“Shared Responsibility: The United Nations in the Age of Globalization”

Ambassador Staur
Ms. Fegan-Wyles
Mr. Koser
Dear Colleagues
Ladies and Gentlemen:

I am pleased to welcome you to this Library Talk and to launch Ambassador Staur’s book “Shared Responsibility: The United Nations in the Age of Globalization”. I would like to thank our Library for once again organizing what will I’m sure prove to be an interesting meeting of minds. My thanks go to Carston, Sally and Khalid for taking the time to be with us today.

Ambassador Staur begins his Foreword with a quote from former colleague and UNDP Administrator Mark Malloch-Brown, who said that “nothing at the UN is as straightforward or simple as it looks”.
This is one reason why I applaud this thoughtful look on the UN. Ambassador Staur has laid out for us the functioning of the UN system – its history, its challenges, and most importantly the opportunities which it represents. He has done this in a way that is easy-to-read, interesting and resourceful.

A view that I fully share with Ambassador Staur is that the UN matters. This fact is no more evident than today.

It is clear that the world is undergoing profound changes. Political, economic and social balances are shifting. New dynamics have come into play, moving centres of gravity – from west to east, and from north to south. As just one example, it is projected that by 2020, the combined output of the three leading South economies – China, India and Brazil – may surpass the aggregate production of the United States, Germany, United Kingdom, France, Italy and Canada.


In addition, non-State actors – civil society, regional organizations, foundations, other international organizations, groups of countries, regional groupings, just to name a few – all have an increasing role in decision-making and in influencing action at an international level. It is no longer governments that are alone on the world stage.

The world today is also one of contradictions and inequalities. 1.1 billion people still live below the internationally-accepted poverty line of 1.25 dollars a day. Over 785 million people have no access to clean drinking water and 2.3 billion lack sanitation. The world is more connected than ever before, but still close to 4.5 billion people – predominantly in the developing world – are not online, and 1.5 billion people do not even have electricity.

The United Nations, in all its complexity and with all its challenges, is still one of our best options to address global issues that transcend national borders. Going forward, there are two transformative issues that will particularly shape the global agenda for many years to come.
These issues – both discussed with great thought in the book before us - are the formation of the post-2015 sustainable development agenda and climate change. I also see these two issues as ones where the UN has a great opportunity – a great role to play.

It is worth pointing out, however, that to be able to do that, we must be able to look critically at ourselves. We, and particularly our Member States, need to discuss and look on a continuous basis at our mandate, our resources, and our structures. The pragmatic voice of Ambassador Staur shows us a way forward.

I would like to thank him again for his thought-provoking and extremely useful book and I look forward to our discussion.

Thank you very much.