an equivalent 20% under the UNDP 20/20 Social Compact, for priority human development concerns.
Why should 40% of farm households in Guyana have five acres and less - with 58% of them being below the poverty line - in the context of a small population in a relatively large country with an abundance of water resources and arable land mainly in the state sector? Each farmer should and can have at least 100 acres, if not more, but the land must be drained and irrigated and protected from rising sea levels. Our farmers have demonstrated, during the past four years of my government, their capacity to increase agricultural production, but being so poor, they cannot be expected, under cost-recovery programs, to meet the huge expenditures on drainage and irrigation and sea and river defences. Guyana needs debt relief, grants and soft loans, not only to become food self-sufficient but also to feed the food-deficient Latin American and Caribbean regions and the world.
This Summit affords us the opportunity to accelerate the process of addressing the situation of the poor and the powerless. As we leave Rome, we should be buoyed in the confidence that we have really charted the course towards greater food security. As I had cause to state at the G-7 Sectoral Meeting on Agriculture in Guyana early this year, if the rich and poor countries do not act together to overcome the problems of poverty, and the attendant maladies of hunger and environmental degradation, there will be no secure peace.
If, therefore, there is cause to meet again in another twenty years, it should be to celebrate the achievements of this Summit and the full implementation of its Plan of Action.
The Role of the United Nations in promoting a New Global Human Order, November 2002
We publish here a draft resolution A/57/L 10 on the Role of the United Nations in promoting a New Global Human Order, and which was adopted on November 14, 2002:
The Role of the United Nations in promoting a New Global Human Order. The General Assembly, Recalling its resolution 55/43 of 29 November, 2000.
Committed to achieving the internationally agreed development goals, including those contained in the United Nations Millennium Declaration and in the outcome of the major United Nations conferences held and international agreements reached since 1992. Taking note of the report of the Secretary-General on the role of the United Nations in promoting a New Global Human Order,
1. Stresses the need for a broad-based consensus for action within a comprehensive and holistic framework towards the achievement of the goals of development and poverty eradication involving all actors, namely Governments, the United Nations system and other international organizations and relevant actors of civil society, including the private sector and non-governmental organizations;
2. Notes with interest the proposal regarding a new global human order;
3. Calls for further elaboration of the proposal and in this regard invites Member States and other stakeholders to submit proposals for consideration at the fifty-ninth session of the General Assembly;
4. Decides to include in the agenda of its fifty-ninth session the item entitled, "The Role of the United Nations in promoting a New Global Human Order."
It will be noted that the call for a New Global Human Order was first made at the World Summit for Social Development held in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1995 by then President of Guyana Dr Cheddi Jagan. Since then, it has found echo in a number of international fora, including the Caribbean Community, the Movement of Non-Aligned countries and most recently, the Group of 77. At the Sixteenth Meeting of the conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (Caricom) held in Georgetown, Guyana in July 1995, Caricom Heads expressed their support for the call for a New Global Human Order. In the Declaration of the South Summit held in Havana in April 2000, Heads of State and Government of the Group of the 77 and China stressed, inter alia, "the need for a New Global Human Order aimed at reversing the growing disparities between rich and poor, both among and within countries, through the promotion of growth with equity, the eradication of poverty, the expansion of productive employment and the promotion of gender equality and social integration."
The deepening interdependence of nations and peoples, the consolidation of democracy in many countries across the globe, accelerated technological innovation, and the end of the Cold war, offer potentially enhanced prospects for the achievement of these aims. However, the growing inequities and disparities that have accompanied the globalisation of the world economy manifested by the increasing income and technological divide between developed and developing countries strongly militate against economic and social progress for the majority of humanity.
Regional Integration Fund proposal gaining more support
THE Guyana idea of the establishment of a Regional Integration Fund (RIF) has been gaining support from other members in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), and even from countries in Central and Latin America, according to President Bharrat Jagdeo.
The President who headed a three-member delegation to the Third Summit of the Americas in Quebec City, Canada April 20-22, told a news conference Thursday that every single CARICOM leader who spoke at the Summit mentioned in one way or the other the RIF.
Apart from that, Guyana had the support of some Central American countries and others in Latin America, he said.
President Jagdeo made two presentations to the summit, "Creating Prosperity" and "The threats posed by globalisation to democracy and good governance", and said he again called for the establishment of an RIF to allow the smaller countries to compete effectively in the Free Trade Areas of the Americas (FTAA).
The idea was mooted by the late President Cheddi Jagan at the first Summit of the Americas in Miami in 1994.
President Jagdeo recalled that Guyana was the lone voice there as many countries even within the CARICOM region were not enthused with the idea of the RIF at that time.
But on Thursday, he proudly reported that at the Summit in Quebec City, in addition to the CARICOM leaders embracing the idea, Mexico spoke about the establishment of a social cohesion, something similar to that of the RIF call.
Mr Jagdeo said Venezuela President Hugo Chavez had also mentioned the need for such a fund.
He said he understood too that at a press conference hosted by Prime Minister Jean Chretien of Canada, when asked about the small economies of the hemisphere and plans for them, the Canadian Prime Minister referred to Dr Jagan's idea about the RIF, adding that they were examining it.
On this note, the President Jagdeo said the idea is gaining momentum and receiving broader support not just from CARICOM, but other Latin American countries that are pretty sizeable and have a weight in the whole process.(Printed in the Guyana Chronicle April 29, 2001)
