The Hindu : Sinha slams rich nations for causing poverty

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Sep 05, 2002

International

International

Sinha slams rich nations for causing poverty

Johannesburg Sept. 4. India today slammed the rich countries for "unsustainable patterns of consumption and production", saying this was causing environmental degradation and poverty.

"It is this attachment to unsustainable consumption patterns and a determination to preserve and raise levels of prosperity at any cost that breeds resistance to any meaningful reform in the financial and economic structures that underpin global society today, and results in the neglect of development agenda" of environment and poverty alleviation, the External Affairs Minister, Yashwant Sinha, said here.

Addressing the final session of the World Summit on Sustainable Development, he said, "The poor are not the biggest consumers of the world's resources, the rich are."

Amid prolonged and sustained applause accorded to few speakers in the summit, he said there was a fundamental gap in the understanding of the legitimate needs of developing countries.

"It is difficult," the Minister said, "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 spiralled, corporate governance needs urgent re-definition and the volatility of international capital transfers has affected productive flows to the South."

Mr. Sinha said India had taken its own national responsibilities seriously. "Sustainable development has become an integral part of our planning process. The Government has published an assessment of 10 years of Agenda 21, based on the Indian experience, to commemorate the Johannesburg WSSD."

According to the Human Development Reports of 2002, 2.8 billion people still lived on less than two dollars a day and the richest one per cent of the world's people received as much income each year as the poorest 57 per cent.

"Industrial country tariffs on imports from developing countries are four times those on imports from other industrial countries. In addition, as is well known, OECD countries provide about one billion dollars a day in domestic agricultural subsidies, which is more than six times what they spend on ODA for developing countries."

The Minister said, "Sustainable development was conceived as a unifying philosophy. It was born of our combined idealism at Rio where we had pledged, each one of us, on the basis of our common but differentiated responsibilities and capabilities to act in a concerted manner for the greater good of mankind and our carrying planet."

He concluded his address with a quote from the ancient Indian text Atharvaveda, composed 3200 years ago in 1200 B.C. "O mother Earth. You are the world for us and we are your children; let us speak in one accord; let us come together so that we live in peace and harmony."

PTI

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Sinha slams rich nations for causing poverty