Health & Population
The Reith Lectures
BBC
4.2 • 770 Ratings
🗓️ 3 May 2000
⏱️ 43 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
To mark the new millennium, this year's Reith Lectures are delivered by five different thinkers, each eminent in a different field. At the end of the run, the Prince of Wales presents his own views on the topic in a roundtable discussion with all five lecturers.
The Millennium Reith Lectures deal with one of the most pressing issues of our time - sustainable development. The fourth lecture, delivered from Geneva, is by the Director General of the World Health Organisation, Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland.
Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland is a qualified medical doctor specialising in child and public health. She is also former Minister of the Environment and Prime Minister of Norway. In her lecture on Health and Population, Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland raises issues about accepting and carrying out sustainable behaviour. She believes that issues of women, poverty, education and population are intrinsically linked, and that health should be seen as part of our investment in developing countries, rather than a dividend to be reaped later.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is a podcast from the archives of the BBC Ruth Lectures. |
| 0:04.4 | This lecture entitled Health and Population in the series, |
| 0:07.9 | Respect for the Earth, given by Groh Harlem Brundtland, |
| 0:11.4 | was originally broadcast in the year 2000. |
| 0:16.5 | Good evening and welcome to the Centre Antropro Professionale in Geneva. This city has become a capital |
| 0:23.0 | of global influence. Wherever you go, you find the head office of an international organization, |
| 0:28.9 | from the UN to the World Trade Organization and the International Red Cross. Some would say you can't |
| 0:35.0 | walk 100 yards in any direction without tripping over red tape. |
| 0:40.3 | Nevertheless, this is the place where governments come to try and work out solutions to problems that are bigger than the nation state. |
| 0:48.8 | This year's wreath lectures are called Respect for the Earth. They're all about how to live on this planet without destroying it. It's hard to think of a more pressing challenge. So far in the lecture series, we've discussed in London the politics of sustainable development, the science in Los Angeles, business in Edinburgh. And now we've come to Geneva to discuss |
| 1:12.7 | health and population. It's no coincidence. Geneva's also the home of the World Health Organization |
| 1:19.5 | and its dynamic leader, Gru Harlem Bruntland. She's a former Minister of the Environment and Prime |
| 1:26.1 | Minister of Norway. She chaired the World Commission the Environment and Prime Minister of Norway. |
| 1:30.8 | She chaired the World Commission on Environment and Development that led to the report Our Common Future and the United Nations Earth Summit in Rio in 1992. |
| 1:37.3 | In fact, if anyone can be blamed for the phrase sustainable development, she can. |
| 1:43.3 | Sustainable development is a concept which plays a central role in the work and lives of many of the people here tonight, |
| 1:50.4 | a distinguished audience of campaigners, thinkers and practitioners. |
| 1:54.9 | We look forward to hearing from them later. |
| 1:57.7 | Now, please welcome our wreath lecturer, Gru Harlem Brundtland. |
| 2:06.4 | Good evening. Good evening. In October last year, the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan went to a hospital in Sarajevo to welcome baby number 6 billion. |
| 2:25.3 | Nobody, and least of all, the Secretary General, would deny that the choice of Fatima Mevich baby, born just after midnight on October 12, had more to do with |
| 2:39.0 | the Secretary General's travel schedule than with demographics. We can imagine that Mr. and Mrs. |
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