|
Gathered
at the General Assembly on September 8, 2000, heads of state
and government approved the United Nations Millennium Declaration
(resolution A/RES/55/2). Secretary-General Kofi A.Annan notes
that “it reflects the concerns of 147 heads of State
and Government, and 191 nations in total, who participated
in this largest-ever gathering of world leaders.”
Beginning with a statement of values and principles, the declaration
encompasses visionary and practical commitments in the areas
of peace, security and disarmament, development and poverty
eradication, our common environment, human rights, democracy
and good governance, protecting the vulnerable, meeting the
special needs of Africa and strengthening the United Nations.
The fundamental values cited include: freedom, equality, solidarity,
tolerance, respect for nature and shared responsibility.
We present a few excerpts below and encourage our readers
to seek a copy of the full document.
A Millennial Vision for Social Development
III.
Development and poverty eradication
11. We will spare no effort to free our fellow men,
women and children from the abject and dehumanizing conditions
of extreme poverty, to which more than a billion of them
are currently subjected. We are committed to making the
right to development a reality for everyone and to freeing
the entire human race from want.
12. We resolve therefore to create an environment
– at the national and global levels alike – which
is conducive to development and to the elimination of poverty.
13. Success in meeting these objectives depends,
inter alia, on good governance within each country. It also
depends on good governance at the international level and
on transparency in the financial, monetary and trading systems.
We are committed to an open, equitable, rule-based, predictable
and non-discriminatory multilateral trading and financial
system.
14. We are concerned about the obstacles developing
countries face in mobilizing the resources needed to finance
their sustained development. We will therefore make every
effort to ensure the success of the High-level International
and Intergovernmental Event on Financing for Development,
to be held in 2001.
15. We also undertake to address the special needs
of the least developed countries. In this context, we welcome
the Third United Nations Conference on the Least Developed
Countries to be held in May 2001 and will endeavour to ensure
its success. We call on the industrialized countries:
- To
adopt, preferably by the time of that Conference, a policy
of duty- and quota-free access for essentially all exports
from the least developed countries;
- To
implement the enhanced programme of debt relief for the
heavily indebted poor countries without further delay
and to agree to cancel all official bilateral debts of
those countries in return for their making demonstrable
commitments to poverty reduction; and
- To
grant more generous development assistance, especially
to countries that are genuinely making an effort to apply
their resources to poverty reduction.
16.
We are also determined to deal comprehensively and effectively
with the debt problems of low- and middle-income developing
countries, through various national and international measures
designed to make their debt sustainable in the long term.
17. We also resolve to address the special needs
of small island developing States, by implementing the Barbados
Programme of Action and the outcome of the twenty-second
special session of the General Assembly rapidly and in full.
We urge the international community to ensure that, in the
development of a vulnerability index, the special needs
of small island developing States are taken into account.
18. We recognize the special needs and problems of
the landlocked developing countries, and urge both bilateral
and multilateral donors to increase financial and technical
assistance to this group of countries to meet their special
development needs and to help them overcome the impediments
of geography by improving their transit transport systems.
19. We resolve further:
- To
halve, by the year 2015, the proportion of the world’s
people whose income is less than one dollar a day and
the proportion of people who suffer from hunger and, by
the same date, to halve the proportion of people who are
unable to reach or to afford safe drinking water.
- To
ensure that, by the same date, children everywhere, boys
and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course
of primary schooling and that girls and boys will have
equal access to all levels of education.
- By
the same date, to have reduced maternal mortality by three
quarters, and under-five child mortality by two thirds,
of their current rates.
- To
have, by then, halted, and begun to reverse, the spread
of HIV/AIDS, the scourge of malaria and other major diseases
that afflict humanity.
- To
provide special assistance to children orphaned by HIV/AIDS.
- By
2020, to have achieved a significant improvement in the
lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers as proposed
in the “Cities Without Slums” initiative.
20.
We also resolve:
- To
promote gender equality and the empowerment of women as
effective ways to combat poverty, hunger and disease and
to stimulate development that is truly sustainable.
- To
develop and implement strategies that give young people
everywhere a real chance to find decent and productive
work.
- To
encourage the pharmaceutical industry to make essential
drugs more widely available and affordable by all who
need them in developing countries.
- To
develop strong partnerships with the private sector and
with civil society organizations in pursuit of development
and poverty eradication.
- To
ensure that the benefits of new technologies, especially
information and communication technologies, in conformity
with recommendations contained in the ECOSOC 2000 Ministerial
Declaration, are available to all.
V.
Human rights, democracy and good governance
24. We will spare no effort to promote democracy
and strengthen the rule of law, as well as respect for all
internationally recognized human rights and fundamental
freedoms, including the right to development.
25. We resolve therefore:
- To
respect fully and uphold the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights.
- To
strive for the full protection and promotion in all our
countries of civil, political, economic, social and cultural
rights for all.
- To
strengthen the capacity of all our countries to implement
the principles and practices of democracy and respect
for human rights, including minority rights.
- To
combat all forms of violence against women and to implement
the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
against Women.
- To
take measures to ensure respect for and protection of
the human rights of migrants, migrant workers and their
families, to eliminate the increasing acts of racism and
xenophobia in many societies and to promote greater harmony
and tolerance in all societies.
- To
work collectively for more inclusive political processes,
allowing genuine participation by all citizens in all
our countries.
- To
ensure the freedom of the media to perform their essential
role and the right of the public to have access to information.
VI.
Protecting the vulnerable
26. We will spare no effort to ensure that children
and all civilian populations that suffer disproportionately
the consequences of natural disasters, genocide, armed conflicts
and other humanitarian emergencies are given every assistance
and protection so that they can resume normal life as soon
as possible.
We resolve therefore:
- To
expand and strengthen the protection of civilians in complex
emergencies, in conformity with international humanitarian
law.
- To
strengthen international cooperation, including burden
sharing in, and the coordination of humanitarian assistance
to, countries hosting refugees and to help all refugees
and displaced persons to return voluntarily to their homes,
in safety and dignity and to be smoothly reintegrated
into their societies.
- To
encourage the ratification and full implementation of
the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its optional
protocols on the involvement of children in armed conflict
and on the sale of children, child prostitution and child
pornography.
VII.
Meeting the special needs of Africa
27. We will support the consolidation of democracy
in Africa and assist Africans in their struggle for lasting
peace, poverty eradication and sustainable development,
thereby bringing Africa into the mainstream of the world
economy.
28. We resolve therefore:
- To
give full support to the political and institutional structures
of emerging democracies in Africa.
- To
encourage and sustain regional and subregional mechanisms
for preventing conflict and promoting political stability,
and to ensure a reliable flow of resources for peacekeeping
operations on the continent.
- To
take special measures to address the challenges of poverty
eradication and sustainable development in Africa, including
debt cancellation, improved market access, enhanced Official
Development Assistance and increased flows of Foreign
Direct Investment, as well as transfers of technology.
- To
help Africa build up its capacity to tackle the spread
of the HIV/AIDS pandemic and other infectious diseases.
VIII.
Strengthening the United Nations
29. We will spare no effort to make the United Nations
a more effective instrument for pursuing all of these priorities:
the fight for development for all the peoples of the world,
the fight against poverty, ignorance and disease; the fight
against injustice; the fight against violence, terror and
crime; and the fight against the degradation and destruction
of our common home.
30. We resolve therefore:
- To
strengthen further the Economic and Social Council, building
on its recent achievements, to help it fulfil the role
ascribed to it in the Charter.
- To
ensure that the Organization is provided on a timely and
predictable basis with the resources it needs to carry
out its mandates.
- To
ensure greater policy coherence and better cooperation
between the United Nations, its agencies, the Bretton
Woods Institutions and the World Trade Organization, as
well as other multilateral bodies, with a view to achieving
a fully coordinated approach to the problems of peace
and development.
- To
give greater opportunities to the private sector, non-governmental
organizations and civil society, in general, to contribute
to the realization of the Organization’s goals and
programmes.
32.
We solemnly reaffirm, on this historic occasion, that
the United Nations is the indispensable common house of
the entire human family, through which we will seek to realize
our universal aspirations for peace, cooperation and development.
We therefore pledge our unstinting support for these common
objectives and our determination to achieve them.
8th plenary meeting
8 September 2000
The full document with an introduction by
Kofi Annan is available from the United Nations Department
of Public Information as DPI/2163, September 2000. It is also
available on the UN web site, www.un.org
|
