United Nations General Assembly
Fifty-Eighth Session, 3rd Plenary Meeting,
Monday 22 September, 2003
It is my pleasure to congratulate you, Sir, as a son of the Caribbean, on your historic election to preside over the General Assembly at its fifty-eight session.
We are currently in the throes of a historic transition in humankind’s affairs. On a scale never before contemplated nor experienced, the energies and the resources of a significant portion of the international global community are increasingly being deployed to fight the terrorist threat to global security.
As such, the great goals of global development — the eradication of poverty and relief from hunger — are hardly being achieved and appear to be less than urgently addressed.
There is, however, an enduring moral agenda from which we dare not withdraw. For it is indeed a sobering thought that, over and above the social havoc that the HIV/AIDS pandemic has wrought, it offers itself as a greater threat to global economic stability and development than market failures and policy disturbances. There is now, therefore, a moral obligation for all of us to declare and to treat the HIV/AIDS pandemic as what it is — the single greatest threat to human security.
We must also now dare to think of the health of the whole human race as a realizable objective. For he who has health has hope, and he who has hope has everything.
I am here today to reaffirm Barbados’ pledge to support the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals and the Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS, adopted at the General Assembly’s twenty-sixth special session, in 2001. As a founding member of the Pan-Caribbean Partnership against HIV/AIDS, we wish to renew our commitment to work in harmony with our neighbours to relieve our region of a threat to stability and security which is exceeded only by that faced by sub-Saharan Africa. My presence here today also signals in the strongest possible way the resolve of an entire nation and people to spare no effort in countering our nation’s single greatest threat.
My country’s experience points to the fact that with the requisite effort the war against HIV/AIDS can be won. Early in 2001 my Government initiated an expanded, multi-sectoral response to the pandemic. It included investing the Prime Minister’s Office with responsibility for giving strategic direction to our national programme and for overseeing the implementation of initiatives at the ministerial level. We have also forged new creative partnerships across all our civil society, geared to achieving the goals of a 50 per cent reduction in mortality by 2004 and a 50 per cent reduction in incidence by 2006.
We are providing highly active antiretroviral therapy free of cost to all our eligible citizens living with HIV/AIDS. After the first year of this expanded national programme, I am pleased to report that the deaths from AIDS in Barbados have been reduced by 43 per cent. We have also achieved a six-fold reduction in mother-to-child transmission, maintaining levels of less than 6 per cent transmission over five years. We recognize, however, that we have much still to accomplish.
Having made great strides at the level of treatment, we must now strengthen our programme of prevention, putting our emphasis on activities to induce behaviour change. For, ultimately, the only successful way by which to win wars is to prevent them from occurring in the first place.
My Government also proclaims its dedication to the creation and enforcement of supportive laws, full empowerment of the HIV/AIDS community and the eradication of AIDS-related stigma and discrimination.
We are resolutely committed to the global fight against HIV/AIDS, and we urge the replenishment of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. As a mark of that commitment, my Government therefore today pledges to contribute $100,000 to the Global Fund.
Let us go forward together in this battle, fortified by the conviction that those who labour in the service of a great and good cause will never fail. I am obliged to you.