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Your
Majesty,
Your Royal
Highnesses, the Prince of Orange and Princess Máxima,
Ladies and
Gentlemen,
It is a great honour for me to be able to receive
this award today. I am particularly privileged to receive this award
in the presence of Her Majesty the Queen and the other members of the
Royal Family - a family which is so closely associated with the cause
of the protection of Nature and sustainable development.
Throughout my life, I have had the privilege to
serve people who have elected me to carry out a programme, a mandate
or a mission. As a young Minister of the Environment, as Prime
Minister of my country, as Chair of the World Commission on
Environment and Development or as Director-General of the World Health
Organization – in all of these functions, my objective has been to
take forward a notion which, to me, encapsulates the very purpose of
sustainable development: human opportunity.
- Opportunity for each individual to realize his and her full
potential, free of discrimination, free of hunger and disease and
fully enjoying fundamental human rights.
- Opportunity for communities to forge a true sense of belonging
and solidarity. Opportunity for the nations of the world to build
common security for today’s generations and those to come.
- And opportunity for the world to chart a course of sustainable
development – a vision in which we aim at leaving future
generations with at least the same opportunities that we have
enjoyed.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, more than most, personifies
this notion that the individual can make a difference. His work,
together with that of Eleanor Roosevelt, is a testament to our triumph
of will and creativity over the shackles of determinism and fatalism.
Against the odds, this couple helped shape the world over a crucial
decade. In so doing, they infused it with a humanism which to this day
influences the way we think about our responsibilities for each other
and especially for those who are worse off.
As we all know, President Roosevelt suffered from
polio, a debilitating disease which marked him throughout his life -
although he never let it stop him. But polio can also stand as an
illustration of what determined action and committed partnership can
achieve. Today, we are on course to eliminate polio world-wide. By
2005, we should be able to rid the world of this disease for ever.
That is indeed an achievement in the spirit of Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Your Majesty,
In this first decade of a new century, I believe
that the fight against poverty is the central global cause. Our human
opportunity must be used to create a world where we all can live with
dignity. We must do this without undermining future generations’
ability to do the same.
Some would disagree, saying the main global
priority must be security, stability and peace. I see no contradiction
between the two.
As world leaders are struggling to chart a course
towards a more stable, secure and peaceful world, they need to fully
realize the importance of reducing poverty, suffering and inequity.
A world in which only a privileged few have access
to the fruits of the technological revolution is a world which will
become ever more insecure. In the past, desperate conditions on
another continent might cynically be written out of one’s memory.
The process of globalization has already made such an option
impossible.
Moreover, it is now very clear that improving health
plays a central role in the work to jump-start development where there
now is none, to accelerate it where the process is slow and to reduce
inequalities where they are too large.
Poor people will only be able to prosper, and
emerge from poverty, if they enjoy better health. Health has to be at
the heart of our struggle for sustainable development. This is the
message I will bring to the World Summit on Sustainable Development in
Johannesburg later this year.
We must act now. If we wait another decade, our
task will have become overwhelming. HIV/AIDS will have engulfed China,
India, large parts of the states that make up the former Soviet Union,
and Eastern Europe – dwarfing the scale of the current epidemic in
Africa. Many medicines may have lost their potency due to growing
drug-resistant strains. Tobacco-use will have spread to large
populations in the developing world, causing suffering, early death
and economic burdens these nations cannot afford. Other
lifestyle-determined diseases will have added another large stone to
the burden of disease for these countries. The effects of global
warming, pollution and losses in bio-diversity may have increased the
number of natural disasters, changed our climate, raised the level of
the oceans and increased the level of disease.
But we have the knowledge to turn this development
around.
The world's children are key to the healthy future
of our planet and its people. I therefore announce today a major new
WHO initiative to make the environments in which the world's children
live healthier - and thus safer. This initiative, which will be called
Safer and Healthier Futures for Children, will address the main
threats in the environment to children's health. WHO will work with
all who are concerned with the well-being of children, and who share a
commitment to health equity and sustained development.
Your Majesty,
I am confident we will succeed in our work to
create a planet where future generations can thrive in peace and
dignity. We have the resources, if we determine to use them
right. We have the ability to achieve the unachievable. As the
anthropologist Margaret Mead once said: "Never doubt that a small
group of thoughtful citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the
only thing that ever has."
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