Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg
Opening speech at
the United Nations high-level panel meeting
Oslo, 31 August 2006
Prime Ministers, excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, good
morning and welcome to Oslo.
I have been looking forward to having you here as our guests
for a number of reasons:
- The panel has high ambitions and I hope that our role of
facilitating our discussions here will bring us closer to fulfilling our
mandate given to us by the United Nations and the secretary-general.
- Many of you, the secretariat, and a great number of people
around the world have great expectations towards the Panel. We have had a very
short time to complete our work, but we are close to completing it, and that is
quite an achievement since we met for the first time only five months ago.
- But I am also happy to see you here in Oslo since Norway is
such a staunch supporter of the United Nations and an important player in the
activities of the United Nations that are under scrutiny by this panel, its
development, environment and humanitarian activities.
The outcome of our discussions will be awaited with great
anticipation also in this country, and enthusiastic and outspoken friends of
the United Nations have been following our work since we started. They will not
settle for anything but an excellent report, and that is what we are going to
deliver.
But our most important constituency is not the UN in New York, or the Secretary-General, or the friends of the
UN in Norway
or other countries.
Our most important constituency are those millions and
billions who do not enjoy the prosperity and freedoms that many of us take for
granted.
Our most important constituency are those whose life situation
gave rise to the millennium development goals.
Our most important constituency are the millions who right now
wonder how they will make it through this day. – Who do not know where the next
dollar will come from.
Who are often without a voice and without a choice.
Its for the sake of the poor and the destitute that we must
have and efficient Unietd Nations, one that is well governed, well funded and which will remain a global repository of
hope.
That is why we are under an obligation to take a fresh look at
the way we have come to build a fragmented UN, one that risks being weakened,
marginalized and less relevant.
While it has the potential wield great authority.
It is within the UN that we have formulated universal human
rights and overarching development goals.
We have worked within the UN system to abolish
disease such as small-pox,
repressive regimes such as apartheid,
and torture, inhuman and degrading treatement.
Now we are in a situation where more and more people are
struggeling with success to break out of poverty, hundred of millions are
experiencing substantial improvement in their living conditions and prospects
for the future and their children.
But these promises are not universal.
The gaps between the poorest and the not so poor is widening.
We have never had greater capacities to bridge these gaps.
But we cannot allow the
international community to waste resources or to wirg towards the millennium development goals in anything
but the most effective and rewarding way.
Focussing our work , measuring results and showing the world that
development as organized by the United Nations pay high rewards.
That is why we need to be radical, open-minded, in the
recognitions that the most radical steps we can take is to stand still and do
nothing, hoping that the old system will continue to serve us.
