New York: There needs to be a major shift in global governance to better tackle such current and looming challenges as the climate crisis and rising security threats, according to a new UN report. Launched by the UN’s High-Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism, A Breakthrough for People and Planet: Effective and Inclusive Global Governance for Today and the Future, outlines an ambitious plan to overhaul the global architecture.
Co-chaired by former President of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, and former Prime Minister of Sweden, Stefan Lofven, the Advisory Board was appointed by the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in 2022, tasked with advising Member States on issues of key global concern where better governance could make a difference.
Future generations will judge us by the decisions we take today. Multilateralism can work, but it must work better and faster. Our people-centred recommendations aim to strengthen international cooperation and support an accelerated implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement (on climate change).
Johnson Sirleaf agreed. Noting that the report stemmed from a year-long engagement with hundreds of networks, organizations, and civil society groups committed to addressing global challenges, she said,
I am confident that the report provides the framework that the UN, Member States, and others need to strengthen international cooperation for current and future generations. The solutions they shared will help current and future generations to avoid the catastrophic implications of our current trajectory and secure a more sustainable, just and peaceful world for people and planet.
The recommendations include strengthening the global architecture for peace, security, and finance, delivering just transitions for climate and digitalization, and ensuring more equity and fairness in global decision-making. The report also argues that gender equality needs to be at the heart of a reinvigorated multilateral system along with recommendations to ensure that system becomes more networked, more inclusive, and more effective.
Six transformational shifts frame the report: rebuilding trust in multilateralism through inclusion and accountability; regaining balance with nature and providing clean energy for all; ensuring abundant and sustainable finance that truly delivers; supporting a just digital transition that unlocks the value of data and protects against digital harms; empowering effective, equitable collective security arrangements; and managing current and emerging transnational risks.
Highlighting the report’s call for a renewed effort to reform the UN Security Council, strengthening the UN peacebuilding architecture, and broadening of relations between the UN and regional organisations, he added,
Today’s geo-political tensions must not stand in the way of addressing multiple and growing challenges to our collective security. We need to understand and prepare better for emerging and future risks; we need to build more transparency and trust in international relations.
The report will inform ongoing deliberations leading up to the 2024 Summit of the Future, where Member States will consider ways to lay the foundations for more effective global cooperation.
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NDTV – Dettol have been working towards a clean and healthy India since 2014 via the Banega Swachh India initiative, which is helmed by Campaign Ambassador Amitabh Bachchan. The campaign aims to highlight the inter-dependency of humans and the environment, and of humans on one another with the focus on One Health, One Planet, One Future – Leaving No One Behind. It stresses on the need to take care of, and consider, everyone’s health in India – especially vulnerable communities – the LGBTQ population, indigenous people, India’s different tribes, ethnic and linguistic minorities, people with disabilities, migrants, geographically remote populations, gender and sexual minorities. In wake of the current COVID-19 pandemic, the need for WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) is reaffirmed as handwashing is one of the ways to prevent Coronavirus infection and other diseases. The campaign will continue to raise awareness on the same along with focussing on the importance of nutrition and healthcare for women and children, fight malnutrition, mental wellbeing, self care, science and health, adolescent health & gender awareness. Along with the health of people, the campaign has realised the need to also take care of the health of the eco-system. Our environment is fragile due to human activity, which is not only over-exploiting available resources, but also generating immense pollution as a result of using and extracting those resources. The imbalance has also led to immense biodiversity loss that has caused one of the biggest threats to human survival – climate change. It has now been described as a “code red for humanity.” The campaign will continue to cover issues like air pollution, waste management, plastic ban, manual scavenging and sanitation workers and menstrual hygiene. Banega Swasth India will also be taking forward the dream of Swasth Bharat, the campaign feels that only a Swachh or clean India where toilets are used and open defecation free (ODF) status achieved as part of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014, can eradicate diseases like diahorrea and the country can become a Swasth or healthy India.
