Mr. President,

Permit me to join previous speakers in congratulating you on your election as President of the 64th Session of the General Assembly.

Your long and distinguished service to your country and Africa gives us the confidence that we are in experienced and capable hands.

I also wish to express my delegation’s appreciation to your predecessor, His Excellency Mr. Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, for the able manner with which he presided over the 63rd Session of the General Assembly.

Mr. President,

This year marks the centenary of the birth of an illustrious son of Ghana and Africa, our first President, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, under whose leadership Ghana became a member of the United Nations on March 8, 1957, only two days after achieving Independence.

We recall Dr. Nkrumah’s proclamation before this august body on 23rd September, 1960, during the 15th Session, that “the United Nations was the only organization that holds out any hope for the future of mankind.”

It was at the same session that he also called for the reform of the Security Council in order to bring it in line with a rapidly changing world.

More than forty years have since passed, and those views remain relevant.

Mr. President,

Then, as now, Africa faced deep crisis with profound and far-reaching implications for international peace and stability.

Today, the combined effects of climate change, high food and energy prices and the current financial and economic crisis threaten to erode the modest but hard earned economic growth and democratic achievements of the last two decades.

Africa remains volatile, and violent conflicts still persist.
Therefore, we must all support the United Nations and its regional allies, such as the African Union, to live up to these and other pressing challenges facing the international community.

 

Mr. President,

We acknowledge that globalization has expanded and accelerated economic interdependence among states.

In contrast, the benefits of globalization have been negligible in the majority of developing countries and their economies have not been transformed in any significant manner.

Despite almost a decade of impressive growth of about 5 percent, only a few countries have been able to reduce the proportion of their population living on less than US$1 per day.

Consequently, most of the countries remain susceptible to various external shocks which continue to pose threats to their growth.

In fact, the over-reliance on high commodity prices and mineral exports has not lessened, but rather exposed the structural impediments to food security.

This is particularly true of sub-Saharan Africa where the on-going world financial and economic crisis threatens to erode decades of modest growth and thereby make the Millennium Development Goals unattainable in any meaningful way.

Ghana, therefore, reiterates her support for a global integration that ensures inclusive and equitable development and effectively contributes to substantial poverty alleviation, including full and productive employment as well as broad access to social services.

A number of developing countries, including those in Africa, have taken various steps to mitigate the impact of the financial crisis on their economies, including interest rate reductions, recapitalization of financial institutions, increasing liquidity to banks, trade policy changes, and regulatory reforms.

In Ghana, fiscal restraint has been exercised in response to the crisis, including cutting all low priority public spending and shifting the balance from recurrent expenditure to infrastructure investment.