Business Daily Africa - the international window into East African busin... http://www.bdafrica.com/index2.php?option=com_content&task=view... Tuesday, 30 October 2007 [NAIROBI] HOME INVESTMENT & BANKING ECONOMY TOURISM NEWS CONSUMER INSIGHT INFRASTRUCTURE TECHNOLOGY BUSINESS LIFE OPINION & ANALYSIS COLUMNISTS THE EDGE AGRIBUSINESS IN THE NEWSPAPER NATION MEDIA About Us | Subscribe | Contact us | Advertise UN should change for better results Written by Ban Ki-Moon search... October 29, 2007: The year ahead will be among the most challenging in our history. Our work begins, in earnest, with this proposed programme budget of $4.2 billion, broadly in line with what the General Assembly has approved. It represents real growth of $23 million over the previous biennium, or half a percentage point. That is not much, considering the demands upon us. Think of what the coming year will bring. Darfur peace talks open this weekend in Libya, in advance of yet another major peacekeeping deployment. We face difficult diplomatic and security challenges in Lebanon, Somalia, Myanmar and the Democratic Republic of the Congo -- to name but a few. And, of course, there are longer-term challenges: alleviating global poverty, especially in Africa; ongoing Ban Ki Moon humanitarian crises; human rights violations; and our global fight against climate change and HIV/AIDS. Never has the world so needed a strong United Nations. Yet, never have our resources been stretched so thin. This requires careful fiscal management. It means balancing varied and often conflicting priorities. It demands, absolutely, that we change ourselves from within -- to make our United Nations faster, more flexible and more efficient in delivering better results with the limited assets at our disposal. In doing all this, let us bear in mind a fundamental principle: there is an unbreakable link between peace, human rights and development -- the three pillars of our work. You cannot have one without the others. They go hand in hand, part of an organic whole. If we lose sight of this fact, we cannot hope to achieve our goals. This is a year of immense opportunity --to build a stronger UN for a better world. To deliver on this vision, we must modernise ourselves. We need to think freshly about our work and how we get it done. Together, we have already begun the difficult work of institutional strengthening and reform. We have reorganised our worldwide peacekeeping operations. Now it's time to turn our attention to conflict prevention and peacebuilding, with special emphasis on Africa, Asia and the Middle East. We are at the midpoint of our 2015 timeline for achieving the Millennium Development Goals. I expect the Africa MDG Steering Group to help set the agenda. Many international commitments were made at places like Gleneagles and Heiligendamm. We need to move beyond promises and put up the money for those in need. Ki-Moon is the United Nations Secretary General SPONSORED LINKS Close Window © Cpyright 2000-2007 by Nation Media Group. All rights reserved. About Us | Nation Media | Advertise 1 of 1 10/30/2007 12:19 PM