🇪🇨Daniel Roy-Gilchrist Noboa AzinEcuador · UNGA 81 speech

On behalf of the Assembly, I wish to thank the President of the Republic of Botswana, The Assembly will now hear an address by His Excellency Mr. Daniel Roy Gilchrist Noboa Asine, Constitutional President of the Republic of Ecuador. I request protocol to please escort His Excellency and invite him to address the Assembly. Secretary General of the United Nations, Mr. President of the General Assembly, Excellencies, Heads of State and Government, distinguished delegations, ladies and gentlemen. There was a time in which in my country, fear prevailed over the law. This was the experience of families that weren't going out at night, business owners who had to pay to be able to work, young people who were given weapons before they were given a diploma. We decided that this should not be the destiny of Ecuador, and we have acted with determination. However, On this journey, we have learnt something that I have come here to share with you. That is that no state can defeat an enemy that knows no borders by acting alone. The weapons that reach our streets cross several countries. The money that finances mafias is laundered far from where the crimes are committed. The roots of drug trafficking and people trafficking and illegal mining cross continents. Criminals have already globalized their cooperation. They share routes, logistics, finances and technology without red tape, distrust or delay. It's unacceptable that criminal organizations cooperate with one another more effectively than states do. This is the reality that the United Nations must recognize and rise to. For a long time, organised crime was dealt with as a law enforcement matter, but today we know that it is more than that. When it controls territories and infiltrates institutions, replaces legitimate authority, erodes the rule of law and destabilises entire societies, and when that happens in several countries at the same time, it is no longer just a domestic issue; it becomes a threat to international peace and security. I want to say this very clearly: we are not Calling for other actors to act instead of states, we're...

calling for cooperation with full respect for the sovereignty of each nation and with results that we can measure. This is why Ecuador today is proposing three concrete actions. First of all, an international mechanism within the framework of the UN to trace and freeze the illicit financial flows from transnational organized crime. The money is the fuel of these networks, so let us stop it in its tracks. Second, permanent platform of information exchange between police forces, prosecutors' offices, and financial intelligence units that enable states to anticipate rather than react once it's happened. And the third concrete action that the UNAT initiative include transnational organized crime as a priority for conflict prevention and provides the organization with the capacity to support states that request it. These are proposals that Ecuador is prepared to support and drive forward alongside all countries that wish to join us. Excellencies, security is not an end in itself, it's a condition for a country to be able to flourish. And today we are experiencing a crisis, a profound crisis, and recovering security means giving people about their future for a young person to be able to choose university rather than being trapped by a criminal gang for a family to open a business without fear for a company to invest and create jobs and for institutions to respond to the needs of citizens and not to elicit interests therefore the success of an economy is not measured only by how much production grows but rather how much is able to reduce poverty is measured in young people with decent jobs and children with a better education, and citizens who are able to build their future with dignity. This must also guide the agenda of international development. Middle-income countries face vulnerabilities that income per capita does not reflect. We ask that access to cooperation and financing be defined using more fair vulnerability criteria and that the international financial architecture support the efforts of those who are undertaking reforms. We believe in open, predictable and equitable trade. When a producer can export, innovate and grow, there's a family behind that can be lifted out of poverty. The best social policy is policy that generates opportunities. President, I come from a country that is small in size, but great, huge in terms of our nature. The Galapagos Islands, where Darwin found evidence of the evolution of life, are a World Heritage site for the whole of humanity. And today, they are threatened by illegal fishing networks that operate with the same logic and the same financing of other organized crime groups. The same is happening with illegal mining in the Amazon that's destroying forests and funding gangs. Protecting nature is also a matter of security. Ecuador will continue to fulfill our responsibilities and invites all of you to join us. Latin America and the Caribbean is a region with a lot of talent, energy, food, strategic resources, and above all, youth that is resolved to building a different future. It's a region that has not come to this assembly to ask for solutions from the outside, but rather to offer up our solutions and one with the greatest. One of the greatest challenges of the future is artificial intelligence. It can transform education, multiply productivity and close historic gaps, but also entrench inequalities and serve those that seek to weaken our institutions. We need international governance that enables us to innovate without renouncing our values and that does not leave those that have the least resources behind. They also need to be able to access this technology. As Lin says, confidence in the multilateral system is going through difficult times. Many citizens see a gulf between what we agree on here and what people experience on a daily basis. Closing this gap is the task of our organization. A lot of citizens realize that this is the task that our generation must take up. And as a founding country, Ecuador believes in the United Nations. It's precisely for this reason that we want an organization that's able to respond to the challenges of the world today, not of 1945. supporting the organization that the United Nations also needs to involve a willingness to transform the United Nations and that's why we support the UN80 initiative and pose an essential question, what United Nations of the world needs today? We need an organization that's more efficient with the ability to prevent conflicts, resolve crises and support states to challenges that didn't exist when the organization was created. An organization whose legitimacy depends not only on the decision that we adopt, but the way that they adopt. And we need the charter and international law to remain our common language. More than 80 years ago, countries understood that peace didn't depend on everyone's power, but rather is something that we built organizations to cooperate to achieve. This remains our main strength. The citizens of the world will not judge this organization by its declarations. They will judge it by its ability to turn commitments into peace and security, into respect for human rights, into real opportunities for development, and how many lives we really save. President, the criminal gangs already coordinate with each other. Now we need to do better. Ecuador has come to this assembly to defend collective solutions because no country can build a safe, prosperous, and sustainable future alone. And because when international cooperation works, we are all stronger for it. Thank you very much.