Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,

As we mark the 80th anniversary of the United Nations, I invite you to return for a moment to our earliest days.

When the Organization first opened its doors, many of its staff bore visible wounds from war — a limp, a scar, a burn.

One of them was Major Brian Urquhart, the second person to be hired by the UN.

A British soldier during the Second World War, he had been blown up on a ship in the Channel;

Witnessed the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp;

And carried, for the rest of his life the limp from a parachute that failed to open.

He was not alone. 

A clerk might quietly mention a bullet wound.

A delegate, the shard of shrapnel still lodged in his chest.

They had seen the worst of humanity — the horrors of the death camps, the cruelty of combat, cities entirely wiped out.

And it was precisely because of what they had witnessed that they chose to serve peace.

Excellencies,

There is a persistent myth that peace is naïve. That justice is sentimental. That the only “real” politics is the politics of power and self-interest.

But those early staff were not idealists untouched by reality.

They had seen war. And they knew:

Peace is the most courageous, the most practical, the most necessary pursuit of all.

In building the United Nations, they created something extraordinary.

A place where all nations — large and small — could come together to solve problems that no country can solve alone.

And yet, at this moment, the principles of the United Nations are under assault as never before.

As we meet, civilians are targeted, and international law trampled in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan and beyond.

As we meet, poverty and hunger are on the rise as progress on the Sustainable Development Goals falters.

As we meet, the planet burns, with fires, floods, and record heat raging through climate chaos.

At the same time, we are moving towards a multipolar world.

But without strong multilateral institutions, multipolarity has its risks –– as Europe learned in the First World War.

To meet these challenges, we must not only defend the United Nations, we must strengthen it.

That is the purpose of Agenda 2030, the Pact for the Future, and the UN80 initiative: to renew the foundations of international cooperation, and to ensure that we can deliver for people everywhere.

Excellencies,

Over the years, our Organization has lead the way to some of humanity’s greatest triumphs:

The eradication of smallpox.

Healing the ozone layer.

And, above all, the prevention of a third world war.

The tests of the next 80 years will be both familiar and new.

The battle will continue against war and poverty.

But also climate chaos, runaway technologies, the militarization of space, and crises we cannot yet imagine.

To meet the challenges, let us remember what our founders knew:

The only way forward is together.

Let us rise to this moment with clarity, courage, and conviction.

And let us realize the promise of peace.

Thank you.