practices, which would then be made available in an open database on the Internet, providing a platform for information exchange and the facilitation of partnerships.
The SGI-affiliated Toda Institute for Global Peace and Policy Research held a conference titled “Facing Climate Change with a Renewed Environmental Ethic” in November 2008. A focal point was the need to form a synergistic alliance among governments, the private sector and civil society based on a shared sense of responsibility to future generations. The conference also underlined the importance of gaining the broad-based support and active participation of the public in such an alliance.
Since 2002, the SGI has held the exhibition “Seeds of Change: The Earth Charter and Human Potential,” developed in collaboration with the Earth Charter Initiative, in twenty countries and eight languages. The SGI has also organized environmental activities such as afforestation projects in several countries working with other like-minded organizations. While each individual environmental initiative has a great significance of its own, collaborative efforts generate important multiplier effects.
The UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development reaches its midpoint this year, a fact that highlights the need for ordinary citizens to become even more vigorously engaged in education and awareness-raising activities.
Shared responsibility for development
The second pillar is the sharing of responsibility through international cooperation on global public goods, a key element of which would be the creation of a world food bank.
In my proposal last year, I referred to access to safe water as an integral element of promoting human development and human security. Likewise, securing stable food supplies is essential to sustaining human life and human dignity, and must be the starting point for all our efforts to combat poverty.
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