by the
Federal Chancellor of Germany
Dr. Angela Merkel

Patron of the Conference

I would like to offer all the participants in the Nexus Conference a warm welcome to the Federal City of Bonn! As a home to many UN organizations focused on environmental and sustainability policy, Bonn is a fitting place to prepare for the conference on sustainable development in Rio de Janeiro in June 2012.

The first Rio Conference in 1992 raised great hopes. Despite considerable progress, however, 20 years later we are still grappling just as much with the question of how to ensure a dignified life for a rapidly growing world population without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. The philosophy of sustainable development is the key to answering this crucial question. Sustainable development aims to bring economic productivity in harmony with social and ecological responsibility.

The Rio 2012 Conference offers us a major opportunity to shift the world’s economies towards greater sustainability. Together with the European Union, Germany is proposing a Green Economy Roadmap. Through this proposal we intend, among other things, to offer interested governments advice and support tailored to their own priorities as they move towards a sustainable economy. We also want to see a reform of the institutional structures of the United Nations, putting it in a better position to support economies around the world as they gear themselves to the principle of sustainability. In keeping with this, we advocate elevating the status of the United Nations Environment Programme and the UN Commission on Sustainable Development.

The security of water, energy and food is a key part of our shared efforts to shape a sustainable economy and curb poverty. Just as these forms of security are interconnected in many ways, we need a political and practical approach which joins together the issues of water, energy and food. Accordingly, we need to systematically interlink the work of international organizations.

This is the only way to prevent work in any one of these areas from having an undesired impact on the others. It is the only way to make progress equally possible in all three areas. And it is the only way to safeguard opportunities for socially responsible, economically viable and environmentally friendly development for a continually growing world population.

The goal of a lasting and reliable water, energy and food supply is a truly ambitious one. But it is up to us as the international community to live up to this goal. That is why it is so important that the Bonn2011 Nexus Conference has for the first time at international level gathered decision-makers and experts from these three areas to work out the next steps together.

I wish you every success with this!

Dr. Angela Merkel
Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany