African leaders address UN General Assembly

President Thabo Mbeki speaking at the UN General Assembly

By Kate Moody
Several African leaders addressed the opening session of the UN General Assembly yesterday. The speakers were able to use the stage to address issues that particularly affect their continent - specifically peacekeeping in conflict zones, poverty, and climate change.

President Thabo Mbeki summed up the message African leaders brought to the UN General Assembly, that the world body must begin to take more action in a more urgent manner.

Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said he expected the next few years to be the "most intense" in UN history. "We need an internal climate change at the United Nations. We need to think freshly about how we do our work to deliver on the world's high expectations of us, we need to be faster, more flexible and mobile. We need to pay less attention to rhetoric and more attention to results, to getting things done."

African leaders realise importance of climate change
African leaders dwelled on climate change, which is the general theme for this session of the General Assembly. Climate change is a particularly important issue for Africa. The continent often receives the brunt of damaging change to the Earth's climate system in the form of drought or floods, which affects crop production, having a huge impact on communities.

Ghanaian President John Kufuor called on the UN to set up a new body to forecast the future impacts of climate change, saying that poor nations cannot deal with the problem alone. "Leaving the problem to the individual nations, especially those in the developing world, cannot be the way forward. There should be shared responsibility, even if varied solutions are sought."

Kufor, who is also the current head of the African Union, welcomed efforts by the UN to bring peace to Darfur, and urged increased support in other conflict zones. "Conflicts, particularly those in the developing world, have consistently undermined policies to improve the circumstances of our people. Sustainable development can only be achieved in the international environment of peace and security."

Distribution of power
Leaders also discussed the skewed distribution of power in the world, which replicates itself in global institutions like the UN - largely to the detriment of developing countries. President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal noted that although 70% of the business of the Security Council relates to Africa, no African country has a permanent seat there.

Mbeki called the distribution of power a "global system of apartheid".

"The rich and the powerful have consistently sought to ensure that whatever happens, the existing power relations are not altered and therefore the status quo remains the same."

Meanwhile, US President George W. Bush spoke early in the session, calling for increased freedom and human rights around the world, announcing sanctions on Burma, and singling out Zimbabwe as a government he thinks is repressing its people.

"Ordinary citizens suffer under a tyrannical regime. The government has cracked down on peaceful calls for reform and has caused millions to flee their homeland," Bush said.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe will address the assembly today.