South Africa's Deputy President Paul Mashatile speaks at the ninth annual meeting of the New Development Bank in Cape Town, South Africa. Picture: Leon Lestrade / Independent Newspapers / August 31, 2024
By Ashraf Patel
September is spring, a time for renewal and growth.
Yet humanity is at a precipice. Climate emergencies, such as the Bangladesh floods, and terrible conflicts, like those in Gaza, Ukraine and Russia, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Myanmar are a stark reminder that sustainable peace is elusive.
In addition to these, are the geopolitical and economic fractures that have seen the erosion of traditional multilateralism, while sub-Saharan Africa faces its worst debt crisis in decades.
The digital society, which was once seen as a great information leveller, has become an echo chamber of hate on social media, where misinformation and extremism fuelling distrust in national and local levels such as the recent UK riots. The global system is in ICU.
We are more than halfway through the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) timelines towards 2030, and most of humanity will not achieve these.
When UN Secretary Antonio Guterres announced the Summit for the Future, cognisant that the core ideals of the UN is being fractured in all domains.
Key Agenda of the UN Summit of the Future 2024
The Summit of the Future marks the beginning of a journey. It will serve as a springboard to a more sustainable, peaceful and just future for all.
It will do so by focusing attention and action on creating a multilateral system that better reflects the geopolitical realities of the 21st century, one that is more just and one that is capable of responding to the challenges and opportunities of today and tomorrow.
First, by putting in place new international norms and mechanisms to both manage and harness the potential of emerging areas of innovation.
Secondly, doubling-down on our efforts to achieve the world envisaged by the UN Charter, the SDGs and our commitments to address climate change, with a particular focus on making sure we have the necessary resources and fit-for-purpose institutions to deliver.
Finally, it will challenge us to take a fresh look at the United Nations, its institutions, and ways of working to be more networked, inclusive and effective by meaningfully engaging all stakeholders. The Summit offers a once-in-a-generation opportunity for change. It will pave a way to a better tomorrow that we can only shape together.
The UN Summit for the Future 2024 presents the Global South with an Intergenerational opportunity. Let’s unpack.
The BRICS Plus bloc is the anchor for the Global South. As BRICS nations meet in Kazan, Russia in October 2024, the key agenda being the reform of Multilateralism.
The BRICS New Development Bank NDB has just concluded its annual meeting in Cape Town where $4 billion announced for South Africa’s economic infrastructure and green energy programmes, and also just admitted Algeria as a new member. BRICS nations are the anchor that is actually aligning with the UN system, and offers considerable power and leverage in the global system.
Under Russia’s leadership, with clear proposals in addressing solution to meet the UN SDGs, the BRICS Trade Ministers’ statement in July stated:
“We thus endorse BRICS Declaration on the WTO, stressing the BRICS Members’ support for the open, fair, transparent, predictable, equitable, non-discriminatory, inclusive, consensus- and rules-based multilateral trading system with the WTO at its core, and highlighting its importance for just global development.”
BRICS members stress the importance of transparent, accessible and inclusive discussions within the WTO and the importance of consensus decision making.
G77 Plus China has since the 1990s been a coherent bloc representing interests of developing nations especially during the stalled WTO trade talks, and continues to play a key role.
In its 2024 Communique , the convenor of the G77 Plus China, S Celia Kafureka Nabate, Minister Counsellor of the Permanent Mission of Uganda to the UN observes:
“The group of 77 and China acknowledges that our planet is in a state of peril facing dangers caused by wars and conflicts, climate change, poverty and hunger, a global digital divide as well as pandemics. The Group of 77 and China, agrees with the Secretary General's call for the rebuilding of trust and the restoring of hope. Multilateralism and international co-operation play an important role in this regard.”
The Group is committed to engaging constructively and actively in all the upcoming processes such us the 4th Small Island Developing States Conference, the Landlocked Developing Countries Conference and the Summit of the Future. In addition, the G77 and China is participating in the Forum on Financing for Development Follow-up and the High-Level Political Forum. These events are critical in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
G20 at Crossroads
The G20 was founded in 2009 amidst the Great Financial crisis of 2008-09 faces a moment of truth. While expanding and encroaching into UN processes, its core mandate is financial crisis. Yet over a decade it as not managed to address the underlying symptoms of financial system, The US’s $34 trillion debt poses a huge risk to the global financial system, the rise of Crypto has caused havoc in nations Nigeria where the Naira has devalued significantly causing chaos and raising the cost living crisis .
Kenya’s recent financial riots is another example, and interest on debt the largest budget items in South Africa’s fiscus 2023-24. The UN Stimulus report 2023 has articulated these core challenges.
The G20 needs to go ‘Back to Basics’ where urgent intervention is needed as the IMF and powerful banks and creditors extract value and interest from the poorest nations while imposing austerity. #KenyaFinancial riots will mutate in the Global South if the G20 does not prioritise financial reform for development and adhere to the UN Stimulus report 2023 priorities.
South Africa is thus in an opportune position to shape the agenda as its hosts the G20 in 2025. Will it advance the African Agenda in 2025?
These opportunities and challenges transcend national borders and as regions and locales grapple with multidimensional challenges, our deeply interconnected and increasingly multipolar world, international c-ooperation holds the key to effectively managing our collective success, and even to our survival.
In framing the Summit of the Future, the UN has articulated its importance:
“This is an unique Once in a Generation moment in history where we face a pivotal choice as a global community – breakthrough or breakdown. Inaction almost guarantees a future of persistent crises and breakdown, whilst a breakthrough will not happen by itself.”
All hands on deck are needed.
* Ashraf Patel is a Senior Research Associate at the Institute for Global Dialogue (IGD).
** The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media