UN75 connecting world to combat coronavirus/ ‘Myth of Everyone Being in Same Boat Smashed’

Founded in the ruins of the Second World War with the great expectations to build a new world, the United Nations finds itself again in a global battle in the 75th anniversary of its existence in 2020. The largest, most familiar, most internationally represented and most powerful intergovernmental organization in the world has been the product of the triumph of ‘silencing’ the guns and the establishment of peace between warring camps. This time all of humanity is on the same side, in the same front against a different global enemy, the COVID-19 pandemic, a deadly heinous health plague, which has brutally taken so far hundreds of thousands of lives, infected millions of people, upended the global economy and caused pervasive fear for the future.

Since its outbreak as soon as 2020 ushered in, the six- month time has shown clearly and painfully that the world is hit by an economic crisis, a humanitarian crisis, a security crisis, and a human rights crisis. It has affected all the people as individuals, as families and as societies bringing to surface starkly the world’s fragilities, which extend far beyond the realm of global health.

Against this gloomy backdrop of a disoriented world gripped by many testing challenges the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres has initiated a New Global Deal for coming out of this global crisis, laying the foundations of a new fairer world order.

“Coming out of this crisis will require a whole-of-society, whole-of-government and whole-of-the-world approach driven by compassion and solidarity,” was the appeal launched by UNSG Guterres in the 2020 Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture, held online for the first time, in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic on July 18 this year.

The UN75 Initiative was officially launched on 2 January 2020 as a global conversation on the world’s future whose agenda started in the last year of the second decade of the 21st century having as main motto dialogues around the world and across borders, sectors and generations in an effort to reach the global public, to listen to their expectations and fears, and to learn from their experiences.

The United Nations was founded in 1945 to support collective action to realize peace, development and human rights for all. Its Charter was signed on 26 June 1945, in San Francisco, at the conclusion of the United Nations Conference on International Organization, and came into force on 24 October 1945. The Statute of the International Court of Justice is an integral part of the Charter. Amendments to some of its articles were adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1963, 1965, and 1971.

The UN75 project was initially designed to spark dialogue and action on how a better world can be built despite the great many challenges.  Through the upcoming dialogues, UN75 aimed to build a global vision for the year 2045, the UN’s centenary; to increase understanding of the threats to that future; and to drive collective action to realize that vision. Global opinion polling and media analysis would be conducted in parallel to provide statistically representative data.

The views and ideas generated will be presented to world leaders and senior UN officials at a high-profile event during the 75th Session of the General Assembly in September 2020, and disseminated online and through partners on an ongoing basis.

The fury of the pandemic, which has been like a meteorite that has come crashing from the sky, has called for a new format of anniversary’s agenda on UN’s rebirth and reform. If the organization was born after the Second World War to cope with its disastrous aftereffects, proved durable and its membership has grown from 50 countries to 193, and there has been no new world war, organization’s emergent task now is to heal as Mr. Gueterres said the “fractures in the fragile skeleton of the societies we have built” revealed by the pandemic like an x-ray.

Will the world emerge stronger and better equipped to work together? Or will distrust and isolation grow further? Will 2020 be a year of dialogue, when the world comes together to discuss the priorities as a human family and how a better future for all can be built?

Such questions were the essential gist of Mr. Gueterres’ hard-hitting discourse as part of the lecture series held annually by the Nelson Mandela Foundation, on the birthday of the first democratically-elected President of South Africa, and main highlights of it follow as quoted by news.un.org:

Mr. Guterres began his lecture by noting that the COVID-19 pandemic has played an important role in highlighting growing inequalities, and exposing the myth that everyone is in the same boat, because “while we are all floating on the same sea, it’s clear that some are in super yachts, while others are clinging to the drifting debris.”

Global risks ignored for decades – notably inadequate health systems, gaps in social protection, structural inequalities, environmental degradation, and the climate crisis – have been laid bare, he said. The vulnerable are suffering the most: those living in poverty, older people, and people with disabilities and pre-existing conditions.

The UN Secretary-General pointed out that inequality takes many forms. Whilst income disparity is stark, with the 26 richest people in the world holding as much wealth as half the global population, it is also the case that life-chances depend on factors such as gender, family and ethnic background, race and whether or not a person has a disability.  However, he noted that everyone suffers the consequences, because high levels of inequality are associated with “economic instability, corruption, financial crises, increased crime and poor physical and mental health.”

Protests have been occurring daily in New York City against racism and police violence, following the death of George Floyd. Colonialism, a historic aspect of inequality, was evoked by the Secretary-General. Today’s anti-racist movement, he said, points to this historic source of inequality: “The Global North, specifically my own continent of Europe, imposed colonial rule on much of the Global South for centuries, through violence and coercion.”  This led to huge inequalities within and between countries, including the transatlantic slave trade and the apartheid regime in South Africa, argued Mr. Guterres, and left a legacy of economic and social injustice, hate crimes and xenophobia, the persistence of institutionalized racism, and white supremacy.

Mr. Guterres also referred to patriarchy, another historic inequality which still resonates: women everywhere are worse off than men, and violence against women is, he said, at epidemic levels.

‘Everyone must pay their fair share’ of tax

Turning to contemporary inequality, Mr. Guterres said that the expansion of trade, and technological progress, have contributed to “an unprecedented shift in income distribution”. Low-skilled workers are bearing the brunt, he warned, and face an “onslaught” from new technologies, automation, the offshoring of manufacturing and the demise of labour organizations.  Meanwhile, he continued, widespread tax concessions, tax avoidance and tax evasion, as well as low corporate tax rates, mean that there are reduced resources for social protection, education, and healthcare – services that play an important part in reducing inequality.

Some countries have allowed the wealthy and well-connected to benefit from tax systems, but “everyone must pay their fair share”, said Mr. Guterres, and governments need to tackle the “vicious cycle” of corruption, which weakens social norms and the rule of law, and shift the tax burden from payrolls to carbon, which would help to address the climate crisis.

Although climate change is a global problem, the effects are felt most keenly by those countries which are least to blame. The issue is likely to become more pronounced in the coming years, and millions risk malnutrition, malaria and other diseases; forced migration, and extreme weather events.

The only way towards a fair and sustainable future for all, Mr. Guterres suggested, involves what he called a “New Social Contract”, which allows young people to live in dignity; women to have the same prospects and opportunities as men; and protects the vulnerable, and a “New Global Deal”, which ensures that power, wealth and opportunities are shared more broadly and fairly at the international level. As part of the New Social Contract, labour market policies would be based on constructive dialogue between employers and workers, and would ensure human rights and fundamental freedoms.

The Secretary-General called for new social safety nets, including universal health coverage, the possibility of universal basic income, boosted investment in public services, and, to reverse long-standing inequalities, affirmative action programmes and other policies to address inequalities in gender, race or ethnicity.  The UN chief explained that quality education for all, and the effective use of digital technology, will be crucial to achieving these aims. This would mean doubling education spending in low and middle-income countries by 2030 to $3 trillion a year: within a generation, all children in low- and middle-income countries could have access to quality education at all levels.

Governments also need to transform the way children are taught, said Mr. Guterres, and invest in digital literacy and infrastructure, and help them to prepare for a rapidly changing workplace that is being upended by technology.

The Secretary-General outlined some of the ways that the UN is supporting these efforts, including The Roadmap for Digital Cooperation, launched at the United Nations in June, which promotes ways to connect four billion people to the Internet by 2030, and “Giga”, an ambitious project to get every school in the world online.

‘We stand together, or we fall apart’

Mr. Guterres ended his major strategic vision statement, by invoking the importance of international cooperation and solidarity. “We belong to each other”, he said. “We stand together, or we fall apart”.

The world, the UN chief concluded, is at breaking point, and it is time for leaders to decide which path to follow. The choice presented by Mr. Guterres, is between “chaos, division and inequality”, or righting the wrongs of the past and moving forward together, for the good of all.

Now when the whole world is talking about post coronavirus era wondering when things will return to normal foreign senior government officials, representatives of diplomatic corps and international organizations, political and economic scientific researchers from different countries have expressed different comments and predictions in interviews I have had with them (March – July 2020), which in a way or another have a common denominator: certain ‘new normalcy’ in a new unavoidable global world order.

Former Prime Minister of Poland Marek Belka noted on April 25, 2020 that the world, including the big powers, has been caught unprepared. “Many countries are still ‘licking the wounds’ from the financial crisis of 2008. So the spectrum of instruments that can be used is limited, for example the monetary stimulus.”

“The pandemic has impacted international relations and the world economic order. Global trade and investment have gone down, countries’ revenue has shrunk, and public debts are rising. Some scholars deem the pandemic as the 21st century’s third largest incident with global impact, after 9/11 and the 2008 global financial crisis. In the last two crises, much was achieved through international cooperation, and solidarity carries even more significance this time. In the post-pandemic era, multilateralism and cooperation are more crucial than ever before,” said Chinese Ambassador Zhou Dingh on June 29, 2020.

Ambassador of Slovenia to Tirana Peter Japelj has said that history teaches us that humanity overcame periods of crisis with solidarity and unity. “Concerning the global order I don’t believe the globalization will stop. Again it is a challenge and an opportunity to shift and improve global solutions with the emphasis on the economic exchange on one side and protection of human health and lives on the other side,” said Slovenia’s top diplomat in Tirana on June 8, 2020.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically changed certain patterns of our social life and lifestyle, and I think that when these difficult times that all the world is going through due to COVIDE- 19 pandemic are over, the civil societies will have to play a greater role in shaping of social and economic systems,” said Ambassador of Saudi Arabia Abdelmomen Mohammed Sharaf on May 25.

For his part Israeli Ambassador Noah Gal Gendler had no doubt that the world economic system will regenerate itself in relatively short period but some of the people will be there to suffer the consequences. “In order to prevent another occurrence in the near future we must gear towards a new world order vis a vis protecting the environment, efficiently planning the economy and moderating lifestyle preferences: diet, habits, tourism (to mention a few),” he said on April 9, 2020.

Albanian Croatian MP Ermina Lekaj Prljaskaj was of the opinion in her interview on April 1, 2020 that the global economic order will be redesigned, but how and in what way it remains to be seen and time will show the implications at a regional and worldwide scale. “Unfortunately, the first reactions all over the world were very selfish. The people in our region were deeply disappointed with the lack of solidarity in the EU, among its Member States and towards its close neighborhood,” said Albanian Croatian lawmaker Ermina Lekaj Prljaskaj, who has been elected for another mandate in the Croatian Parliament.

Mr. Ioannis Armakolas , Assistant Professor at University of Macedonia in Thessaloniki and Senior Research Fellow at Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP),  said in his interview on May 20, 2020 that the crisis seems to have exacerbated changes in the way that the global order is structured. “Washington has turned against the very international institutions, primarily the World Health Organization, that itself had helped to set up and which are crucial for the coordination in the global response to the crisis. The EU, disunited and badly hit by the health emergency, also punches below its weight. China seems willing to take advantage of the crisis to promote its image as the new international hegemon, and that’s why we see this coronavirus PR campaign in many countries. All in all, the world is battling against an unprecedented –in recent times- global health crisis, but with limited global governance and international coordination effectively curtailed,” he said.

“All the past plagues have created opportunities for the reshaping of the global and domestic structures. In the case of the COVID-19, there seems to be two opposing ways: the first is further closure of nation states at the expense of the international organizations with rising nationalism and populism, and the second is increasing level of international cooperation and the creation of a global preventive healthcare regime. Time will show which direction the world will take but for today, the former direction seems to be more probable,” said Assistant Professor at Department of Political Science and International Relations of Istanbul Sehir University Huseyin Alptekin on April 11, 2020.

“In terms of the time frame, if the west world, which we are a part of, succeeds to go back to their work positions at least some time by June, we will need a few turbulent years to recover, first of all from social conflicts and possible reconfiguration of economic and political actors in the society. On top of all that, as Jean Jack Russo would say, a new social contract is in front of us with new actors/partners in the dialog for our future,” said Professor Ljubomir Kekenovski, PhD, Faculty of Economics within the State University of “St. Cyril and Methodius” in Skopje on April, 8, 2020.

“Let’s not forget that first and foremost Europe is a peace project, and one great idea based on the economic interest of the citizens of Europe. But if one virus shoots down the European idea than we were never worthy of it, or it was never worthy of existing,” he said.

“The situation does not look good.  We have multiple crises occurring simultaneously:  A health crisis, an economic, financial and liquidity crisis, an oil/energy crisis, and in some countries, a leadership crisis.” This was the gloomy picture unveiled by founder of Euro-Phoenix Financial Advisors Ltd. Les Nemethy which, according to him, is prevailing worldwide.

“My own view is that forecasting of the recovery still very much depends on the course of the virus.  This is not your typical case of econometric forecasting.  Forecasting depends on the assumptions made by the forecaster.  I am sure, for example, that there were assumptions underpinning the Goldman forecasts, but things are so volatile, so fluid, the chances of those assumptions being accurate are low,” he said on March 23, 2020.

“It is very likely that the post coronavirus global order will emerge changed from the pre-coronavirus global order.  Global political and economic systems are under huge and ever increasing pressures, and like a tire that is under too much pressure blow-outs are likely to occur,” said Les Nemethy.