In 2015, the nations of the world solemnly committed themselves to ending poverty and hunger and substantially improving the living standards of the global majority by 2030. This commitment was given form through 17 Sustainable Development Goals. They are a long way from being met and some have gone backwards since 2015.
Next month, world leaders will meet again at the United Nations in New York to mark the midpoint in the process to 2030. Negotiators and some UN officials were working to get progress back on track. Their tool was a new global declaration that acknowledged the goals were way off being met and committed governments to accelerate their efforts to advance the living standards of the global majority.
A draft of that declaration has been reported by Devex. It will remain a draft after the United States, backed up by five of its closest allies, vetoed it. In particular, these countries rejected calls for the necessary reforms to the international financial system and major development stimulus spending required to have a hope of meeting peoples’ needs.
According to reports quoting diplomatic sources reform of financial architecture and funding — in other words, money — is what led the US and its allies to sink the draft declaration. Both countries of the Global South and policy specialists have argued that without fundamental change here, sustainable development will never become a reality for the world’s peoples. And they have the figures to prove it.
It is clear that an end to poverty and hunger is not the goal of those that profit from the existing order. That’s why calls for a New International Economic Order get louder every day.
In May, UN General Secretary Antonio Guterres published his proposals for reforming global finance, saying the current architecture had “failed in its mission to provide a global safety net” and was “outdated, dysfunctional, and unjust.”
Barbados’ prime minister Mia Mottley too has launched the Bridgetown Agenda, calling for “an absolute transformation and not a reform of our institutions.”
Joining these efforts is the Progressive International’s New International Economic Order project, which is organising multilateral meetings around the world and publishing proposals and perspectives. In our age of escalating climate crisis, we convene this process in that spirit of urgency, creativity, and solidarity. The world is between orders. Our task is to build the one that comes next — in the name of peace, sovereignty, and prosperous coexistence.
In solidarity,
The Progressive International Secretariat
