Since January 1, 1959, Cuba has been a firm defender of multilateralism, peace, respect for sovereignty and sovereign equality among all nations, he said at the University of Havana.
He also advocates for a new international economic order, he stressed during the keynote lecture “Cuba and Multilateralism: Opportunities and Challenges,” which he gave in the Aula Magna of that academic institution.
She also noted that the island defends the rights of children and women, and works diligently to improve the quality of health and education, “foundations for creating a life of hope and prosperity.”
I want to highlight Cuba’s work for gender equality. Women constitute 43.3 percent of the National Assembly of People’s Power and this places it among the three main nations in the world in female parliamentary representation, she noted.
After almost 80 years of the existence of the United Nations, there has so far been only one woman who has held the position of Secretary-General of the United Nations. This metric can help understand the Cuban experience, she considered.
On the other hand, the diplomat highlighted Cuba’s response to the call of the United Nations in times of crisis in several nations and its contribution to the development of health and education of many peoples, as part of its internationalist vocation.
I urge Cuba to maintain this example and also to continue its active work for global multilateralism, either individually or in key groups such as the G77 plus China and the Non-Aligned Movement, he said.
At the conference, he also warned about social, economic and environmental problems, most of which are the result of human activity, and called for urgent measures to alleviate or eliminate them.
Prior to the dissertation, Dennis Francis received the 295th Anniversary Plaque from the University of Havana, which recognizes his services “to the cause of understanding of people in an environment of peace.”
She was also presented with a woodcut by painter and engraver Lesbia Vent Dumois, winner of the National Prize for Plastic Arts (2019), inspired by a poem from the book West Indies, Ltd., written by Nicolás Guillén, National Poet of the Caribbean nation.
A native of Trinidad and Tobago, Francis assumed the Presidency of the 78th UN General Assembly in September 2023, following his election on June 1 of that year.
The diplomat arrived in this capital the day before and thus began an official visit, during which he is scheduled to meet with President Miguel Díaz-Canel and the Vice Minister of Public Health, Tania Margarita Cruz.
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