In simply one yr, a simple virus — prolonged predicted by world well being consultants — killed 4.5 million people, despatched world GDP plummeting by three.5%, and induced half the world’s youngsters to be affected by school closures, 124 million people to be pushed into extreme poverty, ladies to go away the workforce in doc numbers, and 23 million youngsters to overlook routine immunizations in opposition to life-threatening illnesses.
that is solely a fraction of the human and social toll of COVID-19, which has additionally deepened divisions, fueled conspiracy theories, and worsened inequities at every stage that have been already intolerably extreme.
that would presumably be what occurs after we fail to rearrange or adequately reply to a exact, collective risk in our interconnected world. We face an instantaneous cascade of impacts that touches every facet of our lives. we’re given a visceral reminder that every of us holds every completely different’s fates in our fingers — that solidarity is, truly, self-curiosity.
COVID-19 is our take a look at, and it gained’t be the final. The local climate emergency is, truly, already upon us.
we’re at a turning level — an “open second” in historic previous, as some have mentioned — and the options we make now will decide our shared future.
Will we summon the resolve to finish the COVID-19 pandemic completely and equitably? If we fail, we stand to lose $9.2 trillion in 2021 alone. If we succeed, we save lives and livelihoods and buy new confidence that we’re ready to beat collective challenges collectively.
Will we act on what science unequivocally tells us to restrict local climate change and hold our planet a safe dwelling for humanity? If we fail, we guarantee a method forward for accelerating climate extremes, rivals over assets, and cascades of intersecting crises. Air air pollution already kills 7 million people a yr immediately, not to mention if we fail to right it. however after we succeed, we reap the positive factors of know-how and a decarbonized economic system for greater well being and greater lives. A inexperienced economic system may yield positive factors of $26 trillion and sixty five million new jobs by 2030 alone.
and might we, lastly, acknowledge the indivisibility of our widespread future and the crucial of working collectively to safe it?
a typical AGENDA FOR “WE THE PEOPLES”
The UN Secretary-regular has simply provided Our widespread Agenda, his imaginative and prescient for renewing world cooperation to fulfill the wants of the twenty first century and the expectations of people all by way of the place for a extra healthful, fairer, and extra sustainable world. In his phrases, the various is apparent: Our future may presumably be secured provided that we admit that “we’re sure to at least every completely different and that no neighborhood or nation, nonetheless extremely effective, can remedy its challenges alone.”
Our widespread Agenda presents a imaginative and prescient and plan for a method the United Nations can deliver collectively world leaders, worldwide organizations, world companies, civil society champions, and youthful people to resolve world factors.
The plan begins with tackling rising polarization and inequality inside our societies, and for good set off. international places discover it arduous to cooperate globally when social cohesion is fraying at dwelling, and certainly the biggest take a look at of worldwide cooperation is whether or not or not it would most likely allow exact change in exact people’s lives and communities.
Our widespread Agenda presents a compelling case for a renewed social contract between people and their governments based mostly on a full imaginative and prescient of human rights, inclusion, and participation, as an indispensable basis for rebuilding people’s notion inside the institutions that serve them.
The Secretary-regular requires restoring notion in science and ending the “infodemic” that is tearing at our social supplies by the day.
He proposes that we measure what issues and problem our functions to maneuver past GDP to grab the complete measure of our financial affect on human, social, and pure functions — one factor the Sustainable enchancment targets (SDGs) additionally urged.
With half the world immediately under 30 and better than 10 billion people to be born this century, the Secretary-regular additionally requires new ambition in delivering for youthful people and future generations. He desires to create dwelling for youthful people contained in the worldwide system as designers of the future, whereas delivering on their core priorities, similar to education and expertise, jobs and financial alternatives, and tackling local climate change and existential threats to their future. He requires a particular Envoy for Future Generations and a Declaration on Future Generations to be agreed at a Summit of the future. to enhance foresight, a mannequin new Futures Lab will join and coalesce collective performance to suppose, plan, and act for the future.
on the coronary heart of the mannequin new agenda sits a set of proposals that can assist the worldwide commons and world public items on which all of us rely, whereas stopping and mitigating the risks that will flip our lives the various method up inside the blink of an eye mounted.
Our widespread Agenda requires mannequin new consideration to world traits and risks, a extra resilient world economic system that works for all, a mannequin new agenda for peace as risks to collective safety develop, and a plan to reclaim the digital commons as an space for the method whereby forward for humanity. He incorporates a name for a “final mile alliance” to velocity up the Sustainable enchancment targets for primarily the most susceptible and proposes an Emergency Platform for the following time the world faces a disaster on the dimension of COVID-19. each are ideas the UN basis has prolonged championed.
The thread that runs by way of all of the Secretary-regular’s proposals is the want for a revitalized multilateralism that is extra networked, inclusive, and accountable to “We the Peoples.” The interconnected challenges we face immediately may presumably be surmounted solely by working collectively throughout borders and sectors. Twenty-first century multilateralism wants us to be “all in” and wishes all of us to be in.
OUR widespread AGENDA AND UN basis
That imaginative and prescient has prolonged impressed us on the UN basis, and we have usually referred to as for a extra modern multilateralism for the future that is focused on primarily the most pressing challenges, open to new fashions of collaboration, and collectively with from the start everyone with a stake in how worldwide institutions and functions carry out.
We have been proud to assist Our widespread Agenda over the previous yr, working with the Igarapé Institute and completely different companions to mobilize expertise, ideas, and evaluation, and collaborating with dozens of nations from every area that, rightly, have extreme expectations for what the UN should ship in an period of disaster and alter.
We additionally hosted a gaggle of subsequent know-how Fellows, who have been requested by the Secretary-regular to deliver collectively youthful leaders, activists, and thinkers to contribute to his report and publish a companion quantity, Our Future Agenda. Their convener, Aishwarya Machani, additionally writes regarding the important function performed by youthful people in creating Our widespread Agenda.
inside the approaching weeks, we may presumably be talking and writing regarding the alternatives for taking forward Our widespread Agenda and appearing on its bracing name to movement.
We look forward to redoubling work with companions who see the United Nations as a platform to resolve humanity’s biggest challenges and who share our notion that Our widespread Agenda can encourage the reinvigorated multilateralism we want to safe our widespread future.