Prime Minister John Briceño Address 77th United Nations General Assembly
Just before news time, Prime Minister John Briceño addressed the Seventy -Seventh United Nations General Assembly at the U.N. Headquarters in New York. At the opening of his address, P.M. Briceño discussed the ongoing international conflict between Ukraine and Russia, the rise in global poverty rates, food security, and the climate crisis that Small Island Developing States like Belize are fighting. Here are those remarks.
Prime Minister John Briceño
Prime Minister John Briceño
“Mr. President I take this podium with a heavy heart, more pessimistic than I was last year, more cynical and disappointed. We have come to depend on the multilateral system that has as its center the charter of this our untied Nations. Where is the collective will to adequately address the challenges of our time? Where is the shared conviction to work together for the betterment of mankind? Where is the hope? Today there are conflicts of several continents. Geopolitical tensions are heightened. The unjustified, unprovoked, and illegal attack on Ukraine by the Russian Federation has shaken the foundations of the multilateral system. This is wrong. The consequential crises we face are not confined to the battle field in Europe. They are global and affect us all. Democratic norms and human rights even where thought to firmly rooted are being rolled back. Poverty is on the increase. The planet is being destroyed by climate change, and inter-lateral cooperation and solidarity has been supplanted by nationalism and unilateralism. Global market prices for good remain volatile, reaching historic highs this year. The lingering impacts of the COVID 19 pandemic have contributed to skyrocketing inflations. These economic realities exacerbate and already acute social situation in Belize. Poverty is estimated to have risen by twenty percent between 2018 and 2021. Forty five point five percent of Belizeans are estimated to be moderately to severely food insecure and homicides are on the rise again. The post pandemic recovery we anticipated is delayed. And the choruses of promises and commitments to pivot towards building back better, to getting the recover right, have yielded little. Instead, global action and inaction have only resulted in deepening the global crises that we are facing.”
We will air the entirety of the Prime Minister’s Address following tonight’s newscast.
