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63rd Session of the United Nations General Assembly

Wednesday, 24 September 2008
Presenter: 
H.E. Dr. Leonel Fernandez Reyna, President of the Dominican Republic
Location: 
United Nations Headquarters

Mr. President;

Mr. Secretary General;

Heads of State and Government;

Ministers of Foreign Affairs;

Permanent Representatives;

Ladies and Gentlemen:

            On behalf of the Government and people of the Dominican Republic, we are pleased to extend our warmest congratulations to President Padre Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, of the sister Republic of Nicaragua, for his recent election, and we also take this opportunity to greet the Member States of this United Nations General Assembly.

            Eight years ago, in this same place, representatives of 189 countries made a crucial commitment, possibly one of the most transcendent commitments that such a large number of nations has ever made: they agreed on the Millenium Development Goals.

In the year 2000 it was believed, and it is still believed today, that the objectives set out would be remembered in the common history of humanity as the bravest ethical decision taken to combat extreme poverty, the shame of generalized injustice, and the painful drama of social inequity.

It was an agenda of work and dedication that required a large dose of political will, the design of actions corresponding to the goals to be reached, a reorganization of budgetary priorities, and a greater flow of resources for assistance and in support of development.

 We did not take on the Millenium Development Goals in vague terms.

We did not fill the Millenium Declaration with abstract and grandiloquent concepts, lacking in substance.

On the contrary, we analyzed, with the greatest rigor possible, the situation we wanted to correct.

We measured with mathematical precision its overwhelming scope as well as the magnitude of the political and financial effort that its reversal would require.

We took on the Millenium Development Goals with such supreme responsibility that we even set out a date for their achievement: the year 2015.

Now we find ourselves halfway there and we face the disheartening situation of an international scene full of obstacles to the conclusion of what we set out to do to in the year 2000.

We knew there would be difficulties. We knew we would have to overcome immense obstacles; and we had identified all the types of great challenges that would await us in the quest to carry out our plans.

In the Dominican Republic we have obtained some progress toward the achievement of the Millenium Development Goals.  Since 1991 we have reduced in more than half the percentage of five year old children that are underweight for their age. We have also made progress in achieving our objectives related to sanitary development and we have managed to control the spread of HIV/AIDS.

However, we now know that despite the small progress achieved, not only by the Dominican Republic, but by developing countries in all continents, there are still more than half a million women that die every year due to pregnancy-related complications that can be treated and prevented.

We now know that if an extraordinary effort is not made from here on out that the objective of reducing in half the percentage of children that are born with a weight less than what is healthy will not reach 30 million of them.

We also now know that in 2006 the number of deaths caused by AIDS rose to almost three million, and that the preventive measures against this ominous pandemic are still grossly insufficient.

Also somewhat disheartening is that more than 600 million people will not have better sanitary services than the ones they currently have access to.

Now, at the same time that this has been occurring the richest nations, which committed themselves to providing extraordinary official assistance for the achievement of the Millenium Development Goals, have, in general, fallen short in following up on these offers.

Only five of these nations- Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Luxemburg- have honoured their commitments, making contributions equal to, and in some cases greater than, the 0.7 per cent of their Gross Domestic Product, established as appropriate by this world organization.

Notwithstanding, achieving the Millenium Development Goals at this time requires of the international community a financial rescue plan, a sort of “bailout,” as it is referred to nowadays.

According to studies by the World Bank, a yearly average of 50 billion dollars in external aid would be needed to achieve the Millenium Development Goals.

This is the same as saying that in order to achieve the objectives of improving the quality of life and the conditions of dignity of the poorest nations in the world would require an international plan of economic financing as bold and as urgent as the one currently being undertaken to save Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, Bear Sterns, Merrill Lynch, AIG, and other financial institutions.

From now until 2015, that is, during the next seven years, until reaching the date established for the achievement of the Millenium Development Goals, 350 billion dollars of external assistance would be required following the criteria of the World Bank, which represents half of the amount that is being debated in the United States Congress to save from bankruptcy the financial businesses of Wall Street, which are responsible for their own failure.

The people of the world affected by hunger and misery lift their voice so that the international community lends toward the solution of their needs the same quick attention which has been given to bank institutions on the brink of collapse.

We do not want to take hold of the idea that the rescue of the dignity of the world’s poor does not have the same priority or urgency as the rescue of institutions that operate in the world’s most important financial center.

We would like to make clear that we have not come here to condemn anyone. We have also not raised our accusatory index finger against any friendly nation, member of this United Nations family.

Rather, our voice aspires to be one of alert. A voice that speaks to conscience and searches for the solution to a problem of global reach for poor nations, a problem which is socially unjust and ethically unacceptable.

But we would like, Mr. President, to take advantage of this forum to also bring attention to other aspects that make the achievement of the Millenium Development Goals and the progress of our nations more difficult.

Such is the case, for example, of the unregulated speculation in the buying and sale of futures contracts of oil and food.

There is no way to hide the fact that without any regulation the markets of future contracts are mechanisms that lend themselves to, through excessive speculation, fraud, and manipulation, to a distortion of the fundamental principles of economic practice.

We do not question the fact that in the fixation of oil prices the supply has not increased significantly, while demand has increased, that there has not been sufficient investment in new refineries in recent years, that geopolitical tension exists in different parts of the world, or that the American dollar has seen a decrease in its value.

All this is true. What we question, however, is the fact that in only twelve months, the price of a barrel of oil rose from 70 to almost 150 dollars.

In the month of July of this year we were in shock when we observed that the price of a barrel of oil rose 10 dollars in a single day. But just two days ago we have seen, with great amazement, that the aforementioned price rose, not by 10 dollars, but by 25 dollars per barrel, in one single day.

How can this be explained? Is it that, suddenly, in a matter of a day, the entire world increased its demand so abruptly? Or is it that, unexpectedly, the world’s oil wells disappeared?

In reality, all this only has one explanation: excessive speculation in the futures markets.

It seems incomprehensible that someone can sell something that they do not have and that another person can buy what they do not expect to receive. However, this is what has been happening in the clearest form of what can be labeled as “casino capitalism.”

In only five years hundreds of billions of dollars have entered the futures markets of commodities, a large part directed toward energy, while the prices rose in more than 200 percent between July 2003 and July 2008; and this occurred not only with a few basic products, but with the totality of the 25 products on the world market index for commodities.

In the last five years, the price of wheat has grown by 177 percent; soy by 196 percent, and corn by 214 percent.

Nevertheless, we reiterate here that rising oil prices are one of the factors that most affect the achievement of the Millenium Development Goals.

In the Dominican Republic, our oil expenses have rosen from 1,667 billion dollars in 2004, with a projection of 6,500 billion for this year, which represents a difference of close to 500 percent.

With this difference of 5 billion dollars the Dominican Republic would have been able to finance all the public investment from 2008 to 2015, stipulated in the cost analysis of the Millenium Development Goals.

Mr. President, the world does not aspire to be a betting hall. The world does not want continuous manipulation, nor a permanent fraud over factors that have a decisive link to quality of life.

The world, in reality, has very simple aspirations, such as living in conditions of social justice and equity, with the creation of opportunities so that every human being can develop their creative potential, both material and spiritual.

For the achievement of these noble objectives, the nations which have believed in the achievement of the Millenium Development Goals as an agenda of true and genuine social transformation turn to the United Nations with the optimism and hope that it can correct and amend the existing distortions.

We trust that with so many distinguished persons meeting here, acting toward a better humanity, important solutions will be brought to the table, with the same quickness, urgency, and interest with which rescue plans for bankrupt banks have been designed during these troubling financial times.

I thank you.