By: Staff Writer
October 1, 2024
Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Mottley said at her United Nations 79th General Assembly speech that the world needs a “reset,” from the various different crises, from climate change to pandemic related fallout to the multiple wars spanning the globe.
Mottley also said: “As the children of Mother Earth, we continue to wrestle with the climate crisis. As a human family, we grapple with the legacy of the pandemic. As a digitally connected people, we are now regrettably confronted by multiple theatres of war and scenes of horror and famine flowing from that war.
“Armed conflict instead of pursued development. Citizens of every country as well, struggling to contain the rising cost of living and the implications for them and their families on a day-to-day basis. And Mr. President, we are all now threatened by the second but silent pandemic of antimicrobial resistance together with a growing incidence of death and disability from chronic non-communicable diseases.
“We cannot afford the distraction of war. If ever there was a time to pause and to reset, it is now. Collectively as an international community and individually as leaders in each of our countries, we must now deliver new opportunities and solutions to these crises which dampen economic growth, which restrict the ambitions of our people and numb our sense of the beauty and goodness that the world ought to be offering because it has it to offer.”
She added: “The reset for which I’m calling and indeed all of our citizens are demanding must see an end to all forms of discrimination. That rules and institutions today exist which create first and second class citizens as we have said from this podium year after year. Depending on your nation of origin, militate against the trust and the credibility and the hope and it fosters a crisis of confidence in the existing international order which must become inclusive and responsive for all.”
Mottley then pivoted to the plight of the African diaspora, “Much has been achieved but the recognition the justice and the development for people of African descent that was promised by this decade has to say the least not yet been fully realized and it is for this reason that the Caribbean community joins the growing chorus and my own country in particular for the immediate proclamation of a second decade to complete the unfinished work and address the matter of reparations for slavery and colonialism.
“I start here because this is a necessary but complex conversation and the Caribbean community is resolute that it must happen. Its resolution lies and I want to be very clear its resolution lies in a multi-generational approach in the same way that the 20 million pound sterling debt that was incurred by the British government only was repaid in this 21st century almost 200 years later so that the notion of unaffordability becomes a non-issue once we recognize that the solution to reparations must be multi-generational and grounded in development.
“Mr. President of necessity the reset must also be characterized by institutional reform which has to start in the United Nations councils. These councils suggest that some are full members and others are only part members and some may be part-time members and some may be occasional members.”