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Malta Statement at U.N. General Debate (Second Committee)
PR1713
21/10/1996
21/10/1996
| Last Friday morning Ambassador Dr. Joseph Cassar delivered a | Statement during the General Debate of the Second Committee. A summary of Ambassador Dr. Joseph Cassar's statement follows hereunder. |
| "Solidarity and subsidiarity are two primary principles | which inspire the Malta Government's policies as they relate to human development", said the Permanent Representative of Malta to the United Nations, Ambassador Dr. Joseph Cassar, addressing the Second Committee last Friday. |
| Within a general framework which ensures rule of law, respect and | full enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms, Malta has during the past decade transformed its economy into a success story. In so doing care was taken not to deface those positive social support and humanitarian aspects which are characteristic of the Maltese national community. |
| The UNDP's Malta Human Development Report 1996 states that "Government's | drive to liberalise trade, financial services and, to a lesser extent, the labour market ..... have generated private initiative and improved the prerequisites for future economic growth". Government's income redistribution programmes assisted persons in need and avoided stemming entrepreneurship through harmful taxation or overgenerous assistance. The infrastructural capacity had been effectively expanded, while education and health facilities in the public and private sectors have increased. Full employment has been practically achieved "while a shift from the public to the private sector of the labour force has been promoted, through the Government never renouncing its responsibility in overall social policy." |
| The Malta Government had initiated and steered the process of | transforming the Welfare State into a Welfare Society. Education was one of Government's top priorities. Greater and wider participation has been encouraged by Government within the broader social parameters and within the family unit. |
| "The Malta case does seem to display a rather singular | model of deliberate human development policy which has achieved a high degree of success" he said quoting the forward of the Malta Human Development Report. "It illustrates a move form the central planning system of the previous Socialist Government, not to its ideological opposite but to a graduated implementation of integrated resource management and smart partnership between public and non-government enterprise". |
| The human person is central to development. This implied full | respect for the right of each human being to dignity in freedom. Poverty continued to threaten social cohesion. Multilateral and bilateral assistance and the role of the non-government in combatting poverty could not be underestimated. |
| Sustainable development is the culmination of the intrinsic link | which exists between man and his environment. It is the running thread linking the UN World Conferences addressing different aspects of this relationship. |
| The Barbados Programme of Action outlined the particular economic | and environmental conditions of Small Island Developing States. These shared common problems, benefitted from similar strengths and had particular development models. |
| Ambassador Cassar concluded saying that "the socio-economic | progress which Malta has registered during the past decade, rather than inhibit our concern on issues of international and regional development, strengthens our commitment to engage in seeking their resolution. Solidarity demands it of us as a nation and of us all as an international community". |
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