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Prof. Y K Alagh
Former Union Minister and Member of Parliament, India

"In India, there is a lot of pressure on land. India will have to manage land in the South-Asian way."

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Dr Maria Ligia Noronha
Senior Fellow, TERI

"We can build coalition only if there is mutual trust amongst stakeholders."

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Mrs Meenakshi Datta Ghosh
Joint Secretary, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India

"We need to adopt an out-of-the-box approach of thinking."

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Mr Robert Lion
Member of the Board of Directors of the French High Council for International Co-operation and President - Energy 21, France

"Most important is the survival rate of small enterprises"

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Prof. Charles Perrings
Head of Department – Environment, University of York

"Local market failures lead to under-investment in conservation efforts"

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Mr David Runnalls
President, International Institute for Sustainable Development, Canada

"Like the chemical industry 20 years ago, the mining industry too is in grave danger because of its malpractices."

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Dr Yasmin von Schirnding
Focal Point: Agenda 21, World Health Organization, Switzerland

"Causes and effects are difficult to disentangle"

Natural resource management has significant implications for social welfare. Governments are moving away from providing economic services to formulating institutional frameworks for economic and social sectors. Such decentralization, in partnership with civil society and corporates, is the key to success. Preferred resource management is gender-sensitive; recognizes cultural and biological diversity; invests partial resource income in community development; and ensures transparency and adequacy of compensation payments. Addressing demographic issues of resource scarcity and use requires an integrated policy - demand-driven, need-based, area-specific, people-centred, and cross-sectoral.

Policy, regulatory, and fiscal barriers to the wider availability of health services should be dismantled and budgets for social franchising of health care services/products must be supplemented. Health issues are high on the development and political agenda because of their implications and should be addressed through supportive structures, new institutional behaviours, and additional resources, which promote socio-economic well being. Since local health issues are dependent on global consensus, greater cooperation between countries is desirable.

Replicating/strengthening successful local institutions is important as sustainable micro-enterprises catalyse self-sufficiency of marginalized communities. Sector-specific assessments (like the minerals and mining sector) can help business move towards operationalizing sustainable development.

Governments should clearly delineate resource rights, establish rent-sharing rules, assign responsibilities for social provisions, and enhance transparency and information flow. Civil society must demand information from governments and protest if development is not in public interest. Private sector should go beyond shareholder value to stakeholder value. Addressing sustainability issues is about strategic risk management as well as ethics.