Slovenian President Addresses UN’s General Assembly

New York, 21.9.2010  |  press release

On the third day of his working visit to New York, the President of the Republic of Slovenia Dr. Danilo Türk attended a meeting in honour of heads of state as a part of »Clinton Global Initiative« hosted by former US president Bill Clinton. Later on, he took part in a High-Level Plenary Meeting of the General Assembly of the United Nations Organization on implementing Millennium Development Goals where he participated as a speaker.

In the afternoon, local time, he co-chaired a round-table discussion of the high-level plenary meeting entitled “Addressing Emerging Issues and Evolving Approaches”. He also attended bilateral meetings with presidents of Senegal and East Timor as well as Secretary-General of the United Nations Organization (UN).

In his address at the UN’s High-Level Plenary Meeting of the General Assembly on realizing Millennium Development Goals, President Dr. Danilo Türk pointed out that critics sometimes see these Millennium Development Goals as arbitrary and unrealistic. He rejected such estimates and stressed that critics do not take their historical development into consideration.

He briefly described the history of UN’s efforts for fairness in development that resulted in specific and quantifiable targets and were a result of solid work, real experience and mature policymaking. According to the President, realism, high moral expectation and methodological sophistication will remain important factors in the future since Millennium Development Goals are of great importance for mankind and represent a critical test of the vitality of the United Nations and multilateralism today.

Later in his speech, he listed positive effects in some parts of the world where countries have seen relatively high level of growth, rise in life expectancy, decline in incidence of AIDS, improved enrolment of children in primary school and additional opportunities for education provided by new technologies. Nevertheless, the President pointed out all the important, still remaining challenges. In particular, he stressed that the freedom in national policymaking and in its implementation be respected.

According to the President, Millennium Development Goals represent a useful framework, however it is up to individual governments to decide on their priorities, required measures, ways of allocating resources and goals in individual areas of development. Individual governments bear the primary responsibility to realize development goals but they do need the assistance from effective international cooperation. The President proposed that despite recession there is still a need for additional strengthening of official development assistance as well as modernization of international financial institutions, removal of protectionism in international trade and special support to the least developed among developing countries.

In conclusion, President Türk pointed out that the Doha Round trade negotiations have not been finalized yet. He emphasized that the lending policies need continuous adaptation to the implementation of Millennium Development Goals since global economic governance is of crucial importance to their success.

On the margins of UN’s General Assembly, the President of the Republic of Slovenia held talks with the President of the Republic of Senegal Abdoulaye Wade who presented to President Türk the course of implementation of Millennium Development Goals in Senegal. He also stressed that there is still a lot of work ahead of them in reducing child mortality, improving health of mothers and preventing enormous dropout rate in elementary and secondary schools. In the area of financing development, he highlighted the significance of projects to build quality infrastructure, which is the basis for development in all other areas, as well as projects in agriculture, since Senegal is strongly dependent on food import. He also presented his Slovenian counterpart the idea of Solar Solidarity, a regional project of electrification by setting up solar power plants.

President Türk also held a bilateral meeting with the President of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste (East Timor), José Ramos-Horta, who presented his country’s development achievements of the past three years. These achievements are two-digit economic growth, 9-percent-decrease in poverty rate, and increase in percentage of children going to school to 83 percent. He agreed that developing countries bare the primary responsibility for the implementation of Millennium Development Goals; but he added that also developed countries themselves have certain tasks. He pointed out long procedures of approval and implementation of official development assistance, high percentage of funding intended for administration and too many intermediaries and external consultants who do not help with establishing domestic managerial structures.

The President of the Republic of Slovenia also met with Secretary-General of the United Nations Organization Ban Ki-moon who, at the beginning of their meeting, expressed his sympathy over recent floods that had affected Slovenia in the past week. President Türk described Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon the situation in the affected areas and thanked him for his expressions of solidarity. He also mentioned the significance and effectiveness of Slovenian Community Civil Protection system and other factors in responding in times of natural disasters.

Both interlocutors exchanged their opinions on implementation of Millennium Development Goals and agreed that despite global economic crisis, the project was continuing its course very well. They also discussed political situation in the Western Balkans, in particular in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo. According to President Türk’s assessments, it is important that UN play a role in the Western Balkans because this ensures additional element of stability in the region. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon updated President Türk on different UN’s activities and other international policy factors in connection with the war in Sudan.