September 12, 2000
With a mandate from the world's leaders, ministers from 189 countries open a two-week meeting Tuesday to start implementing their agenda: to give billions of people a better life in the 21st century.
Coming on the heels of last week's historic Millennium Summit, the annual General Assembly debate is expected to provide an initial indication of how committed governments are to the goals they agreed to in the eight-page summit declaration. U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine were among the speakers scheduled for Tuesday morning's opening session.
In the Millennium Summit Declaration, 147 heads of state and government and dozens of other top officials vowed to send every child to primary school and deliver millions from destitution by 2015. By that date, they pledged to halt the spread of AIDS, malaria and other major diseases. The leaders also called for a major overhaul of U.N. peacekeeping operations.
"It is a vision for the new century," said former Finnish prime minister Harri Holkeri, the president of the 55th General Assembly session, which started last week. "The General Assembly has got the very clear message from the summit that the task of the General Assembly will now be the follow-up of the summit.
"We have to avoid a business-as-usual mentality," Holkeri said. "We must keep this momentum going and the spirit alive, and we must start today - not tomorrow."
He urged the General Assembly to give "immediate priority" to the recommendations of a U.N. panel on peacekeeping reform. He also asked delegates to implement proposals to bridge the so-called digital divide, using information technology to lift millions of people out of poverty. But the United Nations and governments cannot achieve the goals and targets in the declaration alone, he stressed. He said they must reach out to others, including grass-roots organizations and the private sector.
