Chit Oo Tin - Most Famous Speeches

Millennium Report

As part of a unique symbolic gesture, the UN General Assembly in 1998 decided to designate the 55th session of the Assembly as the UN Millennium Summit.

The Millennium Summit was held from 6 to 8 September 2000.

By no more than a stroke of luck, according to the Millennium Calendar, you, the governments and peoples of the world, have chosen this Millennium as an occasion to reflect on the direction of all humanitarian work.

If we could sum up the changes we are living through in one word, it would be globalization.

We live in a world that is more connected than ever before. Groups, organizations, and individuals within groups are interacting more and more directly, not only across national borders, but also, in some cases, without the involvement of the state.

In this communication, there are dangers such as crime, drugs, violence, disease, and weapons. As the dangers grow at a faster pace than in the past, people feel more threatened.

But the benefits of globalization are also clearly evident: rapid growth, rising living standards, and the emergence of new opportunities. These benefits have led to greater understanding not only among individuals but also between countries and in collective action.

One problem is that, at the present time, these opportunities are not evenly distributed. How can we say that globalization is partly responsible for the fact that half of humanity still does not have access to a telephone or the ability to receive calls, and that they have access to only one type of computer? We cannot say this without taking into account the depth of their poverty.

A second problem is that we still don't know exactly where the global market is. The global market, which encompasses the entire world, is not yet as strongly backed by rules based on social objectives as national markets. In the absence of such rules, globalization has left many people feeling that they are at the mercy of unforeseen forces.

The overarching challenge of our time is to make globalization a bigger market than just bigger markets. We must learn how to manage these huge upheavals successfully, and more importantly, how to manage them together better.

So what are the problems facing this world? I've organized them into three categories. Each category is based on a fundamental human freedom. These are the freedom from want, the freedom from fear, and the freedom of future generations to continue their lives on this planet. The first is freedom from want.

How can we say that we have the freedom and equality that is in keeping with human dignity when more than a billion people in the world struggle to survive on less than a dollar a day without access to safe drinking water, and half of the world’s population lacks adequate sanitation and sanitation? Not only that, but some of us worry about the collapse of commodity markets, or struggle to maintain our latest computers. At the same time, more than half of humanity’s men and women worry about where their children will get their next meal.

The second major theme of the report is that the number of wars between nations has fortunately decreased from the frequency they used to occur. However, in the last decade of the century, civil wars have claimed more than five million lives and have forced many more people from their homes. Not only that, but we all continue to live under the shadow of weapons of mass destruction.

We must do everything we can to prevent conflicts from arising. The places where conflicts occur most are poor countries, especially those that are poorly governed, or where power and wealth are distributed unequally among ethnic or religious groups. Therefore, the best way to prevent conflicts is to develop and implement political programs that are fairly representative of all groups, that take human rights into account, that respect the rights of minorities, and that are based on broad-based economic development.

The third fundamental freedom that I have included in my report is one that even those who were involved in the founding of the United Nations in 1945 struggled to define, and therefore could not be clearly stated in the UN Charter. I mean the freedom that will help future generations to survive on this planet.

Even now, many of us still don't understand how seriously this freedom is being threatened. If we put these points together into one sentence, we are robbing our children of their inheritance to pay for the unethical practices we are currently experiencing.

We must protect our forests, fisheries, and diverse ecosystems, which are being pushed to the brink of extinction by human consumption and destruction.

In short, we need a new ethical governance. We need a better informed public.

We need to fully understand the environmental costs and benefits of our economic policy decisions. We need regulations and incentives to discourage wasteful and wasteful consumption of resources, and to encourage environmentally friendly practices. We also need more accurate scientific data.

Above all, we need to remember an old African thought that I learned as a child: that the earth does not belong to us, it is not for us, it is a treasure entrusted to us for our future generations.