Advocating a greater say for smaller countries in world affairs, Vice-President Hamid Ansari on Sunday said many global problems like climate change or terrorism affect the smaller countries as much as they do the bigger ones.“Many of the troubling problems confronting the nations of the world today are neutral to geography and size,” Ansari said inaugurating the Small Countries Conference at the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association meeting here.“Issues such as food and water security, environmentally sustainable development, global pandemics such as bird flu and HIV/AIDS, transnational terrorism, natural disasters such as cyclones, earthquakes and tsunamis, energy security; and climate change are cross-boundary issues that need to be addressed through regional and international cooperation. It is of paramount importance that small states have full say as equal members in addressing such pressing issues that vitally impact on them,” he said.Ansari said each country has its own set of concerns and vulnerabilities but in the case of smaller nations these were more pronounced as they “have limited resources and limited capacity to withstand and manage adversity and crises”.
