India’s permanent contribution to agenda of world community is of enormous importance for us: UN chief Guterres
These remarks were made by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who will be heading to New Delhi to attend the India AI Impact Summit, the first summit on Artificial Intelligence held in the Global South.
“India, I remember the G20, which India chaired, and the very important decisions taken there, has become an extremely important leader in discussions on all aspects of the UN’s activities on peace and security, sustainable development,” Guterres told PTI here in an exclusive interview.
“And also on human rights as a democratic country in a world where we see that, unfortunately, democracy is in trouble in many parts of the world,” Guterres said.
Asked about India’s role in the UN, Guterres said, “First of all, we owe a great debt of gratitude to India for its presence in UN Peacekeeping,” noting that around 5,000 Indian men and women are currently deployed in peacekeeping missions around the world.
He also emphasized that the “first all-female police unit in peacekeeping” in India was “a remarkable thing”, given that gender equality is a “fundamental goal” for the UN.
India, traditionally among the top troop contributors to UN Peacekeeping, became the first country to deploy its all-female Police Unit to Liberia in 2007; This is a turning point in the history of the global organization. “This permanent contribution of India to the agenda of the international community, which is the agenda of the UN, is of great importance to us,” Guterres said in an interview before his visit to India. he said.
Guterres, whose term as UN chief will end this year, drew attention to some “positive megatrends” emerging in the world at a time when conflicts and inequalities are increasing.
“My message, of course, is that there are many reasons to worry. We have seen that conflicts in the world are increasing, injustices and inequalities are increasing, poverty and hunger are not solved.
“We have seen terrorism develop and become a nightmare in different parts of the world. So there are many reasons to be concerned, but there are also a few positive megatrends,” he said.
Guterres emphasized that one of the “most important megatrends” concerns the role of countries and economies like India.
“The group of developed countries (G7 and similar countries) has a smaller share of the global economy every day compared to the previous day. Developing economies, of which India is the mainstay, get a larger share of the world economy every day.”
“And this is happening every day, which means that this megatrend will contribute over time to a world where there will be justice, equality and much more conditions where justice, equality, peace will prevail,” he said.
Guterres has previously emphasized that global structures and institutions must reflect the complexity and opportunities of these “new times and realities”.
In this context, he called for reform of the UN Security Council, but noted that it was important to distinguish the powerful 15-nation body from the rest of the United Nations.
“The UN is not the Security Council,” he said, adding that the UN is fully represented in the 193-member General Assembly, where all states have the same weight.
“It is true, of course, that the Security Council is not only unjust in its composition but also ineffective in its actions. This facilitates some easy criticisms of the United Nations.”
He voiced full support for the UN, underscoring that he is proud of the work the world organization does.
“I am immensely proud of the extraordinary work the United Nations is doing on humanitarian assistance around the world, supporting sustainable development around the world, leading the hugely important campaign for climate action, and developing increasingly new areas beyond what we have done traditionally,” he said.
“The United Nations has been a strong ally of developing countries fighting to reform the international financial architecture to ensure that developing countries have a much stronger participation and voice in international financial institutions,” he said.
“I’m very proud to work with the UN, and I’m also very proud of my colleagues who do humanitarian work in the most remote and dangerous parts of the world, and peacekeepers like Indian peacekeepers who protect people in very difficult circumstances, even in some very dangerous situations,” he said.
Asserting that the UN plays a “very important and positive role”, he said “our brand of the Sustainable Development Goals became a universal brand that all countries, and India has been leading in this dimension, are pursuing with determination.”
Guterres is scheduled to attend the Summit’s opening ceremony, a plenary meeting with Heads of State and Government and a session on the role of science in international AI governance, his spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
Guterres will hold bilateral talks with President Droupadi Murmu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and will meet with global and technology leaders attending the Summit, as well as members of the International Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence.
Balaraman Ravindran, Head of the Department of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (DSAI) at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, is among a global group of 40 distinguished experts selected by Guterres to serve on the panel.
Guterres is also scheduled to attend a roundtable organized by the UN to discuss renewable energy and the energy transition.
“With India emerging as a global leader in renewable energy expansion, the discussion will bring together senior figures from industry, finance, policy and civil society to identify concrete steps to further accelerate renewable energy deployment, strengthen grids and storage, and mobilize investments at scale. This participation is part of the Secretary-General’s ongoing efforts to advance a faster, fairer and more inclusive global energy transition aligned with the Paris Agreement,” Dujarric said. he said.
