NEW YORK (Reuters) – UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Saturday accused world powers of ignoring inequality in global institutions, but said the coronavirus pandemic has created a “generational opportunity” to build a world. more egalitarian and sustainable.
FILE PHOTO: United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks during a Security Council meeting about the situation in Syria at the UN headquarters in the Manhattan district of New York City, New York, USA USA, February 28, 2020. REUTERS / Carlo Allegri
By offering the annual conference for the Nelson Mandela Foundation over the Internet, Guterres pushed for a so-called New Global Agreement to ensure that power, wealth, and opportunity are shared more widely and fairly internationally.
“The nations that reached the top more than seven decades ago have refused to contemplate the reforms necessary to change power relations in international institutions,” said Guterres. “The composition and voting rights in the United Nations Security Council and the boards of the Bretton Woods system are a good example.”
“Inequality starts at the top: in global institutions. Addressing inequality must start by reforming them, “he added.
The Bretton Woods system includes the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
He said the pandemic has revealed, like an x-ray, “fractures in the fragile skeleton of the societies we have built.”
“It is exposing fallacies and falsehoods everywhere: the lie that free markets can provide healthcare for all; the fiction that unpaid care work is not work; the illusion that we live in a posttracist world; the myth that we are all in the same boat, “said Guterres during the virtual conference.
“Because while we are all floating in the same sea, it is clear that some are on superyachts while others cling to floating debris,” said Guterres, a former socialist prime minister of Portugal.
The coronavirus has infected more than 14 million people and there have been almost 600,000 known deaths worldwide, according to a Reuters count. The UN has asked for $ 10.3 billion to help poor states, but has received only $ 1.7 billion.
Guterres said that rich countries “have been unable to provide the necessary support to help the developing world” and that the pandemic “has brought home the tragic disconnect between self-interest and common interest; and the enormous gaps in the structures of government and ethical frameworks. ”
He said that a changing world needs new social protection policies with safety nets that include universal health coverage and the possibility of a universal basic income.
Guterres concluded: “Now is the time for world leaders to decide: Shall we succumb to chaos, division and inequality? Or will we correct the mistakes of the past and move forward together, for the good of all?
Report by Michelle Nichols in New York Edition by Matthew Lewis
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