Statement by the Representative of the Cuban Delegation Luis Alberto Amoros Núñez
Items 55: Social development. a): Implementation of the outcome of the World Summit for Social Development and of the twenty-fourth special session of the General Assembly; b) Social development, including questions relating to the world social situation and to youth, ageing, disabled persons and the family; c) United Nations Literacy Decade: education for all; d) Follow up to the International Year of Older Persons: Second World Assembly on ageing. e) Review and appraisal of the World Program of Action Concerning
Disabled Persons.
Third Committee, 6 October 2008
Mr. Chairman,
Allow me to congratulate you and the rest of the Bureau for your election. I also wish to join the statement by Antigua and Barbuda on behalf of the G-77.
Mr. Chairman,
More than a decade ago, in the World Summit for Social Development, leaders from all over the world agreed on the urgency of solving the terrible and alarming social problems prevailing in the countries in the South. We commit ourselves there to enhancing social development for all. In that Summit, Cuba was pessimistic concerning the possibility of achieving this goal and, with sorrow, we are certain now we were absolutely right. Today, we have a much more unfair and unequal world than it was in 1995.
Our commitments in Copenhagen were not and will not be met because the level of international self-interest, the injustice, the hegemonic pretensions, the inequity, the wastefulness and consumerism out of proportion of a few, those who have more, continue to prevail and deepen. At the same time, those who survive with less than 1 dollar a day rise up to 1.4 billion and the figure of starving people rises up to 925 million, figure that is expected to rise with the food crisis.
To change this situation, mainly related to the developing world, we need the political will of those who, having plenty of money, refuse to meet their commitments and to abandon their privileges and wastefulness so that millions in the developing countries can decently eat, learn how to read and write or just work. There will be absolutely no change in the exclusion of 80% of world’s population if we do not transform this unsustainable world order contributing to the perpetuation of the misery of the South and if the right of the peoples to be beneficiary of international solidarity and special and differentiated treatment for the developing countries is not recognized.
When addressing the commitment of ensuring employment for all, we confirmed the unfair international reality imposed by the powerful countries is the root cause that more than 1.5 billion people in working age, mainly in developing countries, are unemployed or underemployed, including 200 millions unemployed, as well as the fact that 50 to 70% of the workers in developing countries work in the informal sector.
In the face of this situation, 80% of the world population has no adequate social protection, while 50% has no coverage at all, as illustrated by the Secretary General in his report A/63/133.
There will only be tangible and relevant progress for our countries, when the powerful nations that enjoy fully and wastefully the outrageous inequalities meet their commitments with respect to Official Development Assistance instead of assigning only 0.28% of their Gross National Income to this contribution.
We will only have progress when we, developing countries, stop using practically 18% of our exports to pay an external debt we have paid several times.
We will only have progress when the powerful countries who made the Doha Round fail in the WTO stop subsidizing their agricultural productions with more than 250 billion dollars, spending three dollars a day in subsides for their cows, while more than one sixth of humankind survives with less than one. These fierce advocators of neoliberalism, applied only to our countries, who currently promote ambitious public intervention measures in their financial system previously contraindicated for our countries, should allow the establishment of a really fair, non discriminatory, and equitable trade international system.
Mr. Chairman,
Since 1959, Cuba undertook socio-economic changes in order to build up a just and solidarity-driven society, facing all the threats, aggressions and a criminal and long blockade by the United States which has been stepped up in the last few years to reaffirm itself as the main obstacle for a more accelerated social advancement in Cuba. This policy is imposed with all severity even in the current circumstances when Cuba was just lashed by two intense hurricanes that have devastated its agriculture and seriously affected part of its infrastructure and damaged or completely destroyed more than 400 thousand houses.
However, thanks to our work of equity and welfare, justice and dignity, we have harmonized economic development with social development, without abandoning any citizen, even in the hardest times as the one we face now.
Therefore, the entire Cuban population has access to free health care and education, has a life expectancy of more than 77 years, an infant mortality rate of 5.3 per a thousand live births, our children are protected against 13 preventable diseases, there is a 100% primary schooling and 99% secondary schooling. Eight hundred forty-two thousand Cubans, over 7% of the population, are university graduates, and 750 thousand adults are studying in our universities. More than 95% of the country is electrified and Cuba has already achieved the condition of full employment, with a 1.9% rate.
More than two thirds of the State’s budget is devoted to advance education, health, social security and assistance, culture, sports and scientific and technical research. Moreover, we are implementing more than 200 social programs to continue improving the most varied social development areas.
Mr. Chairman,
By way of genuine cooperation to contribute to the advance of social development, more than 270 thousand Cuban collaborators have rendered cooperation services in 154 countries since 1961. Today, 41 thousand Cuban healthcare, sports and education professionals provide their cooperation services in 97 nations and 6 overseas territories of Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe and North America; more than 31 thousand of them from the area of healthcare in 71 countries.
We have also developed a scholarships program which has benefited tens of thousands youths from the Third World, including almost 23 thousand studying medicine in Cuba today. We have undertaken a program through which over hundreds of thousands blind foreign patients have been operated on and given back their vision, completely free of charge. We have also undertaken programs to provide advice on literacy and intermediate-level education and other activities in countries of different development levels all over the world.
Mr. Chairman,
Only if the ruling self-interest is put to an end and solidarity breaks through, without vain promises, we could create a world less unequal and better for all.
Thank you very much.
(Cubaminrex- Embacuba ONU)