'Let Us Speak In One Accord'

Mr. President,

Permit me to congratulate you on the successful organization of this historic Conference in this vibrantcity of Johannesburg. Permit me also, to thank you for the warm hospitality of the Government of South Africaand your people which we have deeply appreciated. The issues on the agenda of the Conference are crucial tothe future of mankind. What is the philosophy which should guide us in the resolution? Mahatma Gandhi, theenduring symbol of our common legacy of struggle, had this advice to give to policy makers:

"Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recallthe face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you may have seen, and ask yourself, if the step youcontemplate is going to be any use to him. Will he gain anything by it? Will it restore him to a control overhis life and destiny?"

This call encompasses the philosophy of what is recognized today as essentials of sustainable development– man has to be at the centre of all development efforts; his controls over his life and environs assured tohim by the State. In the convening of this Conference, all of us gathered here are still seeking means totranslate that idea into action.

Mr. President, while glancing through the draft Programme of Implementation, I have been struck by therichness of the debate behind the efforts to list, define and recommend action on every aspect of humanactivity which impacts life on earth. With poverty eradication given unquestioned priority, the document alsoscrutinizes unsustainable priority, the document also scrutinizes unsustainable patterns of consumption andproduction, which bear the greater guilt for degrading the environment through profligate use of finiteresources, than do teeming numbers of the impoverished. Because we focus on sustainable development, weunderplay the fact that the real problem is unsustainable consumption and the pressure it generates on theearth’s finite resources. It is this attachment to unsustainable consumption patterns, and a determinationto preserve and raise levels of prosperity at any cost, that breeds resistance to any meaningful reform in thefinancial and economic structures that underpin global society today, and results in the neglect of thedevelopment agenda. The poor are not the biggest consumer of the world’s resources; the rich are.

The process has also highlighted the truth that sustainable development requires governance that isdemocratic both in form and substance. Nobel laureate Amartya Sen has used the experience of India toillustrate this. A sub-continent plagued by famine during its colonial history changed its destiny afteropting for democracy – It continued to experience crop failures, but never a famine. Democratic governancewith all its elements has to be accountable to its people.

Mr. President, while this process has thrown up pertinent issues on which we must act together, it has alsosadly underscored a fundamental gap in the understanding of the legitimate needs of developing countries. Itis difficult to pursue enlightened approaches to development in a world where ODA levels are falling,protectionism is on the rise, terms of trade are stacked in favour of the rich, debt burdens have spiraled,corporate governance need urgent re-definition, and the volatility of international capital transfers hasaffected productive investment flows to the South. Thus, according to the Human Development Reports of 2002,2.8 billion people still live on less than $2 a day and the richest 1% of the world’s people receive as muchincome each year as the poorest 57%. Industrial country tariffs on imports from developing countries are fourtimes those on imports from other industrial countries. In addition, as is well known, OECD countries prove $1billion a day in domestic agricultural subsidies, which is more than 6 times what they spend on ODA fordeveloping countries.

India has taken its own national responsibilities seriously. Sustainable development has become an integralpart of our planning process. The Government has published an assessment of 10 years of Agenda 21, based onthe Indian experience, to commemorate the Johannesburg WSSD. I am happy to inform you, Mr. President, thatIndia deposited its instrument of accession to the Kyoto Protocol on August 26 in New York and we are nowpreparing to host the 8^th Conference of Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention onClimate Change. India’s commitment to sustainable development is second to none.

Mr. President, sustainable development was conceived as unifying philosophy. It was born of our combinedidealism at Rio where we had pledged, each one of us, on the basis of our common but differentiatedresponsibilities and capabilities to act in a concerted manner for the greater good of mankind and ourcarrying planet.

Let me conclude with an invocation from the ancient Indian text Atharvaveda, composed 3200 years ago in1200 B.C. 

" O Mother Earth! You are the world for us and we are your children; let us speak in one accord; let uscome together so that we live in peace and harmony".