President Carlos Alvarado on Tuesday delivered Costa Rica’s address to the United Nations General Assembly.
The 76th Session of the General Assembly of the UN is being held in New York from September 21-27. The UNGA is the main policy-making organ of the organization, comprising all 193 member states, each of which has an equal vote.
In his message to the United Nations, President Alvarado urged world powers to fulfill their commitment to provide vaccines to the countries most in need, given the “abysmal and tragic” inequality in their distribution.
“The idea of solidarity concretized in COVAX has not achieved the necessary scope,” he said. “Vaccines against Covid-19 must be available to everyone in the world, as a global public good.”
He presented solutions that have been proposed by Costa Rica in the context of the pandemic: a mechanism for agile access to vaccines and a financial one to face the economic crisis caused by Covid-19.
He then reiterated the urgency of facing the climate crisis with solutions based on nature. One such plan — protecting 30% of the planet by 2030 — is the ambition of a coalition co-chaired by Costa Rica, France and the United Kingdom. Some 50 countries have already signed onto the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People, citing its environmental and economic benefits.
Finally, Alvarado called for a return to “real democracy” in Nicaragua, citing the imprisonment of political opponents, journalists and students in the neighboring country.
