STATEMENT BY HIS MAJESTY KING LETSIE III OF THE KINGDOM OF LESOTHO

ON THE OCCASION OF THE HIGH LEVEL SESSION OF THE UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCE ON THE LEAST DEVELOPED COUNTRIES, BRUSSELS 14 MAY, 2001


Mr. President,
Excellencies, Heads of State and Government,
Secretary General, Kofi Annan,
Excellencies Heads of International Organisations,
Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,

It is a singular and personal privilege for me to participate in this historic special session of the Third United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries. I wish to express the profound appreciation of the government and people of Lesotho to those men and women whose historic vision made it possible, through the decision of the General Assembly, to have a forum like this where the international community debates and adopts policies aimed at alleviating the pain and suffering of our poor communities.

This special session, Mr. President, constitutes a unique opportunity to assess the success of the past two programmes of action in favour of least developed countries. It is a fitting opportunity to consolidate the gains made in the past and to rededicate our individual and collective energies to the continuing challenges of poverty and want.

In line with the theme of our session today, namely, the challenge of eradicating poverty, we aim to further contribute to the discussions this morning by sharing with you the issues we consider critical to the current international effort to eradicate poverty.

Mr. President, the war on poverty is not being won, nor is inequality being conquered. Rather, more and more countries, particularly the least developed ones, are being excluded, marginalised and find themselves on the periphery of the new global economy. We live in an age where the advent of globalisation and the introduction of new technologies yield unimaginable benefits to one part of human kind while another part remains excluded from those benefits but is subjected to a life of grinding poverty. What is patently obvious is that we cannot reverse the clock of globalisation or wish it away. It is, however, in our common interest if not our moral duty to ensure that it becomes a positive force both for developed and developing countries alike.

In the light of recent positive developments in some parts of the world where indications are that the standard and quality of life has markedly improved, the persistence of marginalisation, exclusion and inequality among some countries, in particular those in my continent, Africa, is striking. The situation in Africa is of great concern to all of us. The benefits of globalisation are not leading to equitable development and the benefits of increased integration into the world economy are being concentrated in a few countries, particularly the more technologically advanced.

Mr. President, we will recall that over the past recent decades, conferences similar to this one, were convened and all identified the constraints facing the least developed comprising acute vulnerability economic shocks natural and countries as to external man made disasters, communicable diseases, limited access to information and communication technologies, and in adequate access to financial resources. These vulnerabilities still accurately characterize the least developed countries now as they did then. To be effective, strategies aimed at eradicating poverty should seek to address these weaknesses while taking into account the special needs and problems of each country.

Allow me, at this juncture, Mr. President, to highlight some of the critical areas that have to be addressed in unison in order to achieve the stated objective of this forum, namely, that of identifying strategies for poverty eradication.

To begin with, it is our conviction that for poverty eradication strategies to be effective. They should cover political, economic, social, cultural and human development aspects.

We believe that there is no policy instrument that can be effective if the overall environment is not supportive of this stated goal. To us, this enabling environment should be present not only at the national level but also at the international level.

At the national level, the creation or enhancing of a legal framework of transparent, democratic, non-discriminatory and accountable institutions is an essential prerequisite for poverty eradication. This includes the adoption of measures to promote and protect human rights, fundamental freedoms and gender equality. In addition, we believe that poverty eradication strategies must be fully owned by the national governments and civil societies based on a framework of balanced partnerships. To this effect, my government recently organised a national forum on vision 2020 where all sectors of our society participated in discussions aimed at identifying a national strategy to eradicate poverty. We are convinced that it is only through broad, consultative processes that we can achieve our common national goal.

Adoption of strategies centered on people as objects of development and sensitive to issues of equitable access to opportunities, gender equality, the rights of indigenous people and the protection of the environment, is critical to any meaningful effort undertaken.

At the international and multilateral level, there has to be a corresponding environment supportive of our efforts. Multilateral agencies within and outside the United Nations system should have, at the core of their programmes, strong policies that are targeted at the poor. Despite the efforts of the LDC's in terms of policy reform and structural transformation, the situation of LDC's has actually deteriorated in the course of the past decade.

Mr. President, one of the challenges facing the international community today is to promote effective participation and enhancement of the role of LDC's in the global decision-making process. International institutions have to be more responsive to the challenges of development and to the promotion of economic and social equity in the global economy.

National governments and their partners have at their disposal a number of policy instruments with which to fight poverty. An excellent example is trade policy. My country, like others, has committed itself to trade policy reforms and to main streaming trade policy issues into its overall poverty eradication programmes. Poverty eradication is our highest priority whereas trade policy is a means to an end. It, therefore, makes sense to marshal all the tools we have towards achieving our principal goal.

On the other hand, we recognize that trade policy reforms without a corresponding commitment from our trading partners will have limited success but will largely serve to perpetuate the existing imbalances in the multilateral trading system. One of the outcomes of this conference has to be a commitment by our development partners to agree to comprehensive reforms in those areas of their economies where our comparative advantage is stronger.

Mr. President, another important issue which we feel deserves an unwavering support and commitment by the international community is the proposal by the secretary general of the united nations and endorsed by the recently concluded summit of African heads of state and government to establish a trust fund to combat the HIV/AIDS epidemic sweeping through Africa. The fight against aids presents the biggest challenge to Africa since the end of slavery and colonialism. Unless there is a concerted effort in tackling the scourge of HIV/AIDS pandemic, all our hard work in trying to eradicate poverty will come to no avail.

Mr. President, by way of concluding my remarks, I wish to reiterate that, for the decisions of this conference to be effective in addressing poverty, we have to ensure that the poor play their role not as recipients of largesse and goodwill, but as codeterminants of what happens to be the common universe of which they are an integral part.

I personally believe that the essential question we have to answer at this conference is whether we have the courage, conscience and the will to remove all obstacles that will deny any human community its dignity.

I thank you, Mr. President.