International Day of Peace 2012
"The International Day of Peace, marked every year on 21 September, gives us all a chance to reflect on the unconscionable toll - moral, physical, material - wrought by war. Those costs are borne not only by us today, but by future generations as well.
"That is why this year's theme is "Sustainable Peace for a Sustainable Future." It highlights the fact that we cannot possibly think about building a sustainable future if there is no sustainable peace. Armed conflicts attack the very pillars of sustainable development, robbing people of the opportunity to develop, to create jobs, to safeguard the environment, to fight poverty, to reduce the risk from disasters, to advance social equity and to ensure that everyone has enough to eat..."
"We want a future where natural resources are protected and valued rather than used to finance wars, where children can be educated at school and not recruited into armies, where economic and social inequalities are resolved through dialogue instead of violence."
Excerpts from message of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, http://www.un.org/en/events/peaceday/2012/sgmessage.shtml
The Secretary-General also urged support for the goals of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development held from June 13 to 22, 2012 in Rio de Janeiro and attracting some 50,000 people from 192 countries. The major document produced by the conference entitled "The Future We Want" pointed to the need for "poverty eradication, changing unsustainable and promoting sustainable patterns of consumption and production, and protecting and managing the natural resource base of economic and social development". See http://www.uncsd2012.org/content/documents/727The%20Future%20We%20Want%2019%20June%201230pm.pdf.
A fairly comprehensive account of the conference is provided by Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Conference_on_Sustainable_Development
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