By IANS
New Delhi : Vice-President Hamid Ansari Sunday inaugurated a conference of small nations of the Commonwealth and underlined the need for more regional and global cooperation to tackle cross-border issues, ranging from terrorism and pandemics to sustainable development and democratic governance.
“It is of paramount importance that small states have full say as equal members in addressing such pressing issues that vitally impact them,” Ansari told parliamentarians at a conference of small countries of the 53-nation Commonwealth forum at the Vigyan Bhawan here.
“The global agenda, mercifully, is not all preventive and has many positive dimensions. These relate to sustainable development which, in the context of small countries, necessarily involves multi-pronged strategies that include international assistance in terms of human and material resources,” Ansari, a former diplomat, said.
Such strategies must focus on economic resilience that calls for capacity building, economic diversification and expanding the trade basket to reduce dependence on imported goods and increase the range of exported goods and services, he said while releasing a commemorative stamp to mark the occasion.
“The Commonwealth has good reasons for its interest in small states. The overwhelming majority of the members of the Commonwealth are developing countries; 49 of the 53 members to be precise. Around 60 per cent of the membership of the Commonwealth represents small states,” Ansari said.
The two-day conference on small states, with a population of not more than 400,000, will be followed by the Commonwealth Parliamentarians Conference (CPA) Tuesday. The main theme of the week-long conference is “Delivering Democracy and Sustainable Development.”
Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee, Secretary General of Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) William F. Shija, Minister for Communications and Information Technology A. Raja also addressed the conference. Over 500 delegates from nearly 30 countries are participating.
Commonwealth Secretary-General Don McKinnon, who will step down from the post in March next year, is expected to address the conference Tuesday and speak about the challenges of democracy in the Commonwealth countries. He is likely to focus on issues relating to democracy in Pakistan and Fiji.
The Commonwealth will select a successor to McKinnon at its summit meeting in Kampala in November. India’s envoy to Britain Kamlesh Sharma has joined the fray for this coveted post.
Ansari outlined a range of trans-national issues like food and water security, environmentally sustainable development, global pandemics such as bird flu and HIV/AIDS, terrorism, natural disasters, energy security and climate change that requires more regional and international cooperation.
“The Commonwealth, with its huge membership has within its fold resources that ought to be harnessed to cater to the requirements of small countries. India, I am happy to say, has always responded positively to these,” he said.
Ansari mentioned the Commonwealth Fund for Technical Co-operation (CFTC), to which New Delhi is one of the largest contributors, the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation Programme (ITEC), the ‘Commonwealth Connects’ programme and the Pan-African e-network project as prime examples of India’s significant contribution to the key issue of development faced by the Commonwealth countries.
“There is no alternative to an unrelenting focus on good governance and sound economic practices,” he said.
Chatterjee will inaugurate the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians (CWP) Conference Monday.