Partnership for the Earth

Hosting the World Environment Day celebrations in Beirut is a declaration of hope during these challenging times. By taking environmental concerns seriously, we wish to convey a loud message that we are not satisfied with mere survival, but rather opt for a better quality of life. Decades of war have destroyed our city, but failed to break our spirit. Against all the odds, Beirut has risen from ashes, and is being re-built as an environmentally-friendly metropolis.

Lebanon, home of the Cedars and garden of the Orient, is once again hosting the world. Last year, Beirut hosted the Francophonie Summit, the Arab Summit and the World Congress of the International Advertising Association, among other world and regional events. WED 2003 in Beirut is yet another manifestation of a spirit exploring the future, setting the platform for challenging aspirations where no horizons are impossible.

The third millennium promises huge technological and scientific breakthroughs, which open to mankind horizons that were, not long ago, considered to belong in the realms of science fiction. However, past successes in exploring the secrets of the universe have coincided with appalling damage to our small blue planet. Its limited resources have been depleted, its waters, air and soil polluted. In the process of seeking a more abundant life, man has destroyed basic elements on which his life depends. But whereas environmental degradation was in most cases due to excessive development schemes that over-exploited the natural resources, in other cases it was due to damaging wars. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) should play a pivotal role to identify and suggest possible responses to environmental hazards arising from military conflicts. We commend UNEP’s study on the environment in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, published early this year, and stress the urgent need to support UNEP’s efforts to assess the environmental impact of the war in Iraq, especially regarding the contamination from weapons containing depleted uranium. This should lead to the implementation of a comprehensive clean-up programme covering all affected sites.

Coming from a region trying to achieve sustainable development under the threat of war and aggression, I can testify that resolving conflicts in such a way that safeguards and respects human dignity and national rights, is a prerequisite to achieving sustainable development. It is particularly sad to witness the spending of trillions of dollars on armament and wars, at a time when international aid for development is diminishing.

Water is the theme of this year’s World Environment Day, and UNEP argues that two billion people die for it. While the World Water Forum in Kyoto was pleading in despair for one hundred billion dollars to solve the global drinking water plight of the poor, a war was waged with a budget exceeding this amount. As we long for just peace, which in itself will boost the cause of the environment, we support the call for declaring the Middle East a region free of weapons of mass destruction. This can only be serious when equally, not selectively, enforced on all countries.

A fraction of the budgets spent on arms would be enough to eradicate poverty, diseases, malnutrition and protect the environment. However aid levels fall short of demand, and developing countries rightly complain that industrialized countries have failed to fulfill their pledges. Over the last decade, official development assistance has declined by one-third, to 0.22 per cent of the gross domestic product of the rich countries, instead of increasing to the promised 0.7 per cent. While developing countries are willing not to pursue the same development patterns followed by industrialized countries, which have caused environmental havoc, they must be assisted to adopt alternative sustainable patterns of development, without compromising their own national resources and sovereignty.

Sustainable development should be accepted as a goal in itself, not a negotiation item in the midst of talks on governance and aid. Selective interpretations of good governance by some developed countries should not be used as an excuse to deprive poor countries of needed aid. Simultaneously, insufficient aid from rich countries does not absolve developing countries of the obligation to ensure good governance and fight corruption. Good governance, based on the principles of sound quality management, is in the interest of developing countries, regardless of the levels of foreign aid, as much as delivering aid is a moral obligation of developed countries. Whatever the cost, this remains the cheapest path to global stability.

Allow me to share some of Lebanon’s experiences to integrate environment in development planning. Like other countries, we have established an Environment Ministry, enacted laws, ratified major international conventions and cooperated with international agencies to implement various environmental projects. The Government has passed a clean-air act, embarked on a nation-wide reforestation scheme, and included integrated environmental management in its policy statement. Our civil society became increasingly vibrant and active on environmental matters. However, international cooperation on sustainable development during the past decade was, in spite of many successes, often characterized by ready-made solutions that resulted in projects designed to fit the conditions and requirements of donor agencies and the international bureaucracy, rather than the actual needs of local communities.

The answer to globalization’s failure to benefit the poor is not isolationism, but more global integration, based on fair and equitable distribution of resources, in the framework of decent international governance that respects diversity.

Global partnership, required to make sustainable development a reality, calls for a meaningful dialogue among civilizations, based on mutual respect and understanding of different cultures. We cannot win a “war on terror” if we fail to attain peaceful coexistence and wage a determined war on poverty and injustice.

His Excellency Rafic Hariri
Prime Minister of the Republic of Lebanon