Today Baku hosts the 37th International Scientific Conference on Economic and Social Development – “Socio Economic Problems of Sustainable Development”.
Topics are focused, but not limited to recent challenges in modern national economies and business enterprises. Vestnik Kavkaza interviewed President of the Organizing Committee of the ESD Conference Domagoj Cingula about key challenges to development of the richest and the poorest regions of the world.
– In Europe and especially in the US, there is a growing wave of hostility toward migrants and refugees. They say that migrants take up jobs and sit on the neck of the state. How do you see the problem in the future?
– Actually, this is a quite sensitive topic. As human beings, we should and we have to show hospitality to every other human being. That would be normal. That’s in our nature. But also, in human nature, it is to hate not only ourselves. We tend to hate different nations, different cultures, different religions, etc. So this is not only a big problem nowadays, it’s also a very sensitive issue. I think everyone of us if we would be able we would love to host anyone with any kind of social, economic, financial problems, and that’s concerning refugees too. But we must also understand some people and some countries who have unemployment problems and they are afraid that foreigners will take their job positions. While in some developed countries they are lacking labor force and they are happy to have foreigners coming to work in their countries. I think as human beings we should show hospitality to everyone but we must not be mad towards those individuals or countries who are afraid of any kind of changes, especially that someone will take their working place.
– In this case, how do you estimate the situation in Azerbaijan and thre region? I mean sustainable development.
– Azerbaijan is developing rapidly in past few years. You probably much rely on your oil supplies. I have to say personally I’m reading and I’m listening about development of Baku and Azerbaijan for past ten years. In your case, you can already talk about sustainable development, just keep in running.
– How can you assess the problem of developed North and poor South today? How deep is difference between them?
– That’s also a very sensitive issue. I would not even say “developed North” and “less developed South”. We can talk about a few dozen of people, the richest people who are handling more than 50-60% of world asset and wealth. This is a big lack of any kind of balance. It also can be applied to more developed North and less developed South. How can someone who is already developed or developing rapidly to think more about underdeveloped territories? But again, if we would put ourselves in the situation of decision makers, of world leaders, if we imagine that we are, Azerbaijan or Croatia, one of the most developed countries in the world, would we help the poorest ones? That’s the question. So any change, any help, any differences we want to make in the world, we have to start from ourselves.