Statesmanship and confidence-rebuilding required: excerpt from Secretary-General Kofi Annan's address to the United Nations association of the United Kingdom on 31 January 2006 at central hall in Westminster, United Kingdom.

• Position: From the Secretary-General - Speech

MANY PEOPLE HAVE GRASPED the message of my report [In Larger Freedom]. Put simply, that message is twofold. First, we are all in the same boat. More than ever before, the human race faces global problems--from poverty and inequality to nuclear proliferation, from climate change to bird flu, from terrorism to HIV/AIDS, from ethnic cleansing and genocide to trafficking in the lives and bodies of human beings. So it obviously makes sense to come together and work out global solutions. And, secondly, the three freedoms which all human beings crave--freedom from want, freedom from war or large-scale violence, and freedom from arbitrary or degrading treatment--are closely interconnected.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

There is no long-term security without development. There is no development without security. And no society can long remain secure or prosperous without respect for human rights and the rule of law. That is the premise on which the Larger Freedom agenda is based. It was, as you know, an agenda for the World Summit last September. Let me start by mentioning the areas where the Summit took important steps forward.

First, it helped stimulate major new commitments of aid and debt relief--amounting to a doubling of aid for Africa--and won a strong and unanimous reaffirmation of the Millennium Development Goals. The developing countries gave very important commitments, starting with an undertaking to produce by the end of this year national strategies for reaching the MDGs by 2015. In the area of humanitarian relief, the Summit has given us a much improved emergency fund, which should enable us to respond promptly whenever disaster strikes.

In the area of peace and security, Member States agreed to "strongly condemn terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, committed by whomever, wherever and for whatever purposes". And they instructed the General Assembly, "without delay", to develop, adopt and implement a comprehensive global counterterrorism strategy, built on the elements that I set out in Madrid last March. But their most concrete decision in this area was the creation of a Peacebuilding Commission. This body will fill a real institutional gap and ensure that attention and resources are devoted to countries emerging from violence, long after peacekeepers have left.

In the area of human rights, we have got a strengthened office, with significant new resources, for the High Commissioner. We got a warm endorsement for the new Democracy...