ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT OF IRELAND MARY McALEESE AT THE STATE BANQUET, PALACIO DA PONTA VERMELHA
ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT OF IRELAND MARY McALEESE AT THE STATE BANQUET, PALACIO DA PONTA VERMELHA MAPUTO WEDNESDAY, 14TH JUNE
Sua Excelencia, Sr. Presidente da Republica de Mocambique, Armando Emílio Guebuza,
Distintos Membros do Governo de Mocambique,
minhas Senhoras, meus Senhores,
É un grande prazer e honra estar, pela primeira vez, de visita ao vosso país maravilhoso e com o especial privilégio de o fazer numa visita de Estado. It is a delight to visit your wonderful country for the first time and a special privilege to come on a State Visit.
On behalf of our entire delegation I thank you, your officials and people for the warmth of the welcome extended to all of us.
10 years ago the first Irish Embassy opened here and along with it came the start of our development programme in Mozambique. This anniversary and this visit give us an opportunity to reflect on the state of both our nations and their contemporary relationship with one another.
Both Ireland and Mozambique have known what it is to be colonized. We know what it is to struggle for the right to manage our own affairs. We know what it is to face endemic and grinding poverty and the baleful legacy of internal conflict. Modern Ireland has put much of that story behind it. In recent decades it has emerged as one of the most successful countries in the world today. Ireland was ranked by the UN Human Development Index in 2005 as the 8th most developed country in the world and with the second highest per capita income. That prosperity is complemented by the developing Peace Process in Northern Ireland which is transforming the historically fraught relations between those of Irish and those of British identity who share the island. Moreover Ireland’s relationship with its former coloniser Great Britain, is characterized by a genuine parity of esteem and mutual respect unheard of in former times.
We are today a leading first world nation but we have a very recent third world memory. The 19th century saw famine on a massive scale. It killed a million of our people and scattered many millions more as emigrants throughout the world. Our bid for freedom which brought independence to a large part of Ireland in the 1920’s was followed by a bitter partition, economic stagnation and political and social insularity.
Not until the 1960’s, did our economy begin to grow, slowly and unevenly at first but spectacularly in recent decades. Our current success owes much to our having been in receipt of one of the largest aid programmes in the world, the support from the European Community. Ironically the growth in the Republic of Ireland’s economic fortunes coincided with the plunging of Northern Ireland into thirty years of violent political and sectarian chaos.
It has been a long journey from that nadir of famine a century and a half ago through under-development and ethnic violence to the achievement of economic success. The journey has familiarised us with the intractable slough of poverty and under-development and the slow process of healing after conflict. Most of us in Ireland of a certain age can remember poverty and all of us can remember the daily depressing effects of violence and lost or blighted lives. In remembering we acknowledge that this is not today nor was it ever a humanly decent way to live. We take as we have always done our share of the global responsibility to end poverty and to promote peace. That is why Mozambique is one of Ireland’s Partner Countries and why we work together as we do, both of us motivated and inspired by an urgent ambition to create a more equal world.
As a donor country we also have a responsibility to our taxpayers to show that their hard-earned and generously given money is well spent and that it is achieving its set objectives. That accountability creates a context in which while the partner government is in control on the ground the expectations of donors are a clear priority. With that shared understanding and a purposeful partnership Ireland has committed to a long-term engagement in Mozambique. We are committed to engage in Mozambique’s economic plan, the PARPA and to remaining flexible and responsive to whatever challenges arise and the requests of the Government of Mozambique in response to those challenges.
And that for Ireland is our commitment and indeed our only agenda in Mozambique. Our ambition for Mozambique is to help hasten the day to prosperity and widespread opportunity so that as Mozambique continues its outstanding progress in reducing poverty it becomes a full trading partner with Ireland and sees the end of this development phase in its evolution.
The mention of trade brings me to another issue. All donor countries, the international financial institutions and the multilateral agencies have pledged to help developing countries achieve the Millennium Development Goals. These Goals represent the greatest consensus in history on a development agenda and have been the prompt for the mobilization of increasing finance for development in Africa. The Irish Government is committed to reaching the UN target for development assistance, 0.7% of Gross National Product by 2012.
Like every consensus, the Millennium Development Goals are a compromise but they do represent the broadest agreement that could be achieved. But, as a basis for development, they differ in some measure philosophically from the dynamics which drove Ireland’s own growth. In our case, there was naturally an implicit objective of poverty eradication but the stated and immediate aim was employment creation and stimulation of entrepreneurial activity. Our experience and approach gave our strategy a very different emphasis to that of the current donor coalition.
So, in all our development programmes, it is important, while maintaining the focus on the Millennium Development Goals and on poverty reduction, not to constrain the space for job creation and to allow for supporting entrepreneurship. The universal moral outrage at the depths of poverty in developing countries, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, rightly creates demands that we commit to the development of a healthy and educated people. But the sustainability of any progress in these areas is possible only if together we empower people, if we create real opportunity, provide decent jobs and the capacity to secure their own and their children’s futures.
This visit and that of my German counterpart some months ago opens a European window on today’s Mozambique through which I hope a wider audience can appreciate the huge progress being made and be reassured by the government’s focus on transparency and on the core development issues. I hope too that it will showcase the incredible potential of Mozambique for tourism, for trade and investment and highlight the example it seeks to set for the region.
The seriousness of Ireland’s commitment to this country is evident in many ways. We have built a new Embassy, catering for the future expected growth in our programme here. We have also appointed our first Ambassador signaling that our relationship is not solely a development one and that we aim over time to see the engagement with Mozambique broadening out into the full range of interactions between two friendly states.
Mozambique’s growing role as a center of gravity in the region is a matter of righteous pride to you and to your people. You are a gateway to the world for several landlocked neighbours, you are a regional facilitator and peacekeeper of renown, a country shaking off the ghosts of the past and standing confident and strong on the international stage. These things do not happen by chance but are the result of determined and wise leadership.
I ask you now to join me in a toast to the man who is at the nation’s helm as it enters a new era of diminishing poverty and growing prosperity: to His Excellency Armando Emilio Guebuza, President of the Republic.