Dr Carl Wright UNA-UK was welcomed to Belfast City Hall by the Lord Mayor, Councillor Nuala McAllister. Councillor McAllister hosted the reception to mark United Nations Day.
Dr Carl Wright, UNA-UK, Mrs Hazel Homlund for UN Women, Mr Joseph Rickette for ACSONI (African and Caribbean Support Organisation NI), the Lord Mayor, Councillor Nuala McAllister, Mrs Anna Lo, Ms Annie Rooney, Member of Belfast's Fairtrade Committee, and Mrs Pat Irvine, Chairperson of UNA- NI.
A GLOBAL UK AND A GLOBAL BELFAST: CHALLENGES POST-BREXIT
Lord Mayor, Cllr Nula McAllister and councillors
Chair, UNA-Northern Ireland Patricia Irvine
Friends & Colleagues
Firstly, allow me to thank the Lord Mayor for kindly hosting us for this celebration of the United Nations, one of a number of events taking place across the UK in the current week. Only yesterday I was in London at a reception hosted by the Swedish Embassy and on Sunday I will be Canterbury Cathedral where the annual UN Peace Service takes place with Helen Clark, former head of UNDP as our keynote speaker.
I would also like to thank Patricia Irvine and her able UNA team for ensuring that the role of the UN is being highlighted in Northern Ireland; that global issues are being engaged with here in the heart of Belfast.
I am conscious that Belfast City Council has a strong commitment to building international relationships with the aim of attracting investment, encouraging trade and developing tourism and cultural and educational links. That you aspire to a Global Belfast in a Global World.
This has involved active engagement with the US sister cities of Boston and Nashville, with Hefei and Shenyang in China and with cites across Europe through the Eurocities network. In addition, there is the special relationship with Dublin under the Belfast-Dublin economic corridor. Indeed, I recall joining the previous Lord Mayor and his Dublin counterpart, as well as the NILGA President, in a Commonwealth Local Government meeting I organised at Mansion House Dublin just a few years ago.
It is not my first visit to Belfast, but I am still impressed by your many dynamic initiatives, including the city centre regeneration and investment strategy, the Resilient Belfast strategy and the Smart Belfast ICT framework for supporting urban innovation. I also hope I will have a chance to see Titanic Belfast.
Northern Ireland, like the rest of the UK, and indeed the Irish Republic, is currently living in the shadow of Brexit. I was recently at a meeting where there was argued that Brexit represented the biggest UK foreign policy reversal since Suez in 1956. Against this, a convincing case was made that, no, to find a reversal on this scale, we should actually go back another 200 years to 1776 when King George III lost the American colonies!
However, let me focus on 2017. It is certainly clear that the Good Friday Agreement and the economic and political interaction between Northern Ireland and the Republic would be severely damaged by a hard Brexit. There are also huge consequences for Northern Ireland itself, including for its local government. I was encouraged that Alderman Hatch recently led a NILGA delegation to London to discuss key issues relating to Brexit with the UK Government. I personally also feel it right that the EU has put the Irish border question as one of the key matters which need to be resolved as a priority.
The issues around Brexit demonstrate how much we are living in a global world, how much we are dependent on international economics and finance; and how much what happens in Belfast or indeed anywhere else in the UK is dependant on external influences: the recent problems with the US over Bombardier Aerospace and its 6,000 jobs is yet another example of this.
All this brings me back to the UN and the work of UNA. In UNA UK, of which I am a trustee, we recently launched a ‘Keeping Britain – it should really be UK- Global’ Campaign. This campaign aims to ensure that, especially in the context of Brexit, the UK firmly maintains its long-standing commitment to the rules-based international system. Specifically, it aims at:
- Having a cross-departmental UK Governmental strategy for strengthening the UN and the rules-based system that it serves;
- Promoting an outward-looking UK which refrains from the anti-internationalist rhetoric we have heard since the 2016 referendum;
- Deepening public and civil society engagement on foreign policy issues, including through educational and outreach programmes, aiming to inform our citizens;
- Recognising the key UK role on the world stage, including at the UN Security Council and through the UK’s diplomatic and developmental work, underpinned by our commitment to 0.7% GDP for overseas aid.
This UNA Campaign has, I believe, direct relevance to Belfast and Northern Ireland’s global and European perspectives. I am sure that in the coming weeks and months Patricia and her colleagues will engage further with all of you in pursuit of our common objectives and we look to your continued support.
Permit me to give a specific example. In 2015 all UN member States including the UK committed to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its Sustainable Development Goals, the SDGs. There are 17 ambitious SDGs which cover a comprehensive range of issues, which include ending poverty and hunger, ensuring healthy lives and inclusive and equitable quality education, achieving gender equality, promoting economic growth and employment, building resilient infrastructure, reducing inequality, combatting climate change, promoting peaceful and inclusive societies with effective, accountable and inclusive institutions and much more. Clearly, all of these SDGs are directly relevant to the people and communities of Northern Ireland.
There is global recognition that these goals are best implemented from the bottom up, involving civil society and local government, not top down. Indeed, some months ago I gave evidence to the House of Commons Environmental Audit Sub-committee which was looking at how the UK is implementing the SDGs domestically, and I emphasised the importance of having the SDGs ‘localised’ at community level. It would be interesting to see how the SDGs are being implemented on the ground here in Belfast and in Northern Ireland, and to what extent they are being truly ‘localised’.
I expect that Belfast City Council will be especially interested in SDG 11 on making cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable- indeed, I have already mentioned the Resilient Belfast strategy which speaks to this goal. SDG 11, like the other SDGs, contains specific targets to be attained by 2030, such as affordable housing, expanded public transport, participatory planning, safeguarding cultural and natural heritage- Titanic Belfast springs to mind- accessible green and public spaces, mitigation of climate change and the like.
In addition, the is the New Urban Agenda, adopted by the UN at the 2016 Habitat III Conference which contains further valuable international guidelines and norms with regard to cities and the urban settlements. These issues and the key matter of resourcing and financing local government, will, incidentally, be debated in depth at the Commonwealth Local Government Conference in Malta this November. I am sure that Belfast and Northern Ireland would also be well-suited future venue for such international events and debates.
In conclusion, it is in my view not possible to separate support for the UN and having a global perspective from other international developments or events such as Brexit or the Commonwealth. Thus, the UK will be hosting some 50 Commonwealth leaders from across the world in London for the first time in 20 years in April 2018. I am sure that UNA will be engaging in this foremost international event and its associated Peoples’, Women and Youth Forums. I further expect that the high-level Commonwealth Business Forum, also being held at this time, will be of considerable interest to Belfast and Northern Ireland commerce and business.
I have had the incredible privilege of working internationally for some 40 years: in the UN, in the Commonwealth, in the EU.
While I have seen many ups and downs in international relations during these decades, including many joyous occasions such as the election of Nelson Mandela in South Africa and the conclusion of the Good Friday Agreement here in Ireland, I am deeply concerned about the present moment in time.
Whether it is self-harm of a hard Brexit, whether it is the rise of the xenophobic New Right in Europe, whether it is the isolationism of Donald Trump, our global rules-based system is under threat, is under attack.
That is why the work of UNA and UNA Northern Ireland is so important. That is why having a Global Belfast strategy sends such a powerful signal. I have mentioned Nelson Mandela, that most wonderful humane, inclusive and global statesman, who I was fortunate to meet on a number of occasions. I would accordingly like to finish with one of his great sayings which I feel is so relevant to our world today:
‘When you climb a great hill, you find that there are many more hills to climb’.
Let us climb those hills together, here in Belfast and Northern Ireland, in the UK and indeed globally.
Thank you for your attention.
US Consul General for Belfast, Mr Daniel Lawton, attended the reception and met students, Mr Sean Carlin from Our Lady and St Patrick’s College, Knock, and Ms Paula Mueller from Wallace High School.