New Century, New Challenges

The new millennium, and the Millennium Summit, offer the world’s peoples a unique occasion to reflect on their common destiny, at a moment when they find themselves interconnected as never before.  They look to their leaders to identify and act on the challenges ahead.  The United Nations can help meet those challenges, if its Members share a renewed sense of mission. Founded to introduce new principles into international relations in 1945, the UN has succeeded better in some areas than others. This is a chance to reshape the United Nations so that it can make a real and measurable difference to people’s lives in the new century.

Globalization and Governance

The benefits of globalization are obvious: faster growth, higher living standards, new opportunities.  Yet a backlash has begun, because these benefits are so unequally distributed, and because the global market is not yet underpinned by rules based on shared social objectives.
In 1945 the founders set up an open and co-operative system for an international  world. This system worked, and made it possible for globalization to emerge. As a result we now live in a global world. Responding to this shift is a central challenge for world leaders today.

In this new world, groups and individuals more and more often interact directly across frontiers, without involving the State. This has its dangers. Crime, narcotics, terrorism, pollution, disease, weapons, refugees and migrants: all move back and forth faster and in greater numbers than in the past. People feel threatened by events far away. They are also more aware of injustice and brutality in distant countries, and expect States to do something about them.  But new technologies also create opportunities for mutual understanding and common action. If we are to get the best out of globalization and avoid the worst, we must learn to govern better, and how to govern better together.

That does not mean world government or the eclipse of nation states. On the contrary, States need to be strengthened. And they can draw strength from each other, by acting together within common institutions based on shared rules and values. These institutions must reflect the realities of the time, including the distribution of power. And they must serve as an arena for states to co-operate with non-state actors, including global companies. In many cases they need to be complemented by less formal policy networks, which can respond more quickly to the changing global agenda.

The gross disparities of wealth in today’s world, the miserable conditions in which well over a billion people live, the prevalence of endemic conflict in some regions, and the rapid degradation of the natural environment: all these combine to make the present model of development unsustainable, unless remedial measures are taken by common agreement. A recent survey of public opinion across six continents – the largest ever conducted – confirms that such measures are what people want.

Freedom from Want

The past half-century has seen unprecedented economic gains. But 1.2 billion people have to live on less than $1 a day. The combination of extreme poverty with extreme inequality between countries, and often also within them, is an affront to our common humanity. It also makes many other problems worse, including conflict.  And the world’s population is still rising rapidly, with the increase concentrated in the poorest countries. We must act to reduce extreme poverty by half, in every part of the world, before 2015.  The following are priority areas:

Generating opportunities for the young. By 2015, all children must complete primary schooling, with equal opportunities for both genders at all levels of education. And ways must be found to provide young people with decent work.

Promoting health and combating HIV/AIDS. Health research must be redirected at the problems affecting 90 per cent of the world’s people. By 2010 we should have cut the rate of HIV infection in young people by 25 per cent.

Upgrading the slums. We must support the “Cities without Slums” action plan, which aims to improve the lives of 100 million slum dwellers by 2020.

Including Africa. The Report challenges experts and philanthropic foundations to tackle low agricultural productivity in Africa. It also urges African governments to give higher priority to reducing poverty, and the rest of the world to help them.

Building digital bridges. New technology offers an unprecedented chance for developing countries to “leapfrog” earlier stages of development. Everything must be done to maximize their peoples’ access to new information networks.

Demonstrating global solidarity. Rich countries must further open their markets to poor countries’ products, must provide deeper and faster debt relief, and must give more and better focused development assistance. Ridding the world of the scourge of extreme poverty is a challenge to every one of us. We must not fail to meet it.

Freedom from Fear

Wars between States have become less frequent. But in the last decade internal wars have claimed more than 5 million lives, and driven many times that number of people from their homes. At the same time weapons of mass destruction continue to cast their shadow of fear. We now think of security less as defending territory, more in terms of protecting people. The threat of deadly conflict must be tackled at every stage:Prevention. Conflicts are most frequent in poor countries, especially in those that are ill governed and where there are sharp inequalities between ethnic or religious groups. The best way to prevent them is to promote healthy and balanced economic development, combined with human rights, minority rights and political arrangements in which all groups are fairly represented. Also, illicit transfers of weapons, money, or natural resources must be forced into the limelight.

Protecting the vulnerable. We must find better ways to enforce international and human rights law, and ensure that gross violations do not go unpunished.

Addressing the dilemma of intervention. National sovereignty must not be used as a shield for those who wantonly violate the rights and lives of their fellow human beings. In the face of mass murder, armed intervention authorized by the Security Council is an option that cannot be relinquished..

Strengthening peace operations. The Millennium Assembly is invited to consider recommendations from a high-level panel the Secretary-General has established to review all aspects of peace operations.

Targeting sanctions. Recent research has explored ways to make sanctions “smarter”, by targeting them better. The Security Council should draw on this research when designing and applying sanctions regimes in future.

Pursuing arms reductions. The Secretary-General urges Member States to control small arms transfers more rigorously; and to re-commit themselves to reducing the dangers both of existing nuclear weapons and of further proliferation.

Sustaining Our Future

We now face an urgent need to secure the freedom of future generations to sustain their lives on this planet – and we are failing to do it. We have been plundering our children’s heritage to pay for unsustainable practices. Changing this is a challenge for rich and poor countries alike. The Rio Conference in 1992 provided the foundations, and the Montreal Protocol on ozone-depleting substances is an important step forward. But elsewhere our responses are too few, too little and too late. Before 2002 we must revive the debate and prepare to act decisively in the following areas:

Confronting the water crisis. The report urges endorsement of the World Water Forum Ministerial Conference’s target of cutting by half the proportion of people without access to safe and affordable water before 2015. It also calls for a “Blue Revolution” which would increase agricultural productivity per unit of water, while improving management of watersheds and flood plains.

Defending the soil. The best hope of feeding a growing world population from shrinking agricultural land may lie in biotechnology, but its safety and environmental impact are hotly debated. The Secretary-General is convening a global policy network to try and resolve these controversies, so that the poor and hungry do not lose out.

Preserving forests, fisheries, and biodiversity. In all these areas, conservation is vital. Governments and the private sector must work together to support it.

Building a new ethic of stewardship. The Secretary-General recommends four priorities:

1.  Education of the public.
2. “Green accounting”, to integrate the environment into economic policy.
3.  Regulations and incentives.
4.  More accurate scientific data.

Peoples, as well as Governments, must commit themselves to a new ethic of conservation and stewardship.

Renewing the United Nations

Without a strong UN, it will be much harder to meet all these challenges. Strengthening the UN depends on Governments, and especially on their willingness to work with others – the private sector, non-governmental organizations and multilateral agencies – to find consensus solutions. The UN must act as a catalyst, to stimulate action by others. And it must fully exploit the new technologies, especially information technology. The Secretary-General recommends action in these areas:

Networking for change. We must supplement formal institutions with informal policy networks, bringing together international institutions, civil society and private sector organizations, and national governments, in pursuit of common goals.

Making digital connections. We can use the new information technology to make the UN more efficient, and to improve its interaction with the rest of the world. But to do so we must overcome a change-resistant culture. The Secretary-General is asking the information technology industry to help us do it.

Advancing the quiet revolution.  To meet the needs of the 21st century we need real structural reform, a clearer consensus on priorities among Member States, and less intrusive oversight of day-to-day management. Decisions are needed from the General Assembly – for instance to include “sunset provisions” in new mandates and to introduce results-based budgeting.

For consideration by the Summit

The Secretary-General lists six shared values, reflecting the spirit of the Charter, which are of particular relevance to the new century: Freedom; Equity and Solidarity; Tolerance; Non-Violence; Respect for Nature; and Shared Responsibility. He urges the Millennium Summit to adopt a series of resolutions, drawn from the body of the Report, as an earnest of its will to act on those values.

This is the executive summary of a speech given by Mr. Annan at the United Nations, New York, 3 April 2000 on the presentation of the Millennium Report.

Kofi A. Annan

Kofi Annan of Ghana is the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations, and is serving his second term. Mr. Annan's priorities as Secretary-General have been to revitalize the United Nations through a comprehensive programme of reform; to strengthen the Organization's traditional work in the areas of development and the maintenance of international peace and security; to encourage and advocate human rights, the rule of law and the universal values of equality, tolerance and human dignity found in the United Nations Charter; and to restore public confidence in the Organization by reaching out to new partners and, in his words, by "bringing the United Nations closer to the people".

The United Nations
Millennium Report of the Secretary General of the United Nations