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Topic Discussion I
Politics of Hard Choices
Political Transition and Economic Restructuring
Room 5
(17 of 22 pages)
As for the relationship between democracy and sustainable development, while achieving
to make changes and achieving democracy people find that they are in an imbalanced situation and they are hesitant,
they make moves forward by one step and backwards by two steps. This means that the economic situation is deteriorating
because of the slackening of the iron hand that is used to control everything because we still haven't replaced
power by law and the respect of the individual. However the collapse of the communist block has underlined that
democracy without freedom, political freedom leads to the irradiation of development so we cannot have sustainable
development without true democracy. We are seeking here, or we are deliberating here how to overcome the obstacles
that are faced through democracy and achieving sustainable development consequently.
I recommend that if we want to have sustainable development then we should push forward towards achieving through
democracy. Thank you.
Chair: Thank you for those excellent comments. Now 1, 2 and then 3 and then I am going to turn to our panelists,
thank you.
Speaker: Thank you very much. I think we couldn't of had a better organization of this meeting especially
in presenting the terms of platforms and advising precise questions and drawing the right recommendations to be
transmitted to the forum. Now I wonder how they are going to elaborate those recommendations out of this very interesting
debate but we had a lack of focus there. I think if we could obtain an additional two or three hours tomorrow or
the day after, but mind you it is very necessary because the questions here are absolutely fundamental, sanctioned
for this emerging democracies forum.
I will try to put forth four or five recommendations. Unfortunately I will not be able to discuss them.
The first one is that yes structural reforms are needed. We have to admit that whether we accept them or not, we
have to have in this international environment globalization, a program for economic reforms.
Two, I believe that situations defer from one country to another. We cannot draw the same lessons from past experiences
in different countries, but we have to adjust these reforms to the specific conditions prevailing in different
societies, countries and cultures, backgrounds and methods of development, economic and social. So that one has
to be clearly stated.
In my view we will not have democracy, stability, security, human rights without economic development, let's face
it. We are presenting the developing countries let's not fool ourselves. It is in the interest of the global society
to see to it that economic development brings about social justice, democracy, stability, and fair distribution
of income. It is very very important. We have to recognize the differences between the north and the south. The
situations are totally different. We have to recognize the existence of these differences between north and south.
The north south issue is not dead in spite of this globalization. From there would derive a certain number of proposals.
For example if you take official development assistance it is coming down now, it is nearer than ever before. If
I take Africa, Africa is in a very very difficult situation from north to south, east to west. We are not addressing
also the conflicts. If you have conflicts all over the place you cannot have democracy. In my view it is not the
only reason but under development, lack of employment. Yesterday they were dealing with let's say some dictators
all of a sudden they say you have to adopt multiparty systems. It is not fair. Otherwise you don't get that official
development assistance. We have to have those transitions and they are to be adjusted to the specificity of the
different countries. Therefore this north south differences exist in these income levels.
The other thing is regional cooperation is indispensable in the south. You have grouping which are very powerful.
I wonder how 53 small economies in Africa are going to make it. They are a main partner of being the European Union.
Belgium alone has the higher income than all of the countries south of the Sahara, I don't know what is to be there
in stability, security, development, democracy. This better distribution of income and reviewing the relationship
between north and south establishing our groupings because in Africa we have the Panafrican (ph) economic community,
implementation is lagging behind. We have to be very very firm on this necessity to strengthen regional cooperation
in these emerging democracies, especially in Africa but also in other parts of the world.
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