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World needs UN - Annan
15/09/2005 14:07 - (SA)
United Nations - After a year of mounting criticism, Secretary-General Kofi Annan defended the United Nations on Wednesday and urged global leaders to restore the organisation's credibility by adopting broad reforms needed for the world to act together to tackle poverty, terrorism and conflict.
Addressing a summit that he called a year ago in hopes of winning approval for an ambitious blueprint to modernise the United Nations on its 60th anniversary, Annan told more than 150 presidents, prime ministers and kings on Wednesday that "a good start" had been made.
But he said sharp differences had blocked "the sweeping and fundamental reform that I and many others believe is required."
Instead of a celebration of UN achievements since its founding in the ashes of World War II, the summit was much more a sombre reappraisal of its shortcomings and a debate about how to meet the daunting challenges of a world becoming increasingly interlinked.
All about hope
It began a week after investigators sharply criticised alleged corruption and UN mismanagement of the oil-for-food programme in Iraq, and on a day when more than 160 people died in attacks in Baghdad - a harsh reminder of the fight against terrorism that was a highlight of United States President George W Bush's speech.
Bush broadened the terrorism fight beyond the military arena, saying world leaders have "a solemn obligation" to stop terrorism in its early stages. Declaring that poverty breeds despair and terrorism, he challenged leaders to abolish all trade tariffs and subsidies to promote prosperity and opportunity in poor nations, a move that would be worth billions of dollars.
"Either hope will spread, or violence will spread, and we must take the side of hope," he said.
At only the third UN Security Council meeting ever attended by the national leaders of the 15 council members, terrorism was also a focus.
Annan argued that because the world is imperfect, it needs the United Nations.
In a plea for collective action, he said, "whether our challenge is peacemaking, nation-building, democratisation or responding to natural or man-made disasters, we have seen that even the strongest amongst us cannot succeed alone." This was an apparent reference to the US problems in dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
"At the same time," Annan said, "whether our task is fighting poverty, stemming the spread of disease, or saving innocent lives from mass murder, we have seen that we cannot succeed without the leadership of the strong, and the engagement of all."
He said the summit was a test for leaders of all 191 UN member states - "a test of our ability to address the most pressing challenges of our times ... to act in concert in this interdependent world." Development, security and human rights depend on nations helping each other, he said.
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