In a veiled attack on China, Bharat said the international community
should work on transparent and equitable financing and be vigilant towards the
dangers of unsustainable financing which leads to a vicious cycle of debt
traps.
“Peace is elusive and development a distant dream if resource crunch
continues to exist. Hence, India in various fora, including in its current G20 Presidency
has worked towards reforms of International Financial Institutions,” Counsellor
in India’s Permanent Mission to the UN R Madhu Sudan said at the UN Security
Council open debate on ‘Maintenance of International Peace and Security:
Promoting Sustaining Peace through Common Development’, held under China’s
Presidency of the 15-nation UN body for the month of November.
Madhu Sudan said as the concept paper of the meeting suggests, “we should
work on transparent and equitable financing and be vigilant with respect to the
dangers of unsustainable financing which leads to the vicious cycle of debt
traps.”
He further noted that similarly, peace is “elusive as in our lived
experiences where the UN representing the international community struggled to
restrain the vaccine apartheid during Covid or the rising inflation of food,
fuel and fertilizers which unjustly affect the Global South. It is reflective
enough that the voice of the Global South is lost and forgotten without
representation.”
Bharat has been urging countries in the Indian Ocean region to
effectively address the development challenges as it warned them to be clear of
the dangers of “hidden agendas” in unviable projects or unsustainable debt, in
an apparent reference to China which is accused by the West of “debt trap”
diplomacy.
Speaking at the 23rd Council of Ministers Meeting of the Indian Ocean Rim
Association in Colombo recently, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said it
is important to maintain vigil against hidden agendas in unviable projects or
in unsustainable debt.
The Hambantota port, which was funded by a Chinese loan, was leased to
Beijing in a 99-year debt-for-equity swap in 2017 after Sri Lanka failed to pay
off the debt.
Bharat further underscored that a UN befitting the aspirations and needs
of the 21st century is only possible through a sustained, reformed
multilateralism, especially through the expansion of both categories of
membership of the Security Council.
“Choosing peace, co-operation and multilateralism is essential for
building our collective future free of wars, conflicts, terrorism, space race
and the threats from new and emerging technologies amongst others,” Madhu Sudan
said.
He added that while a comprehensive vision of international security must
encompass the interdependence of the UN system’s three pillars — peace and
security, development, and human rights — it is important to remember that this
does not imply that the Security Council should assume all these functions.
“Security is indeed multi-dimensional, but the Security Council’s
involvement in every aspect including those mandated to other UN bodies might
not be advisable,” he said.
Bharat told the Council that maintaining international peace and security
is one of the key mandates of the UN Security Council, reiterating that
maintaining peace is weighty, nuanced and multidimensional and is not just
linked to “common development.”
“Our leaders met recently to assess global progress on the SDGs and
concurred that urgent measures are necessary to reverse the concerning trend of
faltering on these goals. My delegation reiterates that we do not lose focus by
diluting or cherry picking, in name or substance, from Agenda 2030 for
Sustainable Development,” he said.
Global leaders met for the 2023 SDG Summit that took place in September
during the high-level UN General Assembly session. The summit began a new phase
of accelerated progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals with
high-level political guidance on transformative and accelerated actions leading
up to 2030.
PTI
