India's success in sustaining high growth and poverty alleviation will substantially contribute to achieving the ambitious Sustainable Development Goals, a top policy adviser to the Indian government has said.
"Improving the lives of 1.4 billion Indians would make a major dent in the goal of improving the lives of all humanity. The process of doing so will bring forth technologies and pathways to progress that can be shared with other developing countries to enable them to also share in the increased prosperity," NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Arvind Panagariya said here yesterday.
Panagariya was speaking at an event co-organised by RIS (Research and Information System for Developing Countries) and Permanent Mission of India.
He said India's success in sustaining high growth and poverty alleviation will contribute in substantial measure to the success of the SDGs.
He stressed that the importance of robust economic growth cannot be overstated since growth depends on well-functioning infrastructure and policies that enhance productivity.
"Without it, none of our objectives, be it eradication of poverty, empowerment of women, provision of basic services or even protection of environment and reversing climate change, would be possible by 2030.
In the end, growth is what creates employment opportunities at decent wages for the masses thereby giving them the means to access on their own basic amenities of life such as food, clothing, housing, education and health," he said.
Panagariya cited the example of the 8 per cent growth over a decade that enabled India to introduce and sustain the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and greatly expand its public distribution system through the National Food Security Act.
Panagariya underlined that with political will and right set of policies, it is "entirely possible" to end poverty within a generation.
Citing the example of South Korea, Singapore and China, he said India and many more countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America are now poised to do the same in the forthcoming decade and a half.
"Therefore, the end to poverty by 2030, which subsumes the provision of essential amenities for a dignified existence such as food, clean water, sanitation, electricity, good health, literacy, transportation and a roof over the head, is rightly on top of the 2030 SDG Agenda," he said.
"The political vision contained in the Leaders' Declaration to be adopted on September 25 speaks of a relentless focus on ending poverty as our fundamental target," he said.
