For me, it is a great honour to be the Ambassador of a country that is taking so seriously the quest for sustainable development. Brazil has been taking important actions for the last decade in order to grow and develop without disregarding the environment, and most importantly, its people.
My country is not only hosting and organising this impressive meeting, which will be able to set new agendas and new concepts that will be of paramount importance for humankind, but also setting many examples.
Environmentally, Brazil has already reached many goals. We have the biggest forest in the world, the Amazon Forest, the habitat of hundreds of thousands of species that we have been able to safeguard, even while economically growing at fast rates. Over the last three years our GDP has grown over 12%, and yet, we have registered the lowest rates of deforestation in history. We are the sixth biggest economy of the world, member of all major economic fora, member of the BRICS, and yet, we still have 4.6 million square kilometers of untouched forests. Brazil will not take the same path of the biggest economies of the past, which have destructed their entire environment in order to grow. We are setting new models and new ways on how to deal with our growth.
Most importantly, Brazil is being able to share the benefits of its economic growth with its population. We have developed a very efficient program for social inclusion, by the transference of income and by guaranteeing that every Brazilian has at least three meals a day. Through our sophisticated social programs, the Brazilian Government managed to lift 30 million people out of the poverty line, and an impressive amount of Brazilians can enjoy now a much better quality of life.
The second subject of Rio+20 is governance for sustainable development. In other words, it is necessary to adapt the framework of the UN system, so as to strengthen multilateralism, reduce the democratic deficit and provide greater integration among the social, economic and environmental aspects of sustainable development.
Brazil was a pioneer when launched social programs such as "BolsaFamília" and "Zero Hunger". Those programs are an inspiration to many countries, including Pakistan, which is willing to establish its own version of the "Zero Hunger" Program. I am sure we will also be pioneers when it comes to sustainable development and to a new model of social inclusion.
I am also sure that Pakistan will always be a partner and a supporter of every policy related to improving people's quality of life whilst protecting the nature, as Pakistan, since the Rio 92 Conference, has been an active player on environmental issues, and is taking a huge delegation of more than 70 people, including politicians, scholars, journalists and researchers. With the help of Pakistan, I am sure we will be able to reach one of our President's, Ms Dilma Rousseff, wishes for this conference: after Rio+20, we want the word "development" to always be associated to the adjective "sustainable".
(The writer is Ambassador of Brazil in Pakistan.)
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