United Nations Sustainable Development Summit 2015

The United Nations Sustainable Development Summit will be held from 25-27 September 2015 at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. On 25 September, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the summit. At the summit, nations are expected to adopt the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals. Rajni Bakshi, Senior Gandhi Peace Fellow, Gateway House, comments on the significance of the summit.

Statement:“For the Sustainable Development Goals to be anything more than a name change, India will need to make a paradoxical shift. While conventional GDP growth remains important, there is an urgent need for policy makers and business leaders to move away from GDP as a measure of growth, to some form of ‘Genuine Progress Indicator’ (GPI). This would shift the emphasis from accumulation of monetary assets to regeneration of the natural resource base and creation of human well-being through better schooling, health care, sanitation and cleaner air.While GDP growth has enabled India to meet its poverty reduction target under the Millennium Development Goals, 25% of the world’s under-nourished people, 1/3rd of the world’s underweight children and nearly 1/3rd of the world’s food-insecure people, live in India. This can change if public and private enterprise deliver returns on a triple bottom line – of money profits, ecological regeneration and human well-being.

In this context, the work of the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment and the United Nations Environment Programme’s upcoming report on re-configuring global finance towards sustainability, will provide vital tools for how to direct investments towards higher quality growth.”