The UN is reaching out to India to align its activities with India’s massive development agenda. Achim Steiner , United Nations Under-Secretary General and Head of United Nations Development Programme ( UNDP ) is here to seek a course for future collaboration, where the rest of the world can draw from India’s experiences . In an exclusive conversation with TOI, Steiner spoke about tackling pollution and the enormous global interest in India’s e-governance and biometric initiatives.

Q: How can the UN work with India’s current set of flagship development schemes?

Achim Steiner: The starting point was when I was appointed by Secretary General Antonio Guterres as the head of UNDP. My meetings addressed our collaboration in India as part of its own accelerated development process at the moment and also India’s growing engagement internationally and how our relationship can be part of that engagement on the global stage in certain key areas of development.

Q: Which are the development initiatives you would be focusing on?

AS: UNDP really responds to the demands of countries. We are principally there to help governments tackle the complex challenges of implementing development. Urbanisation is just one area where India is advancing very fast, where we, by having worked in 170 countries are able to draw on some of the experiences to the policies that are required to shape some of the urbanisation pathways.

Since 2015, everyone adopted the Agenda 2030, and PM Modi has also referred to these Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as part of the national agenda. We are particularly looking at how to address economic progress while at the same time addressing equity issues, sustainability and environment.

Urbanisation, for example, is also related to climate change. On pollution, how you look at urban mobility, decouple urban growth from ecological and health footprint. We cannot look at urbanisation only as providing more services to people through concentration, but also as the quality of life, which the Prime Minister refers to as “liveability”. These are the kinds of things that citizens are looking for from governments to provide — development should not come at the cost of some, and to the benefit of some.

Q: How do you think we should be tackling the problem of pollution?

AS: The first is the policy setting — what kind of regulatory framework does the government put in place? Pollution, in the end, is one of the setting norms and standards. The second is the technology frontiers that allow us to decouple urban growth and the need for more transport, for instance, from the kind of emissions footprint that we can associate with it. Equally, when we have renewable energy and electric mobility, more public transport systems are built around the needs of the consumer rather than the needs of the provider. These are, you know, the basic lessons. Third, the business community, the user community in which you build market services.

Q: How should Delhi address this problem?

AS: It's a commitment by setting clear quantitative targets and, timelines for bringing down pollution levels is critical. If you don’t set those targets, the system will always have reasons why it is difficult, expensive, complicated to act. Second, business has to become part of the solution ecosystem. We need to look at not just how we put more people in buses, but how do we also reduce vehicle emissions, how do we look at new platforms for developing mobility infrastructure in the city. When people want to get from A to B, they want to do so conveniently, quickly and cheaply. That is a service we need to provide. It is not always the public sector that is the best provider of the service. But the public sector can be the best regulator for incentivizing cleaner service provision or allowing the dirty operator to get away with essentially imposing on society enormous health costs. This is what economists describe as “externalities.”

That is why government, both local governments like mayors of cities are in many parts of the world in the frontline of innovation because they have, first of all, more authority to act.

Second, it may require a public sector investment approach that allows the city to move from one generation of urban transport system to the next one. If you are not able to invest in that, you are unlikely to see the other parts coming together.

Then it's important to have public awareness. People in many parts of the world may traditionally have reacted to an environmental problem of pollution because they have constrained those with cars who would like to drive. But when it becomes a question of public health, when you know it affects your children, then the environment health and “what do I do next?” become powerful.

Q: What are the steps for government?

AS: The public debate over the last few years would make every government sit up and listen. I think every government will respond. Not only because the image is disturbing but also because this is a social contract between governments and citizens, that they listen and act on these issues.

As we have seen in many parts of the world, pollution is not inevitable. It’s a choice, in the sense that over time you can either act to reduce it or you can choose to let it continue. It may be more expensive initially, but as economists and studies point out, the cost to society of pollution left untackled is far greater.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that 7-9 million people die prematurely every year from pollution, and 4.5 million from air quality related issues. This is an unacceptable price to pay for development.

One, because we don’t have to pay, and secondly, because very often it is the poorest of the poor who pay for it, it is the poor who live by the major roadsides, it is the poor who cannot live downstream or upstream of the pollution, that's how the urban geography also expresses itself, in terms of who can escape the pollution and who cannot afford to .

Q: How will you promote South-South cooperation to help countries like India deal with these issues?

AS: Cities such as Mexico City went through this catastrophic moment of pollution implosion few years ago. Some people thought one could install large turbines on the hill and that would blow it away. Very quickly, they realised you would have to go to the source. UNDP is, at the end of the day, a knowledge platform for nations to learn from one another. We are part of the policy innovation, development solution innovation, with a finger on the pulse of 170 countries working on their development solutions. That allows us to draw the solutions from one part of the world and make it available to another. Just as we draw on India’s achievements for others — e-government, biometric revolution that is happening, the speed and scale is without precedent in the world.

Q: Is there a global interest in India’s e-governance initiatives?

AS: The whole world is looking at e-government — some view it as efficiency, others as transparent government, others from the users’ point of view, of accessibility to government. From the perspective of managing development, it is also an access to data. You’re talking of leaving no one behind in development, we first have to know who are the ones being left behind? Are we talking about the poor economically, disabled, women who have less education, tribal communities, remote areas, all this become far more powerful in terms of a database which governments can target for development interventions.

The other is the feasibility of it — taking a nation into a 21st century economy where biometric identities are combined with financial inclusion operating with digital devices that reduce the cost of transacting by multiples, it's that combination that makes India’s breakthrough approach to this uniquely interesting to the world and therefore for us a clear area of interest.

Q: Prioritise with India ?

AS: We have the UN Sustainable Development Framework for India. That broadly identifies the areas for the country team. We are committed to supporting the Indian government. Our discussions with the government are right now focused on, first of all, looking at cooperative federalism and looking at how we can be of greater assistance to the states that are playing a more significant role, identifying the key SDGs in which India needs to address its national development priorities, recognizing the multiple benefits of action.

You may not only take action because of climate change, but also have access to electricity when you combine an off-grid renewable solar system in a remote area. With the provision of electricity which is not only fundamental to development but also demonstrated as a zero-carbon platform, you start combining objectives. If you can then demonstrate that because women no longer need to rely on bio-mass to cook, their health standards improve, you have a third objective.

Modern planning has to look at these multiple benefits, and also at how smart policy can be smart market based solutions. Without the private sector being aligned with national development objectives you are going to fail to mobilise the level of investments needed. It's a systems approach to development that we feel is part of what we can offer to governments.

Q: Have you found the Indian government receptive?

AS: India has been moving to more systemic approach to development, recognising that economic progress, social equity, environmental sustainability need to be addressed together, otherwise distortions creep in and costs may be much higher.

Secondly, we also see a degree to which India today is looking at its own role in the global context, a far more proactive one. Here, the relationship with the multilateral system is part of India’s engagement with the world that I think is often very exciting.

Q: UNDP is also involved with the government in a Vaccination initiative …

AS: It's a demonstration of how a very traditional sector, a supply chain and cold chain for vaccines meet 21st century technology. By being able to leverage smart IT solutions, we are able to create a more reliable cold chain for the supply of vaccines, able to save a lot of money that is normally lost in that supply chain, and from there a number of other solutions will emerge.

Q: How do you propose to work on the biometric data and e-governance platform with the government?

AS: That fact that India will soon have a billion people on its biometric platform offers huge learning to us: how will we be able to use that data? Data can also become a data cemetery. There is a tremendous amount of innovation needed here. The private sector expertise comes together with development priorities, make an entrepreneurial solution to a public goods challenge.

