India on Tuesday said that it is imperative that terrorism in any form or manifestation is condemned and those supporting it in any manner are held accountable, and also stressed that the “persisting exclusion and inequality in the membership of the Security Council needs to be addressed”.

India's Minister of State for External Affairs Dr. Rajkumar Ranjan Singh, addressing the High Level Open Debate of the UN Security Council on ‘Exclusion, Inequality and Conflict’, said that India has always strived to foster global solidarity across the world with its development partnership efforts fully respecting national priorities and ensuring that its assistance remains demand-driven, contributes to employment generation and capacity building and does not create indebtedness, in an oblique allusion to China spawning debt traps in several countries.
“Whether it is with our neighbours under our "Neighbourhood First” policy or with African partners or with other developing countries, India has remained and will continue to be a source of strong support to help them build back better and stronger,” he said.

He said the topic of the open debate ‘Exclusion, inequality, and conflict’ are also relevant to the functioning of the UN Security Council, news agencies said. 

“The persisting exclusion and inequality in the membership of the Security Council needs to be addressed. The international structure for maintaining peace and security and peacebuilding needs to be reformed. Global power and the capacities to address problems are much more dispersed today, than they were seventy-six years ago.

“How long rightful voices of the developing world including Africa can be denied? We are therefore convinced that reformed multilateralism, with the reform of the UN Security Council at its core is crucial for dealing with the complex challenges of today's’ world,” he stressed.

Pointing out that while the inter-state conflicts have decreased, intra-state conflicts have attracted much higher level of attention from the UNSC, he said that there is clearly much to be done to help the countries in intra-state conflicts to achieve sustainable peace.

To highlight his point, he said that international efforts in the maintenance of peace and security need to be inclusive. “The process of implementing a peace agreement must run along with the provision of humanitarian and emergency assistance, resumption of economic activity, and the creation of political and administrative institutions that improve governance and include all stakeholders, particularly women and disadvantaged sections.”

“We also need to avoid politicizing humanitarian and developmental assistance in conflict situations. The humanitarian action must be primarily guided by the principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence,” the MoS said.

Second, the international community needs to walk the talk by ensuring a predictable and enhanced flow of resources to countries in the post-conflict phase.

Third, it is important to actively support the post-conflict reconstruction agenda, particularly in Africa. In this regard, the UN Peacebuilding Commission’s efforts should be strengthened.

Fourth, some regional and sub-regional organizations have become more capable of addressing the conflict situations and member states have reposed faith increasingly in their capacity.

The Security Council has the responsibility to support this trend and encourage and enable those regional and sub-regional organizations. We believe that the existing framework of cooperation such as the Joint UN-AU Framework for an enhanced partnership in Peace and Security needs to be implemented more proactively. In this regard, initiatives such as AMISOM, G-5 Sahel Joint Force and Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) need more robust support from the Security Council and the international community.

Fifth, the spread of terrorism, particularly in the countries facing conflicts, can reverse the efforts of the international community. It is therefore imperative that terrorism in any form or manifestation is condemned and those supporting it any manner are held accountable, he stressed.