&imwidth=800&imheight=600&format=webp&quality=medium "'Gulf crisis exposes..’: Development Alternatives Group founder Ashok Khosla highlights cost of unresilient economy at WION World Pulse")
The ongoing instability in the Gulf is a stark reminder of how vulnerable economies can be to shocks, according to Ashok Khosla, Founder & Chairman of the Development Alternatives Group. Speaking at WION Pulse summit, on Wednesday (Mar 18), he said: “What is going on today, as we speak, in the Gulf is indicative of what happens if you do not have a resilient economy. If your economy is vulnerable to shocks, to fossil fuel availability, to materials, and to a variety of other factors—technology, economy, finance in particular—then you will always be at the wrong end,” Khosla said. The crisis illustrates that climate challenges and broader systemic fragility intersect with economic resilience, highlighting the urgent need for strategic planning and diversified energy and financial systems.
Developing countries driving global climate action
“Countries like India are actually the champions—the ones driving the agenda and forcing the pace, because they realise that their future, in fact their present, is at stake,” Khosla observed. He stressed that developing countries are leading climate negotiations, while resistance often comes from industrialised nations. “If there is resistance or pushback, it is actually from the North—the people who started the dialogue, who identified the problem, and then chickened out. If it were not for countries like India and African countries, who are suffering the most from climate change, the international dialogue would be much slower than it is now,” he added.
Talking about the Gulf crisis, Ashok Khosla also added, “It is not the climate that's doing this—our systems are so vulnerable. Climate will have a major impact on our lives, but so will everything else." He stressed that very careful attention needs to be paid in redesigning education systems so that the individual and society are placed at the centre stage in all thinking.
Bridging economic and governance gaps
Khosla highlighted the unequal financial burden on developing nations: “The price that industrialised countries had to pay when they were developing their technology is not the kind of cost that poorer countries are paying today. We are paying three to four times the interest for our capital compared to what they did. Unless that gap can be bridged, the other gaps cannot be bridged either.”
Finally, he highlighted that global governance is crucial, noting that most of these issues have a global dimension and cannot be addressed by a single nation. He emphasised the need for a system of governance that prioritises the welfare of all countries rather than focusing on only a part of the globe. “The UN is a wonderful construct, but it needs to do the right thing, and that is only going to happen if all of us—the citizens, and particularly the young—take their role seriously in making that happen”, he said.
WION World Pulse brought together a cross-section of policymakers, diplomats and industry leaders at a time of heightened global uncertainty. The global thought leadership forum came at a time when globally the lines between geopolitics, economics and technology are increasingly blurred.
