IN his Nelson Mandela lecture last July in New York, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued a very important call: the world needs a new social contract for a new system of global governance.
He said: “People want social and economic systems that work for everyone. They want their human rights and human freedoms to be respected. They want a say in decisions that affect their lives.
“The New Social Contract, between governments, people, civil society, business and more, must integrate employment, sustainable development and social protection, based on equal rights and opportunities for all.”
Further, he intoned:
“Let’s face the facts.
“The global political and economic system is not delivering on critical public goods: public health, climate action, sustainable development, peace.
“The Covid-19 pandemic has brought home the tragic disconnect between self-interest and the common interest: and the huge gaps in governance structures and ethical frameworks.
“To close those gaps, and to make the New Social Contract possible, we need a New Global Deal to ensure that power, wealth and opportunities are shared more broadly and fairly at the international level.
“A new model for global governance must be based on full, inclusive and equal participation in global institutions.” This new governance should be based on “a fair globalization, on the rights and dignity of every human being, on living in balance with nature, on taking account of the rights of future generations, and on success measured in human rather than economic terms, is the best way to change this.”
Sadly, the above historic call of the good Secretary-General failed to generate the mileage from the world media establishments and enlightened response from the big developed countries of the world. The latter have been dictating the rules of global economic and political order since the establishment of the UN system 75 years ago.
In his Nelson Mandela speech, Guterres cited the various problems ailing humanity that necessitates an overhaul of the existing global economic and political governance system. Four of the major problems deserve to be emphasized:
- The Covid-19 pandemic and how it has bared the “fragility of the our world.”
- The climate crisis that is pushing the world to the brink of extinction.
- The one-sided trade and financial system that locks the poor countries into perpetual state of underdevelopment.
- The vast and widespread social-economic inequality that “defines our time.”
We fully agree with the Secretary- General that the above are the leading problems of the world. They are the four horsemen of the Apocalypse that are now galloping around the world. Unchecked, they are bringing humanity and Mother Earth to an apocalyptic edge.
Guterres focused half of his lecture on inequality. Some of the alarming facts he cited are worth repeating:
- The world’s richest 1 percent captured 27 percent of total cumulative income growth between 1980 and 2016.
- Only 3 percent of the 20-year-old population in poor countries manage to reach higher education compared to 50 percent plus for those in developed countries.
- About 17 percent of the children born 20 years ago in countries with low human development “have already died.”
On the climate crisis, he reiterated the usual warnings issued by the UN Environmental Programme or UNEP: millions of people to suffer from extreme weather events each year. He added: climate crisis “creates serious threats to inter-generational equality and justice.” This means the next generation will inherit a terrible climate future because of the failure of the present generation to implement measures to slow down, stop and even reverse the deadly process of global warming.
From the foregoing outline of the Guterres lecture, it is abundantly clear that the UN system indeed needs an overhaul. But the forces of conservatism and neo-liberalism in the developed world are resisting such call.
A few weeks ago, similar calls for the overhaul of the global economic order were issued during the annual conference of the IMF and World Bank, the twin sisters created at the end of World War II to accompany the establishment of the UN system and to put order in the global economic system. The leaders of the twins went through the motion of acknowledging the huge global imbalances and the development deficits in the poor and underdeveloped countries. And yet, at the end of the Conference, they failed to act on the most urgent demands of peoples in the developing world: reduction of their collective debt, freeing of resources to fuel real growth to avoid the cataclysmic economic depression, and space to pursue development programs based on their respective levels of development and national priorities.
So who will heed the call of the UN Secretary-General for a new social contract? Who will stop the four horsemen of the 21st century?