New York: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Wednesday stressed the need for reforms in the United Nations while presiding over high-level ministerial signature events of India’s ongoing presidency of the UN Security Council. Speaking at the event, he said, ‘While the debate on reforms has meandered aimlessly, the real world meantime has changed dramatically. We see that in terms of economic prosperity, technology capabilities, political influence, and developmental progress’, at the UNSC Open Debate on ‘Maintenance of International Peace & Security: New Orientation for Reformed Multilateralism.’
‘The call for change has been accelerated by growing stresses on the international system that we have experienced in recent years. On the one hand, they have brought out the inequities and inadequacies of the way the world currently functions. On the other, they have also highlighted that a larger and deeper collaboration is necessary to find solutions’, Jaishankar said. He said that these debates and its outcome will not only help determine what kind of UN we wish to see but also the global order that best reflects contemporary realities. ‘Need for a New Orientation for a Reformed Multilateral System or NORMS, as we have titled it, flows from this widespread recognition. While the matter concerns the fullest constituency of member states, UNSC too has an important stake in the consideration of this crucial question’, he added.
Jaishankar said that broader dispersal of capabilities and responsibilities expressed for example, in the emergence of G20. That realization is now steadily percolating through the wider membership of the UN. ‘At 77th UNGA, we were all witness to a growing sentiment in favour of reform. Our challenge is to translate that into concrete outcomes’, added Jaishankar. Speaking on the challenge of terrorism, he said that ‘even as the world is coming together with a more collective response, multilateral platforms are being misused to justify and protect perpetrators’.
Reiterating UN Secretary-General Antonio Antonio Guterres’s calls for multilateralism, he said, ‘UN Chief has rightly called for ‘transforming this moment of crisis into a moment of multilateralism’. But that moment must capture this sense of change, and not remain a prisoner of the past’. ‘After all, Our Common Agenda and the Summit of the Future will only deliver results, if they respond to the growing calls for reformed multilateralism. Reform is the need of the day. I’m confident that the Global South especially shares India’s determination to persevere’, added the EAM.
Jaishankar said that the Member states from Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the Small Island Developing States should have credible and continuing representation in the Security Council. ‘The decision about their future can no longer be taken without their participation. Equally important is to make working methods and processes of the global institutions, including this Council, more accountable, objective, and transparent’, said Jaishankar. He also highlighted the COVID pandemic, during which many vulnerable nations of the Global South got their first vaccines from beyond their traditional sources.
‘Indeed, the diversification of global production was itself a recognition of how much the old order has changed. The knock-on effects of conflict situations have also underscored the necessity for a more broad-based global governance. Recent concerns over food, fertilizer, and fuel security were not adequately articulated in the highest councils of decision-making. Much of the world was therefore led to believe that their interests did not matter. We cannot let this happen again’, said Jaishankar. He urged to recall every milestone in multilateral diplomacy, the sentiment for reform expressed at the highest levels. ‘This ranges from the Millennium Declaration to the World Summit of 2005 and the 75th Anniversary Declaration of the UN in 2020. This year too, UNGA 77 heard calls from more than 70 leaders, more than double the number in 2021. Why then are we failing to deliver on such a strong desire for change?’ said Jaishankar.
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