With every country facing some sort of crisis, the world is in need of solutions, Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu has told the UN General Assembly.
Leaders from all over the world gathered in New York this week for the 79th session of the UNGA and a “Summit of the Future” dedicated to sustainable development goals.
“Humanity is in deep trouble facing an ever-growing list of crises,” Muizzu told the UN chamber on Tuesday. “Conflict. Poverty. Hunger. Climate change. The wealth gap. The cost of living crisis, migration, occupation, Opioid addiction, the list goes on and on and on…”
The Maldivian president held up a map of “countries in crisis” that showed every single nation labeled in red, facing various problems.
“We need Nations United in harmony, not United Nations in misery,” said Muizzu.
Noting that “development is destiny,” Muizzu laid out a vision of where he wanted to see the Maldives by 2040, as a country that is relevant, resilient, commands respect, is inclusive and just, and “exemplifies sustainability and democratic governance.”
To do so, however, Maldives would need support from the world community – which the UN, in its current form, seems either unwilling or unable to provide, Muizzu argued. He criticized the world body’s “inability to stop climate change and environmental degradation; inability to stop war and genocide; inability to stop exploitation and suffering; inability to stop unequal representation.”
UN members who committed to the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015 have fallen to deliver, Muizzu noted, and appear to be on track “in less than a fifth” of the targets set. The “Pact for the Future” agreed earlier this week may meet the same fate, he warned.
“I’m sorry but we can’t keep doing this. We can’t keep meeting, talking, pledging but not doing,” said the Maldivian president.
Muizzu also condemned the “genocide” carried out by Israel in Gaza, calling for the UN to make Palestine a full member and help establish “a sovereign and independent Palestinian State on the pre-1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital.”
The archipelago of some 1,100 islands southwest of India is the smallest country in Asia, with a population of just over 515,000, of which almost 99% are Muslims.