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Respected Professor Mohammed Yunus
Your Excellency President José Ramos-Horta,
Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen,

We meet at a moment when crisis can no longer be treated as interruption.

Rather, conflict, inequality, climate disruption, displacement and technological upheaval have become persistent conditions.

Our task, therefore, is not simply to respond better. It is to transform the systems that repeatedly produce exclusion and vulnerability.

This conviction lies at the heart of my vision for the eighty-first session of the General Assembly: “Restoring Trust and Managing Transformation: A United Nations that Delivers for All.”

Transformation must be measured not by the sophistication of our policies, but by whether they expand dignity and opportunity for those furthest behind.

The urgency is unmistakable. Just over 30 per cent of SDG targets are on track. Yet we still have four years to change trajectories and make development finance work for people.

This requires delivering on commitments already made, including in Sevilla and in Paris, to address debt burdens, reform the international financial architecture, and address climate change.

Social business offers a practical pathway. By applying entrepreneurial acumen to social purpose, we can move beyond dependence on short-term relief towards self-sustaining solutions.

And, importantly, we can help close the last-mile gap of the SDGs while placing human needs at the centre of our enterprise.

Microcredit showed how a small amount of capital, combined with trust, can unlock the creativity of people excluded from formal finance, especially women.

The United Nations recognized that promise by proclaiming 2005 the International Year of Microcredit. As we mark fifty years of microcredit, we should carry forward its central lesson: people are not problems to be managed; they are creators of solutions.

Professor Muhammad Yunus transformed that belief into a global movement. I had the privilege of working closely with him, in the interim Government of Bangladesh headed by him.

I witnessed first-hand his moral clarity and confidence in human potential as he led Bangladesh at a critical moment and guided it through a successful democratic transition.

That same conviction animates his vision of a World of Three Zeros: zero net carbon emissions, zero wealth concentration for ending poverty, and zero unemployment through entrepreneurship for all.

The 3 ZERO Movement now carries this vision into a new generation.
Across more than 60 countries, thousands of decentralized 3 ZERO Clubs are enabling young people to address challenges-from clean energy and malnutrition to education and financial inclusion-in their communities.

Young people must advance from participation to leadership:
from being consulted to co-designing policy;
from receiving programmes to building enterprises;
and from demanding change to implementing it.

This is fully aligned with the Pact for the Future and its Declaration on Future Generations, which call for meaningful youth participation, intergenerational solidarity and decision-making that safeguards those who will inherit our choices.

And that brings me to artificial intelligence.

Ungoverned AI raises profound ethical, environmental and even existential concerns.

Yet AI that is wisely governed, equitably shared and strategically used could help model climate impacts, accelerate vaccine development, improve education and healthcare, and widen access to finance.

In these final four years to 2030, AI can become a powerful accelerator of the SDGs.

That is why I have made governance of artificial intelligence one of the priorities of my presidency, alongside peace and security, sustainable development, and human rights.

Our question is not whether these technologies will shape our future, but whether all countries, especially those of the Global South, will help shape and benefit from them. We need inclusive and human-centred governance.

We also need young people, civil society, social entrepreneurs and business leaders at the table. We need your advocacy, innovation, ingenuity and tenacity.

Excellencies, Friends,
Let us move from crisis response to system transformation:

from charity to capability;
from youth participation to youth leadership;
from technological divides to shared digital opportunity;
and from business as usual to business for humanity.

Together, let us restore trust, deliver for all, and leave future generations not a legacy of unresolved issues and crises, but a world of possibility.

Thank you.