Red Line demonstration by Major Group of Children and Youth (MGCY)
Speech by HE President Mahinda Rajapakse
Attended a side event on “Going beyond GDP, UNDP proposes
human development measure of sustainability”, In a high-level forum at the UN
Conference on Sustainable Development today the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP) presented the conceptual groundwork for a future “Sustainable Human Development Index,”
which would recognize the cost of human development to future generations. The UNDP forum was prompted by the call made by many in Rio for a UN-led examination of alternatives
to purely economic measurements of national and global progress, said UNDP
Administrator Helen Clark, who moderated today’s panel discussion.
Among other featured speakers at today’s forum – titled
“Beyond GDP: Measuring the Future We Want”
– were President Michael Chilufya Sata
of Zambia and Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt of
Denmark, holder of the European Union’s rotating presidency.
“Equity, dignity, happiness, sustainability – these are all
fundamental to our lives but absent in the GDP,” Helen Clark said today.
“Progress needs to be defined and measured in a way which accounts for the
broader picture of human development and its context.”
The sustainability measurement project by UNDP’s Human
Development Report Office represents a continuation of its work over two
decades, beginning with its Human Development Index (HDI), a composite measure
of health, education and income that has become a widely accepted alternative
to GDP for assessing countries’ progress.
The UN Statistical Office’s System of Environmental-Economic
Accounting, the World Bank’s partnership for Wealth Accounting for Valuation of
Ecosystem Services, and the Inclusive Wealth Index, newly-released by the United Nations
Environment Programme and the United Nations University are among other recent
multilateral initiatives incorporating environmental factors into economic
assessments of national and global progress.
Negotiations prior to the Rio +20 conference echoed that
view, with the final conference declaration submitted for adoption by UN
members stating: “We recognize the need for broader measures of progress to
complement GDP in order to better inform policy decisions, and in this regard,
we request the UN Statistical Commission, in consultation with relevant UN
System entities and other relevant organizations, to launch a programme of work
in this area building on existing initiatives.”
In a presentation to the Rio forum today, Khalid Malik, the
director of UNDP’s Human Development Report Office, reviewed the advantages as
well as the challenges in measuring sustainability from a people-based, human
development perspective. The conceptual framework for an HDI-based assessment
of sustainability reflects the human development concept of intergenerational
equity, based on principles of global justice and rooted in the premise that
choices made today should not limit choices available to people in the future.
The people-centred, HDI-based approach to assessing sustainability also
incorporates the idea of planetary thresholds, showing how climate change in
particular is already posing severe long-term human development risks, most
acutely in poor nations and poor communities. “From a policy perspective, this
implies that the right to current development is fundamental but it must be
achieved without reducing the choices available to future generations,” Malik
said.
Submitting the "Youth Statement for Rio+20" to UNDP Head of Administrator/Former Prime Minister of New Zealand - Ms. Helen Clark
“UNDP believes that the Human Development Index could be a
starting point for a more comprehensive measure of sustainable development,”
Helen Clark said today, emphasizing the need for further research and consultations
with governments, civil society and academic experts in the field, in
collaboration with other UN agencies and multilateral institutions. At the end
of the program I was able to hand over the “Youth Position for Rio+20” to Helan
Clark, who is the former prime minister of the New Zealand.
Having a discussion with Mr. Steward Stevenson, Minister for Environment and Climate Change of Scotland
It was a great pleasure to meet Mr. Nick Clegg, the deputy
Prime minister of the United Kingdom and I raised him a question on
"What's his opinion on including a official Youth delegates into their
National Delegation list"? He said with energy "Yes", it’s
necessary that the youth also should go with the government and get engage with the decision making
process, he said "most of the government has included youth into their
National delegation" meanwhile I was able to meet the Ministers of
Environment of Scotland, India, Germany.
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