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Lead by example, Annan tells Canada
OTTAWA - Canada must lead by example in places like Haiti, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan told a joint session of Parliament on Tuesday.
"Only through a long-term commitment to help the country can stability and prosperity be assured," Annan said in a morning address.
"Half-hearted efforts of the past have been insufficient. We cannot afford to fail this time."
The secretary general said international efforts in developing countries represent the best defence against security threats that are born in conditions of poverty and violence.
The commitment by developed countries can succeed if countries like Canada act in concert, he said.
"What we need is a new global consensus," Annan said. "The decisions needed to make our organization more effective will require a high degree of political will among member states – the will to achieve necessary change, but also to make it possible by compromise.
"Here too, Canada, with its long tradition of bridge-building among different international constituencies, can play an important role."
Annan cited commitments by Canada and other countries to the UN's Millennium Development goals, a set of time-specific targets for tackling the world's ills, including pledges to halve extreme poverty and hunger by 2015.
He said those pledges had been overshadowed by violence in North America and abroad, and urged all countries to renew their efforts at fighting poverty and HIV/AIDS in the developing world.
In a reference to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, he said global security could only be assured in a world where all countries act together.
Prime Minister Paul Martin struck a number of the same notes in an address welcoming Annan to the House of Commons.
"These are not easy times," he said. "The threat of terrorism, the growing gap between the world's rich and the world's poor, the need to protect our global communities against the ravages of pollution and senseless exploitation, the responsibility to protect: These are the challenges we face and they all require nations to shoulder their global responsibility and to work together.
"And at the centre of it all lies the United Nations," Martin said. "If it doesn't work, then more and more people will be left behind."
Written by CBC News Online staff
Kofi Annan's speech in the House of Commons.
OTTAWA - Canada must lead by example in places like Haiti, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan told a joint session of Parliament on Tuesday.
"Only through a long-term commitment to help the country can stability and prosperity be assured," Annan said in a morning address.
"Half-hearted efforts of the past have been insufficient. We cannot afford to fail this time."
The secretary general said international efforts in developing countries represent the best defence against security threats that are born in conditions of poverty and violence.
The commitment by developed countries can succeed if countries like Canada act in concert, he said.
"What we need is a new global consensus," Annan said. "The decisions needed to make our organization more effective will require a high degree of political will among member states – the will to achieve necessary change, but also to make it possible by compromise.
"Here too, Canada, with its long tradition of bridge-building among different international constituencies, can play an important role."
Annan cited commitments by Canada and other countries to the UN's Millennium Development goals, a set of time-specific targets for tackling the world's ills, including pledges to halve extreme poverty and hunger by 2015.
He said those pledges had been overshadowed by violence in North America and abroad, and urged all countries to renew their efforts at fighting poverty and HIV/AIDS in the developing world.
In a reference to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, he said global security could only be assured in a world where all countries act together.
Prime Minister Paul Martin struck a number of the same notes in an address welcoming Annan to the House of Commons.
"These are not easy times," he said. "The threat of terrorism, the growing gap between the world's rich and the world's poor, the need to protect our global communities against the ravages of pollution and senseless exploitation, the responsibility to protect: These are the challenges we face and they all require nations to shoulder their global responsibility and to work together.
"And at the centre of it all lies the United Nations," Martin said. "If it doesn't work, then more and more people will be left behind."
Written by CBC News Online staff
Kofi Annan's speech in the House of Commons.