'Institutions have not kept pace with global issues'

Excerpts from External Affairs Minister S M Krishna's address at the UN

When this United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) ends next year, the UN would have completed 65 years of existence. These past decades have seen the world change in fundamental ways. Connectivity defines our global condition, and the challenges that we collectively face are global. The resolution of these challenges, as we are aware, require global approaches and solutions. What may happen in one part of the world has an impact on other regions.

It is of concern that even after more than six decades, international governance structures are neither inclusive nor participatory. Consequently, these structures and institutions have not kept pace or evolved, with the changed nature, the intensity and the depth of contemporary global issues. The question therefore is: Are these institutions able enough to address these challenges either adequately or satisfactorily?

The reform and restructuring of the global governance architecture is the critical need of our times and the voice of the developing world — including the small island nations of Africa — is of principal and core relevance, if we are to have truly participatory and global responses to global challenges.

One need not look too far to identify these challenges. The economic and financial turmoil, which did not begin in the developing world, has affected developing countries the most. Growth has slowed down with recession overtaking many countries. The international response to this challenge has to be not only the measures that have been taken to stimulate economies but, more importantly, to find ways to restructure the current international governance system which has failed to respond to the virulence of the financial and economic crisis.

To gloss over this structural deficit of the current global financial and economic architecture would imperil the future of a vast majority of the peoples of this world and presage greater difficulties in the future. In the face of the current economic and financial crisis, hard-won gains in alleviating poverty, hunger, illiteracy and disease are being reversed. Today, the achievements of the Millennium Development Goals are seriously threatened. Policies of protectionism under these already adverse circumstances will exacerbate the serious situation that many countries face. It is imperative that the UN act in concert to coherently overcome these challenges.

We believe that international trade and commerce has a central role to play in revitalising global economic growth. We are committed to negotiations in the Doha Development Round. To support this process, we also organised an international ministerial level conference in New Delhi on September 3-4, 2009.

India is engaged in the ongoing negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, including in the upcoming Copenhagen Conference. India will work for an outcome that recognises the development imperatives of developing countries and is rooted in the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities.

We are hosting a high-level global conference on 'Climate Change: Technology Development and Transfer' on October 22-23, 2009, in co-operation with the UN. India has also taken several independent initiatives. An unprecedented afforestation campaign has been launched with doubling of the budget for forestry this year to $ 1.3 billion and this increase is going to be sustained every year.

India attaches the highest priority to the goal of nuclear disarmament and has an impeccable non-proliferation record. We welcome the renewed global debate on achieving a world free of nuclear weapons. This corresponds with India's long-standing and consistent advocacy of nuclear disarmament as one of the highest priority of the international community. We have put forward a number of proposals on nuclear disarmament in the UN, including a Working Paper in 2006.

Last year, at the 63rd UNGA, India reiterated its proposal for a Nuclear Weapons Convention for banning the production, development, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons and to provide for their complete elimination. The international nuclear order cannot be discriminatory. Once more, with feeling and with commitment, India reiterates that proposal.

(Excerpts from the address of External Affairs Minister S M Krishna to the United Nations General Assembly in New York on September 26, 2009)