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Challenging New Challenges

Will globalization, identified as the central challenge during the Millennium Summit, be a victory for the poor or an unparalleled catastrophe for the planet's most desperate people?

BY AKSHAY SHARMA

When Russian TV flashed pictures of British Gurkhas as NATO troops moved into Kosovo, the anchor spoke briefly about the bravery of these fearless mountain warriors famous for their fighting skills during World War II and the Falklands War. The anchor added, sarcastically, that the job of these Gurkhas was to protect the tanks.

There is none of that caricature on the UNís peace-keeping map, which records the scale of Nepalís commitment and contribution. From Lebanon to Kosovo to East Timor, Nepalese contingents have actively participated in peace efforts. What new role will the new millennium bring for Nepalese peace-keepers? Moreover, what new challenges will Nepal face in a rapidly globalizing world?

Debate on the UN : Too many agendas

"As Nepalese, we watch from the periphery as the world evolves spectacular experiments represented by globalization. It is natural that our international partners are trying to construct the world in their image that immediately impinges on purposes, our interests and us. Can the world be indifferent to our poverty, inequality and underdevelopment simply because we are in a different periphery? Any serious reflection on the future brings the role of the UN closer to our hope, a hope of being not left out in the international backwaters, a hope to raise our living standards and a hope to become relevant partner of the international community," said Prof. Biswa Maskay, President of United Nations Association of Nepal (UNAN), at a roundtable organized on Millennium Summit and its Relevance to Nepal on October 24.

The Millennium Summit in September, attended by Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala together with 175 heads of state and government, represented a momentous event that could change our world. Never before has there been such a high-level gathering which analyzed and debated the challenges mankind in the new millennium that lead to the Millennium Declaration.

Speaking at the roundtable, Koirala said, "I expressed the views of my country in the Millennium Summit in New York. Though the UN has made progress in many fields, we need to make the UN more effective. The UN has always played a lead role in international security. Poverty is a very serious factor along with so many others; we need to be geared to combat. We should make sure that the commitments we made in the declaration are transferred into reality." are fraught with poverty. And particularly those people who live off the land.

Dr Henning Karcher, UN resident coordinator and director of the UN Information Center, speaking on the roundtable said, "I believe it is significant that at the outset heads of state and governments reconfirmed their faith in the United Nations and its Charter as an indispensable foundation for a more peaceful, prosperous and just world. They also recognized their collective responsibility to uphold the principles of human dignity, equality and equity at the global level. They further recognized their collective responsibility that they had a duty to all the world's people, and in particular the children of the world to whom the future belongs."

The world leaders have identified globalization as the central challenge of today and the need to ensure that globalization becomes a positive force for the world.

"World-wide globalization offers opportunities and also carries danger for those that are already marginalized and could be marginalized even further. No category of countries faces a greater risk in this context than the least developed countries and within them the poorest group of the populations and those who suffer most from discrimination," said Dr Karcher.

The most pressing moral, economic or political issue of our time is world poverty. It will be a rough-and-tumble fight against poverty, ignorance, disease, and destruction. Will globalization be a victory for the poor and human spirit or an unparalleled catastrophe for the planet's most desperate people?

"National leaders sometimes have to take hard and unpopular decisions. The biggest responsibility rests on the leaders and the people. The leaders need to remember the priorities they set in the Millennium Declaration, when they come to allocate, among competing needs and demands, the resources the people have entrusted in them. We should be able to make the challenges to the people at the grass-roots level to mitigate the threats of world," said Damber Thapa, secretary-general of UN Association of Nepal. He also stressed that a new course should be charted to build a world for all.

Since our fate is interlinked with the fate of others, collective and sustainable action is vital.

"The UN system's cooperation in Nepal aims to secure better quality of life for the Nepalese people by supporting capacity building of the Nepali state, the polity and the people, facilitating knowledge, resource and technological transfer and helping to catch up the development wave. Sustainable human development equally facilitates internal coherence and coordination which purport to build national society, the state and economy in a sustained way to meet the needs of its own people," said Prof. Maskay during the discussion.

This roundtable may not be enough to attain such vital goals, but it certainly sparks a series of similar debate for shaping our future on the global map.