structural violence and exploitation

sustainable human development

Main Topic: Coordinator Comments

"It is increasingly recognized that in the long term, everyone gains from the implementation of sustainable human development for all. The poverty and exclusion of some increases the vulnerability of all. This represents a major change in the concept of economic growth which, in the past, could be considered as benefiting from military supremacy and structural violence and achieved at the exense of the vanquished and the weak."

With the preceeding words, UNESCO introduced the third programme area of the culture of peace in document A/53/370 sent to the United Nations General Assembly in 1998.

Among the specific recommendations in this regard adopted by the General Assembly in the final resolution on the culture of peace (resolution A/53/243) were support for:

(a) comprehensive actions on the basis of appropriate strategies and agreed targets to eradicate poverty through national and international efforts, including through international cooperation [more recently incorporated into the program of the millennium development goals];

(b) Strengthen the national capacity for implementation of policies and programmes designed to reduce economic and social inequalities within nations through, inter alia, international cooperation;

(c) Promote effective and equitable development-oriented and durable solutions to the external debt and debt-servicing problems of developing countries through, inter alia, debt relief;

(d) Reinforce actions at all levels to implement national strategies for sustainable food security, including the development of actions to mobilize and optimize the allocation and utilization of resources from all sources, including through international cooperation, such as resources coming from debt relief;

(e) Undertake further efforts to ensure that the development process is participatory and that development projects involve the full participation of all;

(f) Include a gender perspective and empowerment of women and girls as an integral part of the development process;

(i) Incorporate capacity-building in development strategies and projects to ensure environmental sustainability, including preservation and regeneration of the natural resource base;

Recognizing that individuals, as well as states, have responsibilities in this regard, the Manifesto 2000, which was signed by 75 million individuals around the world during the International Year for the Culture of Peace (2000), included the following two among its six points:

* Share with others: Share my time and material resources in a spirit of generosity to put an end to exclusion, injustice and political and economic oppression.

* Preserve the planet: Promote consumer behaviour tht is responsible and development practices that respect all forms of life and prserve the balance of nature on the planet.