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| Sunday, 9 May 2004 |
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People-centred development - Government's priority Statement by Lakshman Kadirgamar, PC, MP, Minister of Foreign Affairs, at the 60th Session of the ESCAP, 27 April 2004.
Sri Lanka has had an old and strong friendship with China. For me it is therefore a special pleasure and privilege to address this important meeting of the ESCAP in Shanghai on my first visit abroad after assuming office as the Foreign Minister of Sri Lanka for a second term. It is more than symbolic that this 60th Session of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific takes place in Shanghai, the city which first hosted ECAFE in 1947. Globalization, our current concern, holds out both promise and challenges. China has succeeded, more than most, in exploring that promise as well as confronting those challenges. Sri Lanka has watched with keen interest China's peaceful ascendancy in the Asia-Pacific region, based on cooperation with its neighbours and indeed, the rest of the world. In his speech at the banquet in honour of Heads of Delegations yesterday, State Councillor Tang said, "We will develop partnerships of equality and mutual benefit with other countries and promote common development and prosperity. Under our policy of making friends and partners with neighbours, we will do everything in the interest of security and prosperity of our neighbours and never do anything to their detriment". On behalf of Sri Lanka, as a beneficiary of China's generosity and its partner in shared approaches to international problems, I can vouch for the accuracy and sincerity of the statement made by my friend State Councillor Tang. The process of globalization, we all agree, is irreversible and has its own momentum driven mainly by the relentless advance of technology coupled together with the ever increasing consciousness of social responsibility. The ESCAP study on this very appropriate theme for our discussion highlights the need for greater integration of economies. My country is ready to work with ESCAP and other regional organizations on areas of cooperation that could further our regional economic integration objectives. However, we are mindful that our goals must be revitalised by the quality of relations between the countries of the region. Since ancient times, my island nation, due to its strategic location between the orient and the accident, has always been one of the first to be touched by the winds of change. Globalization was no exception. We have been subjected to the ebb and flow of this process since the advent of the colonial era. We have derived benefits from some aspects of globalization, for instance, by accepting global civic ethics and harmonizing them with our own civilizational achievements and historical experiences. We have led the way in some areas of human and social development in the developing world. Sri Lanka is modestly proud of her success in reaching internationally recognized targets in the field of political, social and human development. Indices of our progress in this regard require no repetition as they are well-known. Yet we have not achieved our full potential in economic development. In this sphere, and especially in the field of poverty eradication, our performance has been far below our potential and the justified expectations of our people. Let me identify some issues that impact upon the economic and social emancipation of our people. First, it is clear that in my country, as in many others, the benefits of globalization reflect an urban bias. The overwhelming majority of the people in my country and indeed in many Asian developing countries live in the village and do not seem to have benefited as much as they deserve from globalization. Insufficient government resources appear to constrain severely our economic development, and funds have become scarce for much needed poverty alleviation and employment generation programmes. This is compounded by increasing essential government expenditure such as the payment of pensions required for the sustenance of our ageing population. As a result of the high level of human development achieved by Sri Lanka, a demographic transition has taken place from a youthful to an ageing population. It is expected that our population will stabilize at around 23 million by the year 2025, at which time 20% of Sri Lanka's population will be over 60 years of age. Our investments in human resource development since independence have yielded rich dividends. However, on the downside, it has also led to a high level of unemployment and underemployment of educated youth. We will remain open to the world. We greatly value our tourism industry. We welcome foreign investment. We would wish to see it directed towards activities that will maximise benefits for our people. Our commitment towards trade liberalization needs to be matched with a greater focus on issues such as ensuring food security, no different to the focus of many developed countries on their own agriculture. Small developing nations such as mine, striving to return our national identity and ethos in the face of advancing globalisation, have several other challenges to meet. This month, at the Parliamentary General Elections at which our voter turn out was nearly 80% - Sri Lanka is one of the oldest practising democracies in the developing world where men and women have been voting since 1931 - the people of my country voted in favour of economic and social policies that would mobilise our national endeavours towards gaining a strong and resilient domestic economy. They have given the newly installed government a clear message: while seeking the dazzling fruits of globalization, do not forget the basic needs of us the people; otherwise, we will use the only weapon we have in a democratic society to express our discontent, our precious vote, to chastise and drive out our rulers for betraying our confidence and dashing the hopes they raised that they would give us a better quality of life. All our political parties will have to heed this message, to listen to the voice of the people. In this context the role and responsibility of our youth is unquestioned. The voters have placed their faith in local knowledge, indigenous skills and values to withstand the negative effects of globalisation. This is certainly not to say that we seek our future in isolation of global development. Our economic development will be based on the competitive and interactive participation of strong private and public sectors. The government will explore avenues to ensure essential services for the welfare of the people in areas where the private sector may not be disposed or able to maintain standards. Most importantly, people at village level particularly our educated youth, need to be encouraged to participate in the formulation and implementation of policies for economic development. In our view, the benefit of globalisation should touch the village since most people in Asia and the Pacific, as I have said, live in villages. Therefore the integration and harmonisation of bilateral and regional arrangements as envisaged must add value to life not only in cities across the region but in the villages too. For us, it is rural areas that give character and substance to our nation. We will be relentless in our search for policy options that are required to bring the village into the mainstream of economic development and the globalisation process, engaging Sri Lanka's youth to whom our future belongs. The main policy thrust of our Government will be a people centered development strategy. Such a strategy which puts people first, as indeed in China will generate better economic performance through popular participation, respect for democratic norms, the protection of human rights and action to curb corruption. The utmost priority will be given to meeting the basic needs of the people. We are determined to address these challenges both in the short and medium term. In this regard, we value opportunities for solutions that may become available through regional development cooperation, the theme of this discussion. As a manifestation of our commitment towards regional development cooperation. I am pleased to have signed on behalf of my Government, the Inter-governmental Agreement on the Asian Highway Network. This is an important and momentous development that breaks new ground. Such a network, we believe, will constitute an essential element of the inter and intra-regional economic infrastructure. This project should not be viewed as one which connects only cities across the region but as an initiative to connect the village to the city, thus integrating the villager with the globalisation process. There appears to be a global compact in the form of the Millennium declaration, the Monterrey Consensus, the Doha Development Agenda and the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation, that will help us meet the challenges and opportunities of globalisation. One salient feature of this global consensus is that developing countries must be helped out of the poverty trap into which they have fallen and placed on the road to sustainable development. While the quantum of international assistance presently available is below the generally ordained level, developing countries are nevertheless required to adopt certain economic and social policy prescriptions which are said to be necessary for their economic development. However a careful historical review of the development process followed by some developed countries makes it apparent that the path of their economic evolution was the same that the developing countries are now being told not to follow. This is somewhat confusing in that we are being advised not to emulate those practices which developed countries adopted when they were at our stage in the development cycle. This matter may require careful study by those who formulate development policies for developing countries in international fora. In conclusion, I commend the secretariat of ESCAP for selecting for this historic session of ESCAP this important theme, namely meeting the challenges of globalisation by strengthening regional development cooperation. The States in our region may differ in regard to the priority they would accord to one or an other of the proposed areas of cooperation. Irrespective of that specific focus, let us the member States of ESCAP work together, as indeed we in South Asia are seeking to do through poverty alleviation programmes in SAARC. Our people cannot wait much longer for the benefits of globalisation to trickle down. We need to take those benefits to them now. |
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