'Nothing is closer than tomorrow' - DevelopmentWatch

UN Chronicle, March-May, 2003 by Kassymzhomart K. Tokaev

History has witnessed many examples where a shortage of water suitable for drinking and irrigation resulted in clashes between people and States, and quite often many thousands of people were forced to abandon their territories because of water problems. Kazakhstan, a country primarily composed of deserts and semi-arid regions, knows the price of pure water better than anybody. According to United Nations data, Kazakhstan belongs to a category of countries with very low availability of water resources per capita. By the year 2025, the situation might deteriorate further still.

The Government of Kazakhstan, which fully shares the concern of the international community about the present and future situation regarding access to safe sources of drinking water, considers the initiative important and appropriate in light of the Johannesburg Summit. We support the judgement of UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs Nitin Desai that "the subject of water was probably the most successful of the Summit". In this connection, we welcome the initiatives of the European Union, Japan and the United Sates, as well as of several regional banks, offering substantial financial investment for the development of the water sector in the developing and least developed countries of Africa and Asia. We are also looking forward to the results of the forthcoming third World Water Forum, to be held in Kyoto in March 2003. We believe that the initiative of Japan to call such a representative international conference will serve as an important element in the process of finding solutions to w ater problems.

Destiny decreed that Kazakhstan would be endowed with huge reserves of natural and especially energy resources, which are under the non-renewable category and are the property of all future generations, the general well-being of whom will depend upon, among other things, the skill of our generation in investing the income from sales of petroleum and natural gas. Understanding this, President Nursultan Nazarbaev, in a decree of 23 August 2000, established the "National Fund of the Republic of Kazakhstan".

The purpose of the Fund is to maintain the stable social and economic development of the country, accumulate financial assets for future generations of citizens, and reduce the effects of unfavourable external factors on Kazakhstan's economy. As of today, the Fund's assets total about $2 billion.

The World Summit on Sustainable Development, which ended its work in early September 2002 in Johannesburg (South Africa), has, in effect, confirmed once again a well-known truth, which to my mind is most deeply reflected in a Kazakh proverb: "Nothing is farther away than yesterday, nothing is close than tomorrow".

The twentieth century that is now history has left behind a great variety of social, economic, political and ecological problems, which are no longer connected to our past but are subject to doubt about our future--a future in which our children and grandchildren can be deprived of the right to live in a world free of today's vices, such as polluted air, dirty water, famine, sickness, wars caused by poverty and extremism, and the growing divide between poor and rich countries.

The conclusions of the Brundtland Commission, which provided a methodological and conceptual basis for decisions adopted in the framework of the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development (Earth Summit) in Rio de Janeiro, fixed the concept of "sustainable development." In the modern political lexicon as a model of social and economic development helping to satisfy the vital needs of the present generation without depriving future generations of such possibility, Stable economic growth, which does not result in such degradation of the natural environment as would threaten a decent level of life for future generations, became one of the main items on the agenda of the new century. The means of solving the problem are not yet clear, and the outcomes of the Johannesburg Summit remind us once again that the road to the realization of sustainable development will never and nowhere be smooth or easy.

Ten years ago, the Rio Earth Summit defined the main principles of sustainable development and made a start to the process of realizing the goals incorporated in Agenda 21. In the same year, my country entered its first year of independent existence as a sovereign State and member of the family of the international community of nations.

It therefore came about that the Rio Summit was one of the first major international events in which Kazakhstan enjoyed equal participation. A wise man once observed that if you do not know where you are going, any road might lead you there. In this regard, we find a certain symbolism in the fact that our young State has taken its first steps on a road that is now being paved with our participation-a road along which the only alternative paths would lead to the abyss of social, economic, political and ecological catastrophe.