1) Ever since it became a member of the United Nations in 1955, Italy has played a prominent role in pursuing the objectives and affirming the principles of the San Francisco Charter.
Three facts give an idea of the dimensions of Italy's commitment to UN activities:
A) This year Italy is once again the fifth top contributor to the UN regular budget, with a 5.437% scale of assessment, equivalent to $57,191,167;
B) This year Italy is once again the third top contributor of troops to peace-keeping missions, with a total of 8,247 men deployed in the Balkans, the Middle East, and Africa, as well as on UN observer missions to different continents;
C) In 1999 Italy contributed $44,309,454 to the peace-keeping budget,
and it will contribute an estimated $106,000,000 in 2000.
2) Italy has also shown its commitment to the maintenance of international peace and security and to the other objectives cited in article 1, paragraph 2 of the Charter through a number of political initiatives. For example, Italy:
Italy has played a prominent role in efforts to find a solution to the various crises in the Balkans. In their times of need it has always expressed solidarity with the peoples of Africa and the Middle East. Italy has also joined in efforts to bring peace to distant areas, most recently by participating in the INTERFET international force in East Timor, the only country from outside the region to do so.
3) Issues related to economic and social development are a high priority for Italy, which does its utmost to pursue the objectives cited in article 1, paragraph 3 of the Charter, namely: "To achieve international cooperation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion."
In this spirit, the Italian Parliament recently adopted a government-sponsored bill to cancel the foreign debt of the poorest and most highly indebted developing countries. The new law authorizes the cancellation of official bilateral credits for a total value of 12,000 billion liras (approximately 6 billion dollars) over a three-year period, thereby exceeding the commitments that Italy already made within the G-7.
One of the primary beneficiaries of this policy is Africa, the main focus of Italy's development cooperation strategy. In 1999 Italy contributed 1.750 million dollars in official development aid, placing it among the top seven countries in terms of total volume (after Japan, the United States, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands).
To fight underdevelopment and its effects, Italy has abandoned strategies patterned on welfare or targeting only single sectors in favor of the model for its own economic growth, where local communities play an active role. In war-torn areas such as the Balkans, Central America and Africa, the constructive approach of de-centered cooperation helps to mend the social fabric and appease old tensions. Such a strategy would of course be inconceivable without multilateral mechanisms, to which Italy allocates 60 percent of its cooperation resources. Recently Italy decided to promote human development programmes in conjunction with UNDP, IFAD, the ILO and the World Bank, allocating 140 million dollars in the current year alone.
Poverty eradication was one of the key motifs of the Italian presidency of ECOSOC in 1999. Other Italian initiatives in the UN framework pursue this same goal, seeking to achieve sustainable human development, fight all forms of discrimination, and protect the environment through a single, coherent strategy. In this perspective, Italy has allocated funding
4) One of the general functions of the United Nations is to oversee relations between states, elaborating and providing instruments to improve the international environment and help us to face the challenges of a changing world. This means coming up with ideas and defending principles, as well as drafting projects and promoting awareness of the new technologies.
To this end, Italy hosted the Diplomatic Conference in Rome that negotiated and established the Statute of the International Criminal Court. The Italian Government was one of the first to ratify the Statute. It is deeply committed to the preparatory process, which is destined to make this fundamental instrument of international justice become a reality in the near future.
On a different front, Italy has actively promoted a greater awareness at the United Nations of the role played by the new information and communication technologies. Globalization of the economy and society have heightened the risk of dividing countries and peoples along the digital gap rather than bringing them together. To avert such a risk, the new knowledge-based resources and wealth should be mobilized also to benefit developing countries. This is one of the ideas behind the World Television Forum, the annual meeting of international media representatives entering its fifth edition this year. Italy was a founder of this important forum and continues to be one of the top contributors.
5) Finally, Italy has paid constant attention to internal developments in the UN system. In the Working Group on Security Council reform, Italy has played a prominent role, striving to make the Council more transparent, effective, and truly representative of all Member States and their regional groups.
Italy is also pushing for a more equitable balance and more constructive interaction between the chief organs of the United Nations: the Security Council, the General Assembly, and ECOSOC. In particular, ECOSOC should be allowed to fully express its expertise and potential in the economic and social fields. At the same time, the General Assembly deserves recognition of its prerogatives as the supreme organ of the United Nations by giving it the possibility to carry out its tasks of coordination and guidance with greater continuity.
At the present juncture, peace-keeping operations are one of the United Nations' most pressing and sensitive responsibilities. The international community has come to question the purposes, format and mandates of peace-keeping missions, all while demanding UN intervention on a greater variety of fronts. This debate requires a contribution of ideas from all member States and all the UN bodies. Italy is doing its part, realizing as it does that the Security Council and the UN as a whole can only continue to be effective through a profound evolution in their ways and their thinking.
The need to reform the United Nations extends beyond the exercise on the Security Council. The challenge before us is to renew and reinvigorate the United Nations action in vital areas such as:
