Colombia’s foreign minister calls on the United Nations (U.N.) to focus more upon the needs of the world’s less-developed countries.
Foreign Minister Maria Angela Holguin addressed the U.N. Security Council Friday during a debate on the theme of maintaining peace and the interdependence of security and development.
“Strictly military activities are not sufficient to face the task of achieving a sustainable peace,” she said at the U.N. headquarters in New York.
“Development, peace and security are interrelated and mutually reinforcing,” she said, emphasizing the need for greater focus on “the development dimension of the peacekeeping practice.”
She argued the need for long-term solutions that “avoid the creation of dependency links that discourage development,” indicating that an “immediate emphasis on women and youth can be considered as options that do not conflict with goals of peacekeeping.”
Holguin stressed that the differing financial capabilities of the Security Council members “should not become an obstacle,” concluding that “the United Nations of the 21st century will be relevant as long as it responds to the development needs of great sections of the world’s population.”
Colombia joined the Security Council last month as a non-permanent member for a period of two years.
A full transcript of the foreign minister’s speech in English can be found here.