India fulfils the resolution of global partnerships

■ According to the guidelines of the UN, the Government of India has worked very fast in the field of renewable energy and provided adequate funding, resources and international cooperation for its rapid development

Lucknow: Regarding the concept of fast development and the welfare of human life in all the countries of the world, the United Nations has set 17 targets to achieve it by 2030. The ultimate goal is to create a global partnership for sustainable development and for this the government, the private sector and civil society organisations have a proposal to work together. The United Nations calls it a global partnership. It is true that only the government and government resources cannot be relied upon to meet the needs of fast growing population, but the other aspect of this truth is that there are areas like education and health which are developed in the private sector. By abandoning trust, their continuous exploitation begins with the continuous development of citizens.

The basic necessities of human life not only include roti, kapda aur makaan ( food, clothes and housing), but today education, cleanliness, health and clean drinking water have also been included. Cleanliness and health are two issues that more or less affect each area and thus it has become a very broad topic. Similarly water is not just for drinking and bathing, but today it has become an industry, in which agriculture, horticulture and industry have also been absorbed. For the overall and rapid development of all these, the United Nations has stressed on creating a structured system alongside economic cooperation, including finance, technical, capacity building, business and systematic issues like policy and institutional subjects.

Whenever there is talk of development and systems, we see that there are many countries in the world that are financially prosperous, but they are far behind in the name of development, because that is not a priority of the government. They can be named, especially the oil producing countries. The United States has been the dominant United Nations organisation since its inception, because it provides the highest financial aid ( 22 per cent). While India’s contribution has only been 0.73 per cent. This is the reason that the American influence on the UN’s style of functioning and policy remains direct.

Regarding financial resources under its “target” chapter, the UN says that with international help domestic resources of the countries should be further strengthened so that their domestic capacity of their tax and other revenue collections could be developed. In India the tax system has been improved by taking a revolutionary step in the development of domestic resources under which a simple and uniform tax has been introduced called Goods and Services Tax. The UN urges the developed countries to continue to cooperate with their promises of providing funds so that the developing countries can be helped.

According to the guidelines of the UN, the Government of India has worked very fast in the field of renewable energy and provided adequate funding, resources and international cooperation for its rapid development. The government aims to get 150 GW of power from renewable energy by 2022. Of course, this will not only be an important achievement, but India will have a special contribution in achieving the goal of sustainable development. On this one side, where dependence on coal will be reduced, India’s commitment to clean the environment will also prove. According to another directive from the UN, one major step of the government is to change the policy of FDI. It is also a part of UN’s development programmes.

Cooperation in regional engagement and skill development is also an agenda of the UN. In this direction also India has done commendable work. Launching the “South Asia Satellite”, India is sharing its space missionrelated achievements with neighbouring countries — Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Afghanistan, Maldives and Sri Lanka.

The “South Asia Cooperative Environment Programme” created for environmental protection was established in 1982 by eight South Asian countries. These countries are Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Maldives and India. Apart from this, two departments of the Government of India — Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute ( CMFRI) and Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services ( INCOIS) coordinate with each other to help fishermen and others working at sea. Similarly, the International Hydrographic Organisation ( IHO), an international organisation established in the year 1921 which India is a member country along with 87 countries, provides for the protection of the oceans and preparation of surveys and charts, etc, for the coastal countries.

This is not the first time that India has been pushing for global partnership. Earlier, in many international forums, India has been calling for a global partnership on a new level to reliably strengthen weak economic growth through long- term investment and business growth in key areas. Under this situation, a new global partnership is needed to promote long- term investment in important areas like transport, agriculture, energy, and infrastructure and communication technology. But for the success of the goal of sustainable development, improvement in the infrastructure of rural areas is important so that villagers can easily reach the global market, because real India resides in the village.