Global Security and Sustainable Development – the Essential Global Connection –

Abstract

This is a time of growing uncertainty and doubts in the world's understanding of itself and its future. The global economic system is showing signs of severe strain, giving rise to serious concern in all quarters as to its future resiliency in the face of repeated shocks. The world economy is, in fact, undergoing dramatic changes — changes that are vast and sweeping in their scope and, very possibly, irreversible in their consequences. As the old economic order gives way to an, as yet, uncertain new pattern, an inescapable fact is emerging. And, that is, the world's economy is now truly global . Interdependence and linkage characterize its configuration and processes. The central driving force, the engine that powers the world economy is economic development — a panoply of activities and endeavors fashioned to satisfy the culturally derived needs of the world's society and now, of necessity, increasingly focused on the survival of hundreds of millions of poor peoples caught up in the agony of pervasive and persistent poverty. Economic development rests upon the underpinnings of the environment, underpinnings that, like the world's economic system they support, are showing signs of severe strain, and whose resiliency is the object of growing concern. If the environmental and resource underpinnings of the global economic system cannot be secured, if they cannot furnish evidence of being able to sustain present and future development, then economic dislocation and breakdowns will occur. The emergence of global environmental insecurity as a threat to global economic security, and, hence, international peace is yet to be widely percieved and understood. Several requirements and recommendations are advanced as providing a basis for planning and action.