General debate of the eighty-first session of the United Nations General Assembly Mr. Secretary-General of the United Nations; Mr. President of the United Nations General Assembly; Excellencies Heads of State and Government; distinguished delegations; ladies and gentlemen: There was a time when, in my country, fear had more authority than the law. Families experienced it when they stopped going out at night, merchants when they paid in order to be able to work. Young people to whom a gun was offered before a diploma.
We decided that would not be Ecuador’s destiny, and we have acted with determination. But along that path we learned something that I have come to share with you: no State defeats alone an enemy that recognizes no borders.
The weapons that reach our streets have crossed several countries. The money that finances the mafias is laundered far from where the crime is committed. The routes of drug trafficking, trafficking in persons and illegal mining cross continents. Criminals have already globalized their cooperation. They share routes, logistics, finances and technology, without formalities, without distrust and without delay.
It is unacceptable that criminal organizations cooperate among themselves more effectively than States do. That is the reality that the United Nations must recognize and assume.
For a long time, organized crime was treated as a police problem. Today we know that it is more than that. When it controls territories and penetrates institutions, it supplants legitimate authority, erodes the rule of law and destabilizes entire societies. And when that occurs in several countries at the same time, it ceases to be an internal matter: it becomes a threat to international peace and security.
I say this clearly: we are not asking others to act in place of States. We are asking for cooperation upon request, with full respect for the sovereignty of each nation and with results that can be measured. That is why Ecuador today proposes three concrete actions: First, an international mechanism, within the framework of the United Nations, to trace and freeze the illicit financial flows of transnational organized crime. If money is the fuel of these networks, let us cut it off wherever it circulates.
Second, a permanent platform for the exchange of information among police forces, prosecutors’ offices and financial intelligence units, enabling States to anticipate rather than react.
Third, that the UN80 initiative incorporate transnational organized crime as a conflict-prevention priority, and endow the Organization with the capacity to support States that request it.
These are proposals that Ecuador is prepared to advance, together with all countries that wish to join.
Excellencies: Security is not an end in itself. It is the condition for a country to be able to flourish, and today we are experiencing a crisis of the soul. Restoring security means restoring the future. It means that a young person can choose a university instead of being trapped by a criminal gang. That a family can open a business without fear. That a company can invest and create jobs. That institutions respond to citizens and not to illicit interests.
That is why the success of an economy is measured not only by how much production grows, but by how much poverty it reduces. It is measured in young people with decent jobs, in children with better education, in citizens who build their future with dignity. And that measure must also guide the international development agenda.
Middle-income countries face vulnerabilities that per capita income does not reflect. We ask that access to cooperation and financing be defined by fairer vulnerability criteria, and that the international financial architecture support the efforts of those who undertake reforms.
We believe in open, predictable and equitable trade. When a producer can export, innovate and grow, there is a family rising out of poverty. The best social policy is the one that generates opportunities and income for all.
Mr. President: I come from a country small in territory and great in nature. The Galápagos Islands, where Darwin found the clues to the evolution of life, are the heritage of all humanity. And today they are also threatened by illegal fishing networks that operate with the same logic and the same finances as other organized crimes.
The same is true of illegal mining in the Amazon, which destroys forests and finances the mafias.
Protecting nature is also a security task. Ecuador will continue to fulfil that responsibility and invites everyone to join in it. Latin America and the Caribbean is a region of talent, of energy, of food, of strategic resources and, above all, of a youth determined to build a different future. It is a region that does not come to this Assembly to ask for solutions from others, but to offer its own. And one of the greatest tests of the future is artificial intelligence.
It can transform education, multiply productivity and close historic gaps. But it can also deepen inequalities or serve those who seek to weaken our institutions.
We need international governance that makes it possible to innovate without renouncing our values, and that does not leave behind those with fewer resources to access this technology.
Excellencies: Confidence in the multilateral system is undergoing a difficult test. We receive many questions in the fight against organized crime and very few questions about the number of victims we are having from organized crime. Many citizens see a gap between what is agreed here and what they experience in their daily lives. Closing that gap is the task of our generation. As a founding State, Ecuador believes in the United Nations. And precisely for that reason, it wants an Organization capable of responding to today’s world, not that of 1945.
To support the United Nations is also the will to transform them. That is why we support the UN80 initiative and invite it to answer with courage an essential question: What United Nations does the world of today need? We need a more efficient Organization, with the capacity to prevent, resolve crises and help States in the face of threats that did not exist when it was created. An Organization whose legitimacy depends not only on the decisions it adopts, but on the way in which it adopts them. And we need the Charter and International Law to continue to be our common language.
More than eighty years ago, countries understood that peace could not depend on the power of each one, and they built institutions in order to cooperate. That remains our greatest strength.
The citizens of the world will not judge this Organization by its declarations. They will judge it by its capacity to turn commitments into peace and security, into respect for human rights and into real opportunities for development. By how many lives we truly save.
Mr. President: The mafias have already coordinated. It is up to us to do better. Ecuador comes to this Assembly to defend collective solutions, because no country can build by itself a secure, prosperous and sustainable future. And because when international cooperation works, we are all stronger.
Thank you very much.
DANIEL NOBOA AZIN Constitutional President of the Republic of Ecuador