2010/02/06

Video Message by the Secretary General of the United Nations

The Secretary General of the United Nation Ban Ki-moon adresses the 46. Munich Security Conference by a video message. Photograph by Kai Mörk

Guten Tag, meine Damen und Herren – 

I send you my warmest greetings and regret that I cannot join you in person.

The disaster in Haiti has engaged all of our attention. The tragedy is all the greater because it came at a time when Haiti was making progress. During my visit I met many ordinary Haitians. They were very clear about what they need: food, water, medicine, and tents. But even more, they told me, they need jobs. 

The "Cash for work"-Plan that the United Nations Development Program has set in motion seeks to put 200 000 people back to work over the next six month. We can do that for a modest sum: $40 million, $5 per person per day. All those young men and women living in mounting desperation can get to work rebuilding their lives. Haiti’s recovery begins with putting all people back to work.

This is not a purely humanitarian question. It is a matter of international security – one of the reasons you are in Munich today. Traditional threats such as terrorism, nuclear proliferation and war continue to challenge all of us, exacting a terrible cost in lives and resources.

But we also face a huge consolidation of 21^st century threats. There are now an unprecedented one billion hungry people in our world. In recent years we have seen food riots in thousands of countries. Climate change, if present trends continue, will give us more extreme weather, more natural disasters, arable lands turn to desert, societies pushed to the brink. Pandemics, too, not only kill people, they make families and societies less resilient, less productive and more fragile. Chronic poverty, the worst economic downturn in generations – these, too, are emergencies. They may not strike with the concentrated force of an earthquake, yet they tear societies apart. They spill across borders and they call for global action.

That is why I want 2010 to be a year in which we mount a global campaign for the Millennium Development Goals. That is why I have called for a summit in New York in September. The United Nations wants to deliver for nations and peoples in need – from development to peacekeeping, from prevention to post-conflict peace building, from human rights to the rule of law. We are ready to deliver on the threats of today and those of tomorrow. As the slogan of your conference states: "There can be no more excuses". 

Dankeschön – I hope to see you in Munich next year.

Ban Ki-moon is the eighth Secretary-General of the United Nations. He initially intended to attend the 46^th Munich Security Conference but had to cancel his trip due to the earthquake in Haiti. Nevertheless, he adressed the participants of this year's conference via this video message on Saturday, February 6, 2010.  

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