10th International Security Forum Concluding Panel:“Looking Ahead – Managing Multiple Transitions”

Madam President
Ambassador Tanner
Ambassador Winkler
Distinguished Panellists:

Let me, first of all, express my appreciation for the invitation to take part in this very representative Forum. It has been a real success and I hope that I will not spoil the good results achieved up till now!
I would like to use this opportunity to share some points and ideas about the central security challenges before us. The agenda is indeed very full: instability from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. Turmoil and uncertainty across the Middle East and North Africa. Festering crisis in Syria and Mali. Brinkmanship in the Korean Peninsula. Devastating and endemic conflict in sub-Saharan Africa. Simmering maritime disputes in the North China Sea. Cyber-security and climate change. And the list of these challenges is not exhaustive.

We grapple every day with the emergence of new threats and factors that may undermine security and stability across the world. In this respect, I would like to express my agreement with what Federal Councillor Burkhalter rightly said earlier in the week at this Forum, namely that “the world has become more complex and less predictable”.

As the debates have shown here, the transitions that we face are deeply political – whether they manifest themselves in particular security or economic developments. These developments, from my point of view, offer fundamental questions for us – as the United Nations and as the international community more broadly. So, as the world changes, how can we embrace these shifts? And perhaps more fundamentally, how can we shape them rather than simply react to them?

As part of the discussion today, I would like to lay out four key processes that I believe are crucial to our collective ability to manage these multiple transitions – effectively and in a timely manner.

First, we need to get better at understanding the linkages across the challenges before us.

This is particularly important in the relationship between security and development. According to the World Bank, one and a half billion people live in areas affected by fragility, conflict, or organized criminal violence. And the risk of relapse is unacceptably high. 90% of wars that started in the past decade were in countries that had in the past experienced a major conflict.

Lack of employment opportunities in post-conflict societies, particularly for youth, remains a potential source of instability. And in this respect, I agree very much with the eloquent points made earlier by President Halonen. We simply cannot ensure long-term stability if we do not also confront underlying economic and social challenges. This is where the “silent crises” lie that eventually may grow into major instability, or even conflict.

Links between organized crime, trafficking and under-development need to be recognized to a greater extent.

We need then to adapt both security and development thinking to integrate these linkages in the formulation of holistic solutions.

Second, we must build stronger partnerships. It is now almost a truism to say that no country and no organization alone can effectively address the challenges ahead. But, in reality, we have a way to go in including all relevant stakeholders in a meaningful manner. For example, we need to engage with business in a different and more profound manner to generate employment in fragile communities. We need to engage with the scientific and academic communities to a larger extent to confront challenges such as climate change, food insecurity and disease.

Third, we need to focus more directly on the contradictions and inequalities in the world. Over 785 million people have no access to clean drinking water and 2.3 billion people lack basic sanitation. Over 2.3 billion people are online. While 77% of the population in developed countries are connected to the Internet, only some 30% are online in developing countries. And 1.5 billion people still do not even have electricity. The top 20 percent of the population enjoys more than 70 percent of total income. Despite a small decline over the past couple of years, global military expenditure is close to 1.8 trillion dollars while one billion people go hungry.

Such discrepancies erode stability and undermine development, confidence and justice. They entrench patterns of social stagnation that fuel resentment and feelings of injustice, which eventually can tear the fabric of societies apart.

Four, we need to ensure that we react in a timely manner to both emerging and evolving threats. As we have heard in several speeches here at this interesting Forum, threats to cyberspace continue to grow. Cyber crime has become a business which exceeds a trillion dollars a year in online fraud, identity theft and lost intellectual property. It affects millions of people around the world, as well as countless businesses and the Governments of every nation. And recent developments in the Korean Peninsula have shown how cyber security is now a real dimension of more traditional security contexts. Yet, the extent and pace of cooperation on this issue lags behind the speed with which the threat is developing. The same applies to terrorism, for example, where new networks, connections and techniques continue to transform the challenge before us.

And using this opportunity, as the Secretary-General of the Conference on Disarmament, I would like to express my disappointment and deep concern with the situation in the Conference on Disarmament and to urge all Member States to show more seriousness and responsibility in the search for a solution.

These four processes require that we recognize the international interest as our national interest to a greater extent than what is the case at the moment. In the face of crisis, transition and unfamiliar developments, we witness and experience an instinctive preference for limited, national responses – at least initially. This is an understandable reaction, but it is not the most effective in the longer term. Calls for effective leadership are often understood mainly in national terms, when in fact, what is really needed is global, cooperative leadership.

In this respect, I believe that the United Nations will play an increasingly important role. Despite criticism and concern, the United Nations remains an indispensable Organization and a platform for collective action. Geneva, as a major hub, plays a key role in these efforts, as also demonstrated by the International Security Forum.

Thank you for your attention.