The Audacity of Change: A Specific Example of How the UN Can Still Make a Difference
By Alan Doss
from passblue.com
GENEVA — One of the quiet pleasures of life is an early-morning cappuccino in the company of a good newspaper. That was before Covid-19 came along.
The pandemic and resulting disruption of newspaper deliveries and shuttering of cafes has obliged me to suspend my habits of a lifetime. Pending the resumption of normal service, I have gone digital. I now get my daily news fix online, which I admit has its advantages, including easy access to relevant collateral reporting.
That’s how a story on Covid linked me to the World Bank’s Atlas of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The Atlas assesses progress toward the goals established by the UN in 2015. Covid is worsening the outlook. According to the World Bank, “The economic effects of COVID-19 may have pushed more than 100 million more people into extreme poverty — the first significant increase in this measure in decades.”
Fortunately, the goals remain a globally accepted set of aspirations that can guide countries to a sustainable, equitable future — even in the pandemic and in the recovery.
This was evidenced by a survey of global opinion commissioned in conjunction with the UN’s 75th anniversary. The survey indicated strong support for the SDGs, especially among young people, as well as for multilateral approaches to global problem-solving.
Nevertheless, much of the commentary around the anniversary was quite gloomy. Many commentators doubted the UN’s ability to tackle the big challenges of the 21st century.
Yet the backstory of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) — forerunners of the SDGs — and how they came about provides an encouraging experience that the UN can shape and achieve change, despite the prevailing orthodoxies.
That story starts in the 1980s and the so-called “Washington Consensus” — a term first used in 1989 by the English economist John Williamson. The consensus, largely embraced by Western economic powers, promoted balanced budgets, monetary constraints, market liberalization and a systemic effort to shrink the public sector.