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The electronic preparation of this document has been done by the
Population Information Network(POPIN) of the United Nations Population
Division in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme
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 AS WRITTEN






ADDRESS By SIR SHRIDATH RAMPHAL

TO THE

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT

ON BEHALF OF

THE COMMISSION ON GLOBAL GOVERNANCE

AND THE EARTH COUNCIL ,

CAIRO, 6 SEPTEMBER I994.



     Mr Chairman, members of the Conference:

     While I speak in two capacities, I shall not do so in double time.

     On behalf of the members of the Commission on Global Governance
and my Co-Chairman, Ingvar Carlsson, I thank the organising authorities
of ICPD - and most specially the Conference's committed and courageous
Secretary-General, Dr Nafis Sadik - for inviting the Commission to
address the Conference.

     The mandate of the Commission on Global Governance is a large one
encompassing all the issues that have brought us to Cairo. When early
next year - the year of commemoration of the U.N.'s 50th Anniversary -
the Commission presents its Report concerns about population and
development of the kind that have been aired in this Plenary will be
among the matters that we address in the context of global governance By
then the fortunes of this Conference - both its conclusions and the
process by which they were reached - will be part of our own data. I
hope that we can commend them as examples of enlightened global
governance - of how our world should be facing up to crucial issues and
acting on them with wisdom and effectiveness. The outturn clearly can be
positive on both counts; but it is what happens here in Cairo in
succeeding days that will provide the answers.

     If those answers are to be truly positive the Conference will have
to make determined efforts on several fronts. The first is in relation
to process. Our Commission recognises that the world is becoming a
global neighbourhood. Certainly we are no longer just a world of nation
states; decisions about the future will not be taken by governments
alone. An international civil society exists and must be an actor in the
governance of our global community. I commend the ICPD therefore in
advancing beyond the first steps taken for the Earth Summit in opening
up the preparatory process and this Conference itself to national and
international ONGs.

     Particularly in this very special area of population - where
whatever governments or spiritual leaders say it is people who will
determine the outcome - it could be a futile exercise for official
delegations to make the final compromises - unless in doing so they
listen closely to the voices from the grass. The Commission on Global
Governance is addressing this question of a larger role for
international civil society in the management of the affairs of our
global neighbourhood and will look closely to the lessons of Cairo.

     I commend, too, the emphasis of the Conference on the values,
principles, ethics that must underpin global responses to issues of
population and development Over the wider terrain of global governance
our Commission has found that that i8 the only sure way to move forward.
Whatever we say on promoting security - of people, of states, of the
planet; on managing economic interdependence; on reforming the UN; on
strengthening the rule of law world-wide - will be rooted in an ethical
basis of human survival. I hope, therefore, that you are not deflected
from the primacy you give to quality of life issues and to the rights of
women in relation to them. There will be no progress on population and
development issues unless there i8 clear direction on these
fundamentals. Shading language will not do; overwhelming sentiment must
prevail. But you will have to do more.

     The Commission on Global Governance has recognised that the global
neighbourhood would be an uncaring place unless rights were balanced -
and in some cases, as with population and development, complemented - by
responsibilities. One relevant set of responsibilities is in the area of
consumption which i8 many times more culpable than population growth in
relation to the break-down of Earth's life-support systems and therefore
of human survival. I will say a word more about this on behalf of the
Earth Council. The point I make here in relation to global governance is
that we have been concentrating our efforts so much on single issue
conferences at a time when several issues have become so interlocked as
to be inseparable that we sometimes allow crucial elements in problem
solving to slip from our grasp. So at Rio we talked about environment
but not about population. At Cairo we are talking about population but
not about consumption. It could be a self-defeating process. This is not
a plea for open-ended global negotiations; but we must not err by being
too craintive either.

     As self-defeating will be the failure of this Conference to reach
firm conclusions on the resources by which the values, principles,
ethics, the rights of women elaborated in the Programme Action, are to
be translated into reality - the reality of development that will
sustain their realisation. In the end, there were no real 'new and
additional resources' for Agenda 21.

     It will be as great an insult to our humanity were this Conference
to say to the women of the poorer countries deprived of the bread of
basic sustenance that after Cairo they now have the right to the cake of
a higher quality of life, of education, of health care, of the assurance
of reproductive health. And to do no more. It is not only immoral, it is
provocative, to present starvinq people a glossy cook-book but no
ingredients to cook.

     Will resources prove to be the real 'Achilles' heel' of Cairo too?
Will industrial countries who carry so large a responsibility for human
impact on the planet, take up their responsibilities for contributing to
the resources which alone can make the Conference's conclusions a
genuine Programme of Action? The 20/20 Initiative for Achieving
Universal Access to Basic Social Services for Sustainable Human
Development can help involving as it does contributions by developing
countries countries themselves. But more has to be done. The Commission
on Global Governance will face this issue over a wider area and make
some suggestions for global resources for global purposes. It is one
this Conference cannot avoid in the context of agreement to act.

     And developing countries must not let slip the possibilities of
genuine South-South cooperation in this crucial area of population. The
real success stories are in the South; the experience is there to be
transmitted. Donor countries and the UN system must help, and it is
heartening that there are initiatives in this direction.

     The Commission on Global Governance believes that with enlightened
leadership at all levels and a spirit to move forward shedding the
baggage of the past and adapting both policy and process to global
neighbourhood values we can yet fulfil our trust to future generations.
It believes strongly that ICPD must not be overwhelmed by doctrinal
divisiveness and rancour, but be imbued with that spirit of solidarity
and common responsibility for which H.E. President Mubarak called at the
Opening Session.

     So let me turn to my message on behalf of the Earth Council.
Maurice Strong should have been here himself; he cannot be; but his
heart is in Cairo. The Earth Council which was born out of Rio feels a
special duty to identify with the purposes of this Conference and its
first message is that to which President Mubarak gave expression at the
Opening Session - a 'spirit of solidarity and common responsibility'
with Cairo and ICPD.

     The Earth Council has prepared for ICPD and will circulate to
members a special paper entitled 'CONSUMPTION: THE OTHER SIDE 0E
POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT'. The objective of the paper is to present
the importance of consumption vis-a vis population and development and
to discuss their direct linkages. It draws on the Vallentyne
'demotechnic' index to combine and interrelate population and
consumption. By doing so the Council is able to adjust population by
consumption, obtaining estimates which allow fair comparisons of
countries in terms of their global environmental stress.

     The conclusions obtained from these estimates of population
adjusted by consumption seriously question the assumption that countries
with larger populations pose a greater environmental risk. They show,
for example, that the U.S. and the former U.S.S.R. each with relatively
low populations, have 'consumption adjusted populations' that
dramatically surpass those of the more populated but less developed
countries of China and India.

     Sustainable development, the Earth Council emphasises, is premised
on a balance between population and consumption within the overall
limits imposed by nature. It has become clear to the Council and it is
central to its message to this Conference that not only population but
also consumption have to be reduced if sustainability is to be achieved
is premised. What is needed, the Council's presentation concludes, is
rolling back consumption levels in the North and reducing population
growth in the South.

     Which brings us back to the need for ICPD to be imbued not with a
special spirit of solidarity and common responsibility.

