The United States, United Kingdom, and a handful of allied powers have blocked agreement on a draft declaration that advocates the need to accelerate progress on a set of critical development goals at a major summit at the United Nations headquarters next month.
The Biden administration objected to a series of key provisions in the draft, including calls to reform the international financial system and establish a multibillion-dollar development stimulus plan.
The move has thrown a spanner into high-level diplomatic talks over the fate of the U.N.’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals, which will mark their midpoint in September amid growing doubts they will be achieved.
The U.S. raised concern over several provisions dealing with the reform of the financial system, including a call to overhaul the international financial architecture, creating new, expanded debt relief for vulnerable countries, and urging multilateral development banks to mobilize additional financing.
The U.S. also expressed concern in negotiations about provisions in the draft that called for future allocations of special drawing rights for countries most in need, and that welcomed an initiative by the U.N. secretary-general to try to close the gap in SDG funding through a $500-billion-a-year SDG investment stimulus for sustainable development and climate action.
The U.S. decision to block the adoption of the declaration does not necessarily constitute a wholesale rejection of the initiatives being advanced, but it reflects a certain anxiety that the pace of demands for reform is moving too swiftly.
The stalemate follows a behind-the-scenes dispute over the role of the U.N. — and its 193 members — in global discussions over the reform of the international financial system, with the U.S. and other Western members preferring that debate remains in the hands of the world’s industrial powers in the G20 and G7, or the governing boards of the World Bank, the IMF, and other international financial institutions.
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On the background of: the coup d’etats in the Sahel, warrying generals in Sudan, Putin fighting a senseless war, violence and chaos in Haiti, military juntas in Myanmar, Iran trampling on women’s rights, a gaga regime in Afghanistan and uncaring governments elsewhere; as well as billions of unutilized funding sitting in the UN who appoints ever more deputy and associate and what-not-directors, it should not come as a surprise that the dozen countries who pay virtually all development aid reject a call of those countries for more aid. The UN does not need more money but better ideas.
ReplyDeleteHi Detlef,
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's not the ideas that are lacking but it's the conviction of having to realize them!
jm
ReplyDeleteFrom everything one hears and reads, it is perhaps best if the SG were to suggest to the GA to change the name of "SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS" to "ATTAINABLE HUMAN GOALS".