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Key Text A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility

Author: United Nations Secretariat
Date: 2004
Size: 61 pages (31 KB)

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Summary

The changes that have taken place in the world since the Millennium Declaration demand that consensus be revitalised on key challenges and priorities. What are these and how can they best be achieved? This report, by United Nations Secretariat, argues that security, development and human rights must be advanced together, otherwise none will succeed. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) can be met by 2015, but only if all governments dramatically increase their efforts.

There can be no security without development, nor can there be development without security. Mostly importantly, there cannot be either security or development without respect for human rights. The world needs strong and capable states, effective partnerships with civil society and the private sector. It also needs agile and effective regional and global intergovernmental institutions to mobilise and coordinate collective action. The United Nations must be reshaped in ways not previously imagined and with a boldness and speed not previously shown. The cause of larger freedom can only be achieved by broad, deep and sustained global cooperation among states.

The last 25 years have seen the most dramatic reduction in extreme poverty the world has ever experienced. Yet dozens of countries have become poorer.

More than a billion people still live on less than a dollar a day. Each year, three million people die from HIV/AIDS and 11 million children die before reaching their fifth birthday.
The threats to peace and security include not just international war and conflict, but terrorism, organised crime and civil violence. They also include poverty, disease and environmental degradation.
These threats can cause death or lessen life chances on a large scale. All of them can undermine the state as the basic unit of the international system.
A great deal has been achieved since 1997 in reforming the internal structures and culture of the United Nations, but changes are needed, both in the executive branch and in the UN's intergovernmental organs.

In 2005, a global partnership for development needs to be fully implemented. The following are priority areas for action:

Each country with extreme poverty should begin to implement a national development strategy bold enough to meet the MDG targets for 2015. Global development assistance must be more than doubled.
The Doha negotiations should fulfil their development promise and be completed by 2006. Debt sustainability should be redefined as the level of debt that allows a country to achieve the MDGs without increasing debt ratios.
States should commit to an anti-terrorism strategy. The Security Council should adopt a resolution on the principles relating to the use of force. Progress should be made on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation.
Member states should create an inter-governmental Peacebuilding Commission so that the UN can help countries complete the transition from war to peace.
The international community should acknowledge the responsibility to protect. The human rights treaty bodies of the UN should be more effective and responsive.
The Secretary-General will create a cabinet-style decision-making mechanism. He requests Member States to give him the authority and resources to do this.

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Source: United Nations Secretary General, 2004, 'A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility', Report of the Secretary-General's High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change
Author: United Nations (UN), http://www.un.org