SECRETARY-GENERAL, DELIVERING RAJIV GANDHI MEMORIAL LECTURE, HAILS

‘INDISPENSABLE PARTNERSHIP’ BETWEEN INDIA, UNITED NATIONS

Following is the text of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s address for the Ninth Rajiv Gandhi Memorial Lecture, “ India and the United Nations: An Indispensable Partnership”, as prepared for delivery at the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation in New Delhi yesterday, 30 October:

It is an honour to join you today, many times over.  An honour to be making my first visit to India as Secretary-General of the United Nations.  An honour to be among such a distinguished audience.  An honour to follow in the footsteps of the remarkable world leaders and others who have delivered this lecture.  An honour to contribute to the invaluable work of furthering the ideals of Rajiv Gandhi.

This is my first visit in my current capacity.  But I have been to India before.  New Delhi was my first diplomatic posting, 36 years ago.  I came here as a young man full of excitement and energy.  I made good friends and learned a lot from them.  That experience opened a wonderful window onto a fascinating country.  I continue to feel a close bond with you, not just as a matter of state, but personally.

And so my grief was profound when Indira Gandhi was assassinated 24 years ago tomorrow.  She was a passionate believer in the power of thought and creativity to change our world.  “The paradox of our age,” she once said, “is that while weapons become increasingly sophisticated, minds remain imprisoned in ideas of simpler times.”  Those words still have much to teach us in these far from simple times.

I mourned again seven years later, when the leader in whose name this lecture series is dedicated was so brutally murdered in 1991.  What promise he embodied, not only for his generation, but for all Indians.  What sensitivity he had, for the poor in particular.  And what prescience.  He was a decisive and early voice for India as a global technological Power.  He saw the power of harnessing new information technology to the cause of development.

And so, what a loss for all of us.  Today, we pay tribute to his broad vision and forward-looking sensibility.

Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, allow me to commend your efforts to educate the world about your late husband’s life and good works.  The Foundation is a vibrant instrument.  I understand that its wide-ranging health and education programmes, and its efforts to empower the underprivileged, are helping to shape India’s development.

You yourself are known far and wide, not only as a leader of your country, but as a global citizen.  You are an example of the cross-cultural contacts and exchanges that increasingly define our world.

To come back to India, now, is to see Rajiv’s vision in action.  The streets of New Delhi are even more vibrant than I remembered.  India bursts with talent, ideas and industry.  An Indian spacecraft wings its way to the moon as we speak.  This is testament to the strength of Indian science, knowledge and culture.  But it is also a sign that freedom and democracy can unleash vital energies.

It is often said that India is the world’s largest democracy.  I prefer to focus on the quality of that democracy -- the profound way democratic norms permeate India’s diverse society.  What seem like lofty ideals in other countries, or goals for the far-off future, are day-to-day realities.  Women and members of India’s minorities have risen to the highest offices in the land.  The press is as varied and vocal as anywhere on earth.

Your experience debunks the commonly heard argument that development must precede democracy.  Instead, through democracy, your country has progressed and removed many social ills.  India is proof of what your Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen has rightly pointed out: that a country becomes fit through democracy.

So it is quite natural that India is such a steadfast and generous supporter of the United Nations Democracy Fund.  The Fund was launched three years ago to strengthen the voice of civil society in promoting democracy in countries around the world.  By working within the United Nations system to help bring the benefits of democracy to others, the world’s largest democracy is demonstrating its solidarity with people and nations beyond its own borders.

This is just one aspect of the prominent role India plays in the international arena.  As a leading member of the Non-Aligned Movement, India stood up for countries that felt marginalized during the cold war.  You were a principled voice for those who didn’t agree with ideological confrontation.

And of course, your long association with the United Nations has been a central feature of your foreign policy and international engagement.  Sixty-three years ago tomorrow, India became a Member State.

Throughout these many decades, India has given its best to the United Nations and to the world.  Its best economists, doctors and engineers.  Its most promising ideas.  The talented nationals who have served with distinction as envoys and United Nations staff members.

Ours is an indispensable partnership.  You are our indispensable partner for peace and security.  Indian peacekeepers are deployed across the world.  From Cyprus to Sudan.  From Kosovo to Côte d’Ivoire.  From Lebanon to the Golan Heights.  From Georgia to Timor-Leste.

You are the largest contributor to our operation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  An Indian infantry brigade and attack helicopters are giving our Mission strength as we face insurgents in the most dangerous part of the country.  And overall, as of the end of last month, India was the third biggest contributor to peacekeeping, with more than 8,700 personnel at work for peace.

You have also heeded my call for help off the coast of Somalia, where piracy is interfering with deliveries of vitally needed humanitarian relief to millions of people.  This engagement is not under the auspices of the United Nations.  But your willingness to help police those waters is a welcome contribution to our work.

Your contributions to peacekeeping are not only a matter of numbers.  Indian peacekeepers bring professionalism to their role.  They are skilled at reaching out to local populations.

I therefore want to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the 128 peacekeepers from India who, over the years, have paid the ultimate price while serving the United Nations.

India is also an indispensable partner of the United Nations in our efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals and promote sustainable development.

Many developing countries look to you for lessons and inspiration.  Decades ago, a Green Revolution transformed your country.  Today, you have registered important gains in the United Nations Human Development Index.

Yet there is still much more to be done.  Migrant workers, landless labourers, other disadvantaged groups and women need greater attention.

Moreover, these are perilous times.  We are grappling with higher prices for food and fuel.  And we are in the midst of a global financial crisis.

I am very worried that development assistance will suffer, and that investors might pull back from emerging markets.

A slowdown in consumer spending could reduce demand for developing-country goods and commodities.  We could see a spike in unemployment.

Remittances could plummet.  Poor countries might end up with even fewer resources for social spending.

People who have striven so hard to rise out of poverty could fall back into destitution.

Fear is widespread.  We cannot know what twists and turns the crisis will take next.  But we do know that it requires an urgent, coherent and concerted collective response.  We can also recognize the pressing need to address the systemic weaknesses at the root of the crisis.  We need to find institutional mechanisms that will help minimize the risk of both market and regulatory failures.

Most immediately, the least developed countries, the poorest of the world’s poor -- children, older persons and others -- stand to suffer most.  Along with you, we at the United Nations are determined to see that this does not happen.  Here or anywhere.

Last month at the United Nations, we had a successful high-level meeting on the Millennium Development Goals.  Initial estimates suggest that we received new financial commitments totalling $17.5 billion.  This was all the more notable given the backdrop of crisis.  We must sustain this momentum.

These commitments will be tested soon.  In the weeks ahead, world leaders will gather for a meeting of the G-20 and for the Doha Conference on Financing for Development.  Everything from aid and debt to systemic reforms will be discussed.

At the first Financing for Development Conference six years ago, agreement on the Monterrey Consensus appeared to represent a major step forward for multilateralism.  Rich and poor countries came together and agreed that development is a shared responsibility.  Yet we have encountered significant obstacles in implementing the Consensus.  The Doha Conference presents an opportunity to build a more robust global partnership for development.

There is also an urgent need to revive global trade negotiations.  We should rededicate ourselves to reaching an ambitious, pro-poor outcome to the Doha Development Round.  We need leadership from all sides, including India.

Indeed, we have reached a new multilateral moment.  Our institutions need to be reinvented.  Our times demand a new multilateralism -- a more inclusive and effective multilateralism.  Devastating as it is, today’s turbulence has created an opportunity for reform.

We also must not allow this crisis to become an excuse for deferring or backing away from our fight against climate change.  Amid the pressures of the global financial crisis, some ask how we can afford to tackle climate change and invest in alternative energy and renewables.  The better question is: can we afford not to?

Climate change is a defining issue of our era.  The science is beyond doubt.  The economic rationale for “green growth” is equally compelling.  And the impact is being documented with new evidence from around the globe every day.  Every day we do not act, the problem grows worse.

Moreover, the consequences are not being evenly felt.  Developing countries and small island developing nations are already the first and hardest hit.  Climate change weighs heaviest on the most vulnerable, who have neither the resources nor the capacity to cope.

Last year, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change shared the Nobel Peace Prize.  I know you are all proud of the Panel’s Chairman, Dr. Rajendra Pachauri.  His work on this subject and in shepherding the wider cause of development has enriched the world.

All countries need to be part of the solution.  All countries must contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to the impacts that are already inevitable.  The principle of common but differentiated responsibilities must guide us.

I highly commend the extensive efforts undertaken by India for the past several years to address this challenge.  You have increased your use of renewable energy.  You have sought ways to be more energy-efficient.

India has a well-established tradition of innovation and industrial capacity that has benefited North and South alike.  Your respected voice in the developing world in particular can influence others to follow suit.

The world is watching India.  We all know the challenges India is facing.  But confronting the shared challenge of stabilizing our climate will require give and take from every single country.  Here, too, we look for Indian leadership.  It is time for India to move towards a low-carbon future, consistent with its development aspirations.

Such efforts by emerging economies need to be matched by developed countries.  We need a new era of cooperation -- particularly through the provision of clean energy technologies.

The road ahead will not be easy.  Our next political test comes in December.  We need to emerge from the climate change meetings in Poznan, Poland, with a win -- a strong signal that we are committed to winning the fight against global warming.

The United Nations needs you to be our partner for political stability as well.  India is situated in a region still beset by a number of unresolved disputes.  We see terrorism and ethnic strife.  Unstable and weak national governance.  This region is crucial to global stability and progress.  It has enormous potential for the advancement of its peoples and the world at large.  But for that potential to be realized, we need political stability.

India is a major regional and global player.  I urge you to continue to champion the causes of democracy, the rule of law and good governance.  And I encourage you to increase your engagement, including through the United Nations system, in efforts to promote these goals.

We already lean on you for peacekeeping.  I would also like to see even stronger Indian support for United Nations efforts to peacefully resolve conflict.  Myanmar might benefit from greater Indian involvement.  My visit earlier this year following Cyclone Nargis was the first by a Secretary-General of the United Nations in 44 years.

Cooperation between Myanmar and the United Nations has improved in recent months.  But I regret that there has not been more progress on issues of concern to the international community.  These include the release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and all political prisoners, and initiating a credible dialogue.

The United Nations will not give up.  I will continue to use my good offices.  A shared approach by key interested Member States such as India will be essential.  With that in mind, last month, at United Nations Headquarters, I convened a high-level meeting on the subject.  India was represented at that session, and I look forward to the next steps we will take.

India also has a role to play in the promotion and protection of human rights, and in conflict prevention.  I am taking steps to strengthen the United Nations own capacity in this area.  We can all point to situations and issues that would have benefited from early attention, before they turned into crises.  Like development, conflict prevention has been an underfunded mandate for the United Nations.

All countries have difficult and sensitive unresolved issues.  I am aware that you have been dealing with each of your neighbours on extremely complex questions.  They are, sometimes, subjects on which passions run high.  But, allow me to suggest that in virtually all the questions that plague the subcontinent, a solution through peaceful means ought to be possible.

As a core principle, the United Nations believes in dialogue as a means to settle disputes.  Broad, inclusive dialogue.  Between antagonists.  Between those with whom one might have the most fundamental disagreements.  Such a dialogue should be possible on the subcontinent, too.

Trade has now opened across dividing lines between India and Pakistan.  Trucks from each country have delivered goods to the other.  This latest breakthrough grew out of talks last month at the United Nations between Prime Minister [Manmohan] Singh and President [Asif Ali] Zardari.  I draw encouragement from it, and urge both sides to build on it.  Commerce can build confidence.  Small-scale steps are often the harbinger of bigger changes to come.

For our indispensable partnership to flourish, India must have confidence in the United Nations itself.  If we are to make demands of others, we must demand equally much of ourselves.  I am strongly committed to reforming and strengthening the Organization, its structures and its management.

We must deliver results for a more prosperous and healthy world.  Let us work together to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

We must deliver results for a more secure world.  From Darfur to Afghanistan and Haiti, from Iraq to the Middle East, we must nurture fragile peace processes, help people emerge from conflict and disaster, and rebuild shattered lives.

We must deliver results for a more just world.  And we must pursue the global common good.  As an emerging Power, India has a role and a responsibility to provide leadership in and addressing a set of global challenges that hold the key to our common future:  a clean global environment; a halt in the spread of deadly diseases such as AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, and improved maternal mortality, the Millennium Development Goal on which progress has been slowest; concerted action against terrorism; and a renewed effort for disarmament and non-proliferation.

Speaking here at the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, I wish to express my deep admiration for his dedicated efforts to pursue a world free of nuclear weapons.

This year marks the twentieth anniversary of his action plan for nuclear disarmament, which he announced in the United Nations General Assembly.  That plan remains a valuable road map. I hope it will guide the actions by all States in the years ahead, in pursuit of a safer and more secure world.

The entire world would welcome India’s leadership in continuing to promote Rajiv’s great vision, and in breaking once and for all the long global stalemate in nuclear disarmament.

These challenges are daunting.  But the United Nations has proven, at various stages of its history, that it is capable of remaking itself to rise to new challenges.  I know that all of you, and the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, will do your part in building the better world we all seek.

The prophet of non-violence, Mahatma Gandhi, once noted that the work of India would not be done so long as there is a single tear in the eye of a single child.

To this, Baba Amte, an eminent Gandhian of our times, added, and I quote:  “In public service, the distressed begs your attention and you have to drench it with love and compassion.  Goodwill and dedication alone do not suffice.  Public service challenges us to discover and accept new values, new attitudes and most important, new commitments.”

Those are powerful statements.  Let us work together in that spirit.  And may the partnership between India and the United Nations grow only stronger.

Thank you again for the opportunity to be with you today.

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