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India urges rich to aid poor nations

Lashing out at the developed countries for paying only lip service to the sustainable development agenda, India on Wednesday demanded that they must recommit themselves for a global partnership by enhancing the funding under Overseas Development Assistance to help the less developed.

Ahead of the World Summit on Sustainable Development beginning in Johannesburg from August 26, the government regretted that despite significant progress in poverty eradication, literacy and healthcare, there still remains a gulf between "the standards prevailing in India and the rest of the world."

"Developed countries have to provide new and additional finances and transfer environment friendly technology on the basis of Common but Differentiated Responsibility principle", Environment and Forest Minister T R Baalu told reporters in New Delhi.

The minister also expressed concern that attempts were being made by the developed countries to bring in non-tariff barriers like labour, health standards and good governance while addressing environmental issues.

"There is no need to discuss issues of non-tariff barriers in the forthcoming World Summit on Sustainable Development", Baalu said.

The Assessment Report on Agenda 21, presented to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee by Baalu said: "The commitment made by the developed world towards enhanced and stable concessional financing to the developing world have largely gone unfulfilled."

As developing countries struggle with the limited resources to meet the immediate and more basic requirement of the people, it is imperative that the North plays its role in order to operationalise the long-term mandate of Agenda 21, it said.

The developing countries are demanding that the developed world responsible for more than half of CO2 emissions from industrial sources and land use, should increase their Overseas Development Assistance from a dismal 0.3 per cent of their GDP to 0.7 per cent as committed in Rio Summit a decade ago.

Reaffirming India's commitment to Agenda 21, the report said to enable a country build upon the gains of the past and address the weaknesses, it is necessary for the international community, especially the developed world, to recommit itself to the global partnership forged at Rio.

This partnership would put greater responsibility on the advanced world in view of the substantial harm to the global environment by their societies as also their distinct advantage with respect to technologies and financial resources.

The report, taking note of India's 115th ranking in the Human Development Report, said the economic growth standing on an unsteady social and environmental foundation cannot be sustained and the country remains committed to the Agenda 21 for conservation and sustainable development.

The report states the Tenth five-year Plan assigns primacy to enhancement of human well-being, which includes not only adequate level of food consumption but also access to basic social services like education, health, drinking water and sanitation.

As a result of various initiatives, the percentage of population under poverty has continuously declined, it said, adding that population growth has decelerated below two per cent for the first time in four decades and literacy has increased from 52 per cent in 1991 to 65 per cent in 2001.

Seeking to dispel doubts on prime minister not heading the Indian delegation for the WSSD at Johannesburg, Baalu said: "The prime minister has got full confidence in me and (External Affairs Minister) Yashwant Sinha to represent India's views at the conference".

Baalu, however, said Vajpayee's assistance could always be sought to address any environmental issue.

While Baalu will head the Indian delegation for the first five days of the nine-day conference beginning on August 26, the next four days will see the Sinha at the helm of affairs.

The minister said though the developed countries had pledged to put in 0.7 per cent of their Gross National Product for protection of environment as against 0.33 per cent at present, barring, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Denmark, no other country had adhered to its commitment.

The minister expressed confidence that the Bio-Diversity Bill would be passed in Parliament soon.

Baalu said India would stay firm on ensuring that Agenda 21 and Rio Declaration are not renegotiated and that the Principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibility should be the guiding principle for sustainable development among the comity of nations.

He said similarly, application of the Precautionary Principle should be confined to the management of natural resources alone and not in other areas like labour, health standard and good governance, which have the potential to be misused as a disguised trade barrier.

India also feels there is a need for International Financial Mechanism preferably a restructured and strengthened Global Environment Facility in transferring new and additional financial resources to developing nations, Baalu said.

He said there is a need for better coordination among various agencies for improved international environmental governance.

External Link:
United Nations Sustainable Development - Agenda 21

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