Opening Statement at ESCAP's 68th Commission Session

Your Excellency Honorable Tuilaepa Lupesoliai Sailele Malielegaoi,
Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Samoa

Your Excellency Mr. Sarath Amunugama,
Senior Minister for International Monetary Cooperation and
Chairperson of the 67th session of the Commission

Your Excellency, Professor Tommy Koh,
Ambassador-At-Large, Singapore, former Chairman of the High Level Task Force on the ASEAN Charter, President of the Third UN Conference on the Law of the Sea, Chairman of the negotiations at the Earth Summit and Chairman of its preparatory committee

Excellencies,
Distinguished Delegates,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

Introduction

Welcome to Bangkok, to our regional UN hub, and to the 68th session of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific.

I would like to extend a special welcome and my personal thanks to His Excellency, the Prime Minister of Samoa, for making the journey to participate in the Commission in this very auspicious year, which marks not only the 50th anniversary of Samoan independence, but also its graduation from the status of least developed country (LDC). I know that all of you join me in sending our best wishes and congratulations to the people of Samoa on this very significant achievement, as they celebrate their 50th anniversary as a nation.

I am also very pleased to welcome so many senior policy-makers, opinion-leaders, and friends.

Excellencies, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen,

Message from the UN Secretary-General

I would like to begin by reading a message from the United Nations Secretary-General, Mr. Ban Ki-moon.

“I am pleased to send greetings to all participants at the sixty-eighth session of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific.

I welcome the session’s focus on regional economic integration. Rapid economic growth is creating important opportunities for intra-regional trade, investment and employment. Economic dynamism has shown its great potential to reduce poverty and close development gaps across the region.

At the same time, explosive economic growth can pose risks, including pressure on natural resources. The toll is especially hard on poor and vulnerable people who can suffer greater poverty and exclusion as a result.

That is why it is so important to pursue inclusive growth as part of our broader efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goal and sustainable development.

As the international community prepares for the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development next month in Rio de Janeiro, I hope your discussions on progress in the Asia-Pacific region can contribute to reaching our global goals.

We must forge a new economic paradigm that incorporates social and environmental concerns, that is good for the planet and its people, and that promotes equitable economic growth.

Rio+20 offers a chance to make progress on key issues, including energy, oceans, water, cities, food and nutrition security, employment, social protection and the empowerment of women and young people. It should also produce a clear direction for enhancing the global institutional architecture to address sustainable development challenges.

I urge you to make the most of this timely gathering at ESCAP – a key intergovernmental forum in which all the countries and territories in the Asia-Pacific region come together to discuss issues of common concern, build consensus and strengthen partnerships.

I count on this Forum to articulate the Asia-Pacific voice on regional and global issues, and wish you great success in your deliberations.”

Excellencies, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen,

Great Transitions in Turbulent Times

2012 is a year of great significance for ESCAP. Turning 65 years old would normally signal the start of a well-earned retirement. ESCAP however, is 65 years young – and has never been more energized, better positioned, or more relevant.

“We stand…on the threshold of a new period in history […] Asia…has suddenly become important again in world affairs […]. [She] is again finding herself. We live in a tremendous age of transition and already the next stage takes shape when Asia takes her rightful place…there [is] a widespread urge and an awareness that the time [has] come for us, people of Asia, to meet together, to hold together and to advance together.”

These could easily be the words of any Asian leader speaking at this Commission session today, but they were in fact those of Indian Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru at the 1st Asian Relations Conference in 1947.

It was a time of turmoil, with nations broken by colonialism, poverty, and the scourge of a world at war.

But it was also a time of great hope – when the leaders of our region came together and issued a clarion call for transformative Asian leadership, based on shared principles and a shared purpose: to create a more prosperous region, in a time of great transition.

Sixty five years later we have succeeded in that undertaking.

Asia has grown, our economies have flourished, and economic power has shifted to our region – but at a cost to our people and to our planet, with rising inequalities and ecosystems stretched beyond their carrying limits.

Prime Minister Nehru’s words ring as true today as in 1947, because the world around us has changed again.

Ours is a time once more of great uncertainty amidst global turbulence.

Burdened by huge debt, and global imbalances, the advanced economies of Europe and the United States are simply no longer able to generate the demand-led growth which has thus far fueled Asia-Pacific prosperity. This is also unlikely to change anytime soon.

The high costs of capital, growing unemployment, volatile capital inflows and a trend of high commodity prices, combined with the eurozone debt turmoil and the slow US recovery, are the persistent headwinds of our external environment.

Our region has done well to keep growing as strongly as we have in the face of this turbulence and volatility, which has become the “new normal” – but our current Asia-Pacific growth path is not sustainable.

We are confronted by major risks, resource constraints, and social inequalities which threaten our social fabric and ecological well-being.

To move forward, we need to look to our development challenges, such as poverty and wide disparities in social and physical infrastructure, as new engines of growth.

Our “bottom billion”, if lifted out of poverty and empowered to join the rest of our regional consumers, would sustain Asia-Pacific growth – and act as an anchor for global economic stability – for decades to come.

We know that the capabilities and resources to unlock this potential vary greatly across our member States.

This gives rise to opportunities for complementarities best realized through closer regional economic integration – which is why ‘growing together’ is the theme for this 68th session of the Commission.

Excellencies, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen,

Transitions Demand Great Leadership & Accountability

In order to steer through the turbulence, to a new path of shared and sustainable prosperity, we must rethink and rebalance the economies and societies of our region.

This fundamental change will not prove easy. Great transitions demand even greater leadership.

It is time for the leaders of Asia and the Pacific to step up and assume a more active role in the stewardship of our people and our planet.

Building the future we want calls for deliberate and coordinated regional action - grounded in equity, sustainability and resilience, dedicated to the common good.

In his keynote address on the occasion of ESCAP’s 60th anniversary, my good friend and Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen observed that: “If Asia has a strong claim to dignity, it lies not in our exclusivity or separatism, but in our acceptance of variety and the possibility of learning from each other.”

Transformational leadership in Asia and the Pacific must capture this spirit – to bridge diversity and achieve the three balances necessary for our shared development journey.

The first balance is between the interconnected pillars of sustainable development – economic growth, social equity and environmental well-being. The second is the balance between the rights of individuals and the collective good of society. The third key balance is between the powers of the market and those of the state and its people.

We should also work to better harness the power of partnerships in Asia and the Pacific. The development efforts of our increasingly-engaged private sector, organizations of civil society, and growing citizen movements must be aligned where there is visionary regional leadership and good governance of our member States.

Such partnerships are only possible through frameworks of greater accountability – a new social contract that cares for our people and our planet, and which has mobilized citizen movements using the tools of technology and social networking shaping modern communications.

Our opening ceremony this morning included a powerful reminder of the values on which the United Nations was founded – and which informed not only our Charter but also our programme of work.

The UN values are the weave that we should use to pull it all together. They are the most valuable accountability framework for closer regional economic integration.

Excellencies, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen,

Conclusion

Sixty five years ago Asian leaders of vision gathered to shape the future of our region. Their focus was on nation building and recovery.

Today we meet again as the leaders of our region to focus on building the future that I know we all want – a resilient Asia-Pacific rooted in sustainability and shared prosperity.

Accomplishing this goal, in the face of mounting global challenges, requires us to shift our focus from nation building to region building, from national leadership to regional leadership.

In the course of our deliberations over the coming days I would ask that we return to one key premise: it is no longer enough for Asia and the Pacific to grow the most – our future success demands of us to grow the best.

More inclusively. More sustainably and with greater and lasting resilience.

ESCAP provides the best platform for Asia and the Pacific to forge that shared future – together.

Thank you.