Mexico’s President Calls on UN to Renovate Itself and be More Transparent

President Enrique Pena Nieto, of Mexico, addresses the 69th session of the United Nations General Assembly, at U.N. headquarters, Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2014.

“Today, our planet demands a more effective, efficient, transparent and representative United Nations; a UN where all societies of the world have greater participation. The UN must then, dare to change in order to improve. In Mexico, we firmly believe that the UN has all the powers to be more daring and to renovate itself,” said Enrique Peña Nieto, president of Mexico.

The president of Mexico has been seen as a symbol of renovation on the international stage.

Peña has won approval to let foreign companies and investors hold a stake in Mexico’s national oil company, raising the prospect to vastly increase slackening production. He has rewritten the telecommunications law with a goal to break up the near monopoly of a few private telephone and television companies. And he has undertaken changes in the education system to lessen the grip unions hold in schools, and to improve education in Mexico, where students are far behind those in countries of similar size and levels of development.

However, President Peña Nieto remains more popular abroad than at home, as polls show sinking approval numbers and growing impatience with the much-promoted reforms that have yet to meaningfully raise wages or the standard of living of ordinary Mexicans.