Pyeongchang Olympics promoting peace and prosperity

All eyes are on the 23rd Olympic Winter Games and 12th Paralympic Winter Games being held in Pyeongchang, the Republic of Korea, this month. Top athletes will carry their national flags in the opening ceremony which has come to epitomize the international community, and sports fans worldwide enjoy the events. This time there is even more attention on the Games as there is cautious optimism that sports diplomacy may lower the tensions on the Korean Peninsula with athletes from the ROK and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea walking side by side in the opening ceremony. For this, there could be few better places than Pyeongchang, as pyeong means peace and chang means prosperity.

The Olympics and Paralympics help reinforce a set of unifying objectives, placing sport, as the Olympic Charter states, "at the service of the harmonious development of humankind, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity".

In this spirit, the first Olympics in the ROK held in 1988 served to foster relationships at a time of rapid geopolitical shifts. The games featured many participating nations, including sizeable delegations from both the United States and the Soviet Union. The thaw in relations to which the Olympics contributed led to the establishment of diplomatic relations with neighbors such as Russia and China in the years following the games, and the ROK became a member of the United Nations in 1991.

The Olympics also heralded the economic transformation of the ROK economy that is now known as "the Miracle on the Han River". For the decade after the games, its economy grew at an average rate of around 8.5 percent per year, transforming the country from an aid recipient country to a key aid donor. The material improvement in the lives of people in the ROK was nothing short of remarkable. From 1960 to 1995, GDP per capita increased more than a hundredfold, virtually eliminating absolute poverty from more than half of the population to less than 5 percent.

This was linked with another key value of the Olympics and the United Nations－international collaboration. The ROK successfully leveraged international aid, international trade and international investment with its domestic ingenuity, to show the world it is possible to transform in one generation an agrarian economy into a dynamic technological and cultural producer.

Along with the rapid economic transformation, social and environmental concerns have also risen to the fore. In recent years, we have seen the ROK make commendable steps towards environmental sustainability and inclusive social policies. Integrating economic, social and environmental dimensions is the cornerstone of the United Nations' 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda. The ROK now stands as a valued member of the international community, generating cultural products that are appreciated by young people around the world, and is a significant contributor of aid to developing countries.

The Olympic Truce Resolution adopted by the United Nations is an example of using a momentous occasion in international sports to build a stronger foundation for a more peaceful and inclusive world. The resolution urges all countries to respect the truce by creating a peaceful environment during the Olympic and Paralympic Games, and calls on all countries to work together, in good faith towards peace, human rights, and sustainable development.
I wish the ROK a promising future and success in its endeavors to foster lasting peace and prosperity on the Korean Peninsula.

The author is the under-secretary-general of the United Nations and Executive Secretary of Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).