UNGAS2M1 §

Speaker’s List Speech:

The COVID-19 pandemic has not only caused chaos in the world but also killed nearly four million innocent lives. International trade and slowed, borders are closed, and countries are isolated that led to economic decline for the pacific islands and other parts of the world. Specifically, as Fiji’s tourism is the primary sector of the country, we lost 99 percent of our tourism this past year. Furthermore, needless politicization of the pandemic has caused divisions between countries rather than cooperation that is needed to overcome this issue. In this United Nations General Assembly meeting, we, the Republic of Fiji, hope to have fruitful discussions on the issues in dealing with the COVID-19 virus, its collateral effects, and how we can move forward from this international health crisis together.

Vaccine Distribution

According to Our World in Data, only 2% of vaccines distributed around the world were delivered to Africa. This situation is the same for other poor countries around the world. The current sphere of vaccine distribution seems to rely on influence and wealth making many developing countries have no chance of gaining access to the much needed vaccines. Fiji, as the fortunate first among pacific islands countries to receive a batch of the COVID-19 vaccine from COVAX, wish to see more funding in return for more equality in vaccine distribution by the COVAX initiative to fulfill its promise of equitable distribution.