Business View

Colombia proposed at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio +20) a set of objectives that seek to articulate the social, economic and environmental and already has the support and assistance from the host Government of Brazil and the United Nations .

Director of Economic, Social and Environmental Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Paula Knight, said in an interview with Efe that the Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, has called this initiative is an outcome of the meeting next month June in Rio de Janeiro.

The proposal is called Sustainable Development Goals (ODS) and seeks to extend the “successful model” of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set by the UN in 2000 to halve the 2015 poverty levels 1990, but with a universal approach.

Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has also expressed support for the ODS and according to the Colombian Foreign Ministry, aims to be “one of the five most important legacies of his administration.”

Knight explained, there is still no set number of goals because it is a “political decision” that will address the participants of Rio +20 between 15th and June 23, but felt that the ideal is that “are few and Concrete. ”

“It is clear that it will launch a process of the ODS,” said the mother of the project that has driven hard Colombia’s Foreign Ministry, explaining also the Community of Latin American and Caribbean (ECLAC) and other countries as support “because everybody is reflected in them.”

From their point of view, five possible axes satisfy the common needs of the world around “to water, food security, sustainable cities, oceans and patterns of consumption and production patterns.”

Commit to meet those goals within certain deadlines and indicators to be defined at the top does not collide with any domestic agenda and, according to Knight, his execution “sensible” would reach “the metaobjective: reducing poverty.”

“The environmental objectives are not, are the articulation of social and economic background of the environment,” he said and called to stop thinking “green” as something apart from other dimensions of life.

For example, justified that the objective of the oceans “is not only for mermaids and dolphins,” but is closely related to food security, nutrition and hunger, because “20% of animal protein consumed in the world comes from the seas. ”

He called for thinking beyond the protection of water resources and to realize that soon will be used in “sanitation, so that children do not die of diarrhea, for industrial processes.”

Meanwhile, the Government of Colombia has decided to lead by example, so that President Juan Manuel Santos ordered the Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development, Frank Pearl, coordinate the implementation of five different ODS from Colombian institutions.

“Colombia has finished leading this because we invented it, but has always said that this is a collective construction process,” added Knight to defend the interest of the proposal to discuss proposals clear “and not esoteric” while away “the unsustainable division between north and south. “