A squandered summit

The Okinawa summit of the Group of 8 (G-8) industrialized countries may well be remembered as a meeting of missed opportunities. The G-7 plus Russia summit, at the beginning of a new millennium, provided an ideal setting for the world's rich nations' club to correct the imbalances of the past and set the tone for a "peace and prosperity for all" decade.

However productive the Okinawa summit might have been in terms of political and economic deliberations among the leaders, it failed to produce any tangible results. There were more words than deeds, more statements than concrete action plans to face up to the numerous challenges confronting the world today. Even the follow up on the debt relief package promised in the 1999 Cologne summit failed to meet the expectations of both the least developed economies and the non-government organizations (NGOs) clamoring for relief.

Though the leaders cheered the global growth prospects and the Asian recovery, now in progress, they could not come up with policy initiatives that would ensure that less developed countries could share in this global prosperity instead of getting more marginalized in the process of globalization. Even the U.N. Secretary General, Mr. Kofi Annan, conveyed his disappointment that the G-8 did not offer more relief to the debt-ridden countries.

The G-8 leaders did not miss the opportunity to press for a new round of multilateral negotiations under the WTO, though that process of consultation was derailed last year in Seatle. It could take a while to hammer out a compromise between the demands of the developed and the developing economies on this score. They glossed over the growing indignation at the U.S. National Missile Defense system as well as the trans-Atlantic differences on genetically modified (GM) food.

From an Indian viewpoint, there was the reference to the problem of global terrorism, but the focus was apparently on Afghanistan and the Taliban. As if to strike a balance, the G-8 wanted India and Pakistan to restart the derailed dialogue in the spirit of the Lahore declaration. New Delhi must realize that even as the international community comes out openly in strong condemnation of all forms of terrorism, global pressure is bound to increase on India for a resumption of the bilateral dialogue at some stage and some level.

-- The Hindu, New Delhi