The Hindu : The G-8 summit and beyond

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Friday, Jul 19, 2002

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Opinion - Leader Page Articles

The G-8 summit and beyond

By Kant K. Bhargava

The South Asian policy needs to engage the G-B in a serious and meaningful manner on cooperation in development matters.

AT THE Kananaskis summit of leaders of the eight most powerful industrialised and democratic countries, the focus was on the Africa Action Plan; the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction; Terrorism and Russia's Role in the G-8. Other documents adopted included `A New Focus on Education for All', `the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative', `G-8 Initiative on Conflict and Development', `G-8 Views on Disarmament, Demobilisation, and Reintegration of Combatants involved in Conflicts'.

South Asia as a region did not figure in any of the summit documents relating to development cooperation policy. An `alternative summit', the `G-6 billion of civil society actors', generated more strident criticism of the G-8, especially on Africa, but failed to project the problems of poverty in South Asia. Even the media and the scholarly community were oblivious of the issue. Apparently, civil society in South Asia was either sleeping or too hamstrung by India-Pakistan tensions to think about this matter despite its importance. This is regrettable because poverty reduction is as important in South Asia as in Africa. At the SAARC Summit in Kathmandu last January, South Asian leaders recognised the enormity of the problem and called for a supportive international environment and an enhanced level of assistance by the international community for poverty-alleviation programmes in the region. The opportunity of getting a favourable response to this collective call at Kananaskis was missed.

The Independent Commission on Poverty Alleviation in South Asia set up at the Kathmandu Summit, expected to have its third meeting in India in the near future, can profit by studying the initiative taken by African states in adopting the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) and the G-8 Africa Action Plan. On the political side, the India-Pakistan standoff resulted in the G-8 Foreign Ministers making joint statements in December 2001 and again on May 31, 2002. Meeting in Whistler, Canada on June 11 and 12, 2002, prior to the Kananaskis summit, they discussed in detail the tensions between India and Pakistan. They talked of the continuing concern regarding the risk of conflict between "nuclear weapons capable nations" and "the threat this would pose to regional and global security and stability". They reiterated the call for "both countries to continue to work with the international community to ensure that there will be a diplomatic solution to the current crisis". Carefully avoiding the word mediation, they, nevertheless, observed: "We are committed to continuing to work with India and Pakistan to deal with the fundamental problems underlying the current crisis and to sustaining coordinated diplomatic efforts in the region". At the Kananaskis summit, there was the expected exhortation to Pakistan for putting a permanent stop to terrorist activity originating from territory under its control and a call for commitment by both India and Pakistan to a sustained dialogue on the underlying issues dividing them. The recent spate of visits of dignitaries from G-8 countries to Pakistan and India is to be viewed in this light. Collectively, they will review the position when they meet in New York during the General Assembly Session in September.

At Kananaskis, the leaders took stock of existing measures against terrorism, including terrorist financing, and added two new instruments to the existing panoply. The first was an agreement on transport security, including travel documents, containers, ports and aviation security. Joint G-8 action is contemplated in international bodies such as the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and the International Maritime Organisation (IMO). The second instrument relates to "The G-8 Global Partnership against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction." Its aim is to prevent nuclear, chemical or biological weapons falling into the hands of terrorists. The most important provision was a commitment by the G-8 to spend up to $20 billion over 10 years in destroying or cleaning up nuclear and chemical weapons, initially in Russia but also in the other countries of the former Soviet Union.

The G-8 has apparently accepted the concept articulated by the United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, that the WTO meeting at Doha, Conference in Monterrey for Financing for Development and the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) scheduled to be held in Johannesburg form an ascending sequence. But the WSSD may be in trouble, partly because of differences between the G-8 members.

The G-8 Summits are also concerned with managing the advance of globalisation. The most intractable problem here is that poor countries and poorer sections of populations can miss all the potential benefits of globalisation and thus fall further behind. Precisely because it is so intractable, this problem of poverty-reduction has become lodged with the G-8. At the Summit meeting in Genoa a year ago, the G-8 leaders had adopted a comprehensive Poverty Reduction Strategy. But despite a series of initiatives in regard to debt relief, Information Technology, HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases and trade-related matters, the G-8 has found this a stupendous task. Much of the economic agenda at Kananaskis, apart from Africa, covered areas where G-8 initiatives, after initial progress, showed signs of running out of steam, either because of inadequate resources for tackling problems of education and health or because they met domestic resistance in matters such as granting trade access. This perhaps explains the apparent neglect of South Asia insofar as development cooperation issues are concerned.

The Kananaskis summit has revealed some of the strengths of the G-8 process: its ability to launch innovative and forward-looking initiatives, to cover a wide range of different issues and to combine political and economic actions. The combining of the Africa Action Plan with the NEPAD is the latest initiative in this field which should be studied carefully by South Asian policy analysts. In spite of the seemingly limited resources of the G-8, the South Asian polity needs to engage the G-8 in a serious and meaningful manner on cooperation in development matters where the problems faced by the region are such that international assistance is required. On its part, the G-8 has given notice that it will remain committed to continuing its work with India and Pakistan to deal with the fundamental political problems of the region. To a point, G-8 commitment and involvement seems to be unexceptionable. But on issues such as Kashmir, the political obstacles faced by India and Pakistan are such that these two countries alone can remove them.

During the period when Canada chairs the G-8, Indian diplomacy ought to emphasise in a nuanced manner the business of G-8 cooperating with South Asia for poverty alleviation and facilitating creation of conditions for its dialogue with Pakistan to resume.

(The writer is a former SAARC Secretary-General.)

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