A/HRC/23/54 5. On behalf of OHCHR, Marcia V. J. Kran, Director of the Research and Right to Development Division, delivered welcoming remarks. She underlined that global development and global governance had to be bound by the international human rights obligations to which all States have committed. Therefore, the primary concern of development should be to ensure freedom from fear, freedom from want and a life of dignity for all people. A people-centred approach to development and globalization would promote the realization of human rights and the improved well-being of all people by, inter alia, their active, free and meaningful participation in development, the equitable distribution of benefits from development and the advancement of an enabling national and international environment for development. 6. In her remarks, Human Rights Council President Laura Dupuy Lasserre (Uruguay) observed that human rights advances had to accompany economic development. In an increasingly globalized world, many contemporary challenges to human rights transcend national borders, undermine the objectives of social justice, peace and security, and call for holistic, international solutions. Under these circumstances, it was significant that the vision of development embodied in the United Nations Declaration on the Right to Development was not limited to economic aspirations. Rather, the Declaration envisioned a holistic development paradigm, founded on the enjoyment of all human rights, furthered through the creation of an enabling national and international environment, and nurtured through the application of the human rights principles of accountability, equality, nondiscrimination, participation, empowerment and transparency. 7. In a video address to the Social Forum, 2011 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Tawakul Karman described the rallying force of universal human rights during the Arab Spring revolutions. She highlighted the growing interconnectedness of States and peoples, including through social media, as a primary driver of the rapid transmission of the democratic values and human rights principles that fuelled the Arab Spring. She also emphasized the link between the inequitable distribution of benefits from development and the Arab Spring revolutions. The ultimate goal of these revolutions was to eradicate poverty, illiteracy and corruption, achieve good governance and sustainable development, and make globalization into a positive phenomenon that benefits all people. In this regard, the downfall of dictatorships in many countries only marks the beginning of a revolutionary process that will remain unfinished until nepotism and corruption have been eliminated and human rights realized. 8. During the general statements segment, the representatives of Algeria, Cuba, the Maldives and Nepal, as well as North-South XXI, took the floor. Speakers noted that multiple global crises posed unprecedented challenges to the enjoyment of human rights and the realization of the Millennium Development Goals, particularly in the least developed countries. A comprehensive development package was needed to bring about economic transformation in these countries, and global sustainable development requires development of the poorest and the weakest. The preservation of the Earth for succeeding generations and respect for human rights and universal values was critical to the success or failure of people-centred development and small island developing States. The right to development should unite developed and developing countries in promoting a peoplecentred, rights-based approach to development that allows the meaningful participation of marginalized and vulnerable people, business enterprises, civil society and smaller governments. A speaker urged the Human Rights Council to seriously consider the recommendations of the Social Forum in light of its important role as a vehicle for civil society participation, and recommended that the Forum address the need for a democratic and equitable international order as a basis for development. 4