Message by UN Resident Coordinator Yeşim Oruç on UN day 2023

It marks the entry into force of the UN Charter – built on the three pillars of peace, development, and human rights. On this UN Day, we are reminded that it is ultimately the actions of people and of countries that uphold the UN – the only global organization which belongs to all nations, to all people.   

First peace. Peace is not just the absence of wars. It is the outcome of actions of countries using the timeless tools of diplomacy and dialogue, underpinned by. international law, to prevent conflict. Guyana will soon take a seat on the UN Security Council, thus associating itself unequivocally with the ambition, and with actions for peace. I anticipate too that Guyana will use its influence at the UN to urge the organization to front up to new threats to global security that come from climate change and food insecurity. In so doing, Guyana will play a critical role in upholding the UN Charter in the face of grave geopolitical tensions and ongoing wars.

Second, development. Recently, Guyana presented its progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a set of global goals representing humanity’s aspirations for a better world. Guyana’s authorities called on the world’s wealthiest countries to live up to their financing promises, whilst laying out accomplishments and strategies of Guyana’s own progress towards the SDGs. No doubt work must continue, there are no shortcuts to development. But Guyana’s budgetary and planning frameworks decisively anchor national policy in the global goals.

Finally, rights. The government and civil society of Guyana engage actively with the UN’s human rights fora and UN treaty bodies – increasingly through institutional processes such as the National Mechanism for Reporting and Follow-up. These engagements, as in the case of all democratic societies, are complex. And working with and through these UN bodies entails processes of sometimes difficult examinations. But the process is working.  

We at the UN do not take for granted Guyana’s continued and expanding engagement with the UN’s peace, development, and human rights mechanisms. Our multilateral system depends precisely on this kind of engagement and action from all its member states so that it can withstand the many assaults it faces.  

Next year, the UN Secretary-General will convene the Summit of the Future. That Summit will be all about strengthening the multilateral system, with the UN at its core, to reaffirm existing commitments, including to the SDGs and the UN Charter, and to elicit new ones for our organization to be fit for purpose to help overcome the many crisis humanity faces.  

On this UN day, I invite you, the people of Guyana to sustain Guyana’s contributions to peace, development and human rights by its actions.  Happy UN Day!