ウィスパリング同時通訳研究会コミュのVolkan Bozkır, President of the General Assembly, addresses the general debate of the 75th Session of the General Assembly of the UN (New York, 22 – 29 September 2020).

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General Assembly of the United Nations
General Assembly of the United Nations
President of the 75th session
Opening Remarks from the General Debate of the 75th Session of the General Assembly
– As delivered –

Statement by H.E. Volkan Bozkir, President of the 75th Session of the United Nations General Assembly
22 September 2020



Heads of State and Government,

Mr. Secretary-General,

Distinguished Ministers and delegates,

Excellencies,

I am honored to welcome you all, to the General Debate of the seventy-fifth Session of the General Assembly.

I would like to take a moment to commemorate this historic occasion.

This Hall has been the background of many significant discussions.

Here, in this Hall, the General Assembly has accomplished much.

We have reached consensus and we have resolved difficult problems.

This Hall symbolizes that the nations can accomplish when they are united.

And here, in this Hall, the General Debate has been the apex of our deliberations.

The General Debate, and the High-Level Week, enable our political and civil society leaders to come together and discuss the various challenges we face.

Some of these challenges are local, or regional. But our efforts are always global.

Excellencies,

This year, in this Hall, the General Debate has had to take a new form.

The leaders of our nations are not personally present.

They will not be able to interact with each other and have bilateral meetings on the sidelines.

And there is limited opportunity to benefit from NGO participation.

But, our need for deliberation is higher than ever.

The pandemic has affected far more than our ability to attend this Debate in person.

It has pummeled our economies.

It has pushed our healthcare systems to their limits.

Education has been disrupted risking our collective future.

The most vulnerable have suffered most.

The already precarious situation of refugees and migrants is ever more dire.

The women and girls face higher risks of exposure to gender-based violence and exploitation.

Children are more at risk of child labor, child marriage and trafficking.

Xenophobia, racism and discrimination, on ethnic and religious grounds, are on the rise.

Violence against members of religious groups and places of worship have been increasing.

I wish to extend my sympathy and solidarity to each and every individual who has been impacted by this virus.

And on behalf all these people, I want to make a call:

Rarely has the whole of humanity faced such an imminent and common threat.

Today, we must leave our differences and disagreements aside.

Today, we must renew our collective commitment to multilateralism.

Today, we must combine our efforts to address this global problem and we must make sure that, “no one is left behind”.

“We, the peoples of the United Nations” can achieve this.

Excellencies,

When we consider the potential of the United Nations, it is important to consider this Organization’s origins.

Following the heinous acts of World War II, the establishment of the UN was an acknowledgement that we must do better.

It was a collective commitment to the progress of humanity.

Through a new rules-based world order, with an Organization of unrivalled legitimacy at its center, our founders endeavored to ensure peace, prosperity and progress for all.

The system was designed to be flexible, so we can address a range of challenges and unexpected issues.

To recover from the pandemic, we can plan, innovate and build back better for a sustainable, inclusive and just recovery.

Doing this alone, will cost more lives and more resources.

The pandemic will continue to change how we operate over the next year.

We must make full use of all the tools available to us to combat this challenge.

And a key platform to provide political guidance to our efforts at the international level is, this very Assembly, where we all sit today, the main deliberative, policymaking and representative organ of the United Nations.

In this regard, I urge Member States to be cooperative and creative, to devise solutions, that will enable this body to function effectively, and remain relevant, within the bounds of the Charter and Rules of Procedure.

Excellencies,

Since 1945, our demands of the United Nations system have grown immeasurably.

Today, the United Nations supports international peace and security, in some of the world’s most volatile regions, with its force of 95,000 peacekeepers, in 13 operations around the world.

It coordinates an appeal of tens of billions of US Dollars, to meet the humanitarian needs of tens of millions of people around the world.

It supplies vaccines to 50% of the world’s children, preventing the spread of disease, and saving 3 million lives a year.

The Human Rights Council, and the treaty body system, is responsible for strengthening the promotion and protection of human rights around the globe.

The pandemic has only increased our demands on the system.

To meet them, the Organization, and this General Assembly in particular, will need to enhance coordination, coherence, efficiency and delivery capacity, within its work and its relation to other organs.

We must adapt, making space for further engagement among them, across the three pillars of our work.

We must continue, to strengthen the efforts of UN agencies, including the World Health Organization, to combat this pandemic.

We must be prepared to have tough, honest conversation about where the multilateral system is failing, or where it is not adapting fast enough, to the ever-evolving challenges we face.

And we need to act to implement the necessary reforms to ensure that the UN is fit for purpose and can deliver the future we want.