The Secretary-General's agenda: indispensable for sustainable development.

• Author: Sachs, Jeffrey D.
• Position: United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

Global sustainable development and security are deeply interconnected, a fact that is increasingly recognized by world leaders. Sustainable development signifies the challenge of combining economic development with environmental sustainability. When sustainable development fails and a region falls prey to extreme poverty, disease, hunger and environmental crises, the resulting disarray may lead to violence and even war. No one can doubt that conflicts, such as in Darfur and Somalia, reflect, in large part, extreme poverty and environmental degradation. Peace and security in such places must be achieved hand in hand with poverty reduction, disease control, food security and environmental sustainability.

The dual challenge of security and sustainable development will intensify in the coming years, especially as climate change, rising global populations and increasing degradation of critical ecosystems further threaten lives and livelihoods. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the broader United Nations system are poised to play an indispensable role in addressing the interconnected challenges of security and sustainable development. As he remarked recently to the UN Economic and Social Council, "development for all is central to the UN mission. Together with security and respect for human rights, it represents our core aspirations for a peaceful and better world".

Over the 15 years since the 1992 Earth Summit, held in Rio de Janeiro, world leaders have adopted vital goals regarding poverty reduction, health and environmental sustainability. Yet, despite these shared objectives, very few goals have made the needed transition from words to action, even after the remarkable international political mobilization in 2005 behind the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Perhaps the greatest challenge facing the world during the administration of Secretary-General Ban will be the achievement of these shared goals. Success will open the way to peace and to a profound betterment of the human condition, especially for the poorest and most vulnerable among us.

The MDGs that resulted from the UN Millennium Summit in 2000 and the commitment to mitigate climate change under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992 are the most central and prominent among the agreed objectives. But many other crucial goals have also been set, including the commitment to slow the loss of biodiversity under the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity and...