Barbados Statement at the High-Level Meeting to Commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the United Nations
Delivered by way of a pre-recorded video message and broadcast via UN WebTV on September 21, 2020
Friends, all.
As we gather – or to be more precise – as we meet in this strange and impersonal virtual space to commemorate the seventy-fifth anniversary of the United Nations, there’s a compelling need for our community of nations to pause. Pause, just for a moment, and think deeply on where we need to go and what we need to do to get there. Think, consult and then be prepared to act.
As the United Nations reaches this important milestone, it is certainly fitting that we reflect collectively on the organization’s accomplishments in fostering peace and security, in reducing poverty, and in preserving the basic human rights. Their significance is undeniable, their value to humanity immeasurable. But they are words that very often we can easily forget, simply because we do not think about the people behind the words very often.
Yet, even so, and especially at this moment of unprecedented turmoil, there is no time for contented self-congratulation over what we have achieved together. Instead, we must acknowledge the reality that confronts us now – sobering as it may be – that the world which 51 founding members of the United Nations pledged to rescue from the ashes of war some three quarters of a century ago, is once again, as I’ve said for the last two years, on the brink of devastation. And now we have the hands of a pervasive new enemy, the COVID-19 pandemic to add to what we discussed last year and the year before. Not to mention that equally deadly existential threat of which last year’s meeting reminded us so greatly the climate crisis.
COVID-19 has manifested into that perfect storm that threatens to disrupt and even reverse the development gains that the global community has achieved in 75 years of sustained co-operative effort. It has undoubtedly derailed what limited progress developing states like our own in the Caribbean have been able to or were positioning themselves to make and implement in the 2030 agenda, and it has jeopardized our ability to meet the sustainable development goals within the final 10-year implementation window unless there is intervention to stabilize our trajectory to that point. Above all, it has exacted a horrific toll on millions of families worldwide. And regrettably, we have already lost close to a million lives.
According to the head of the World Bank, it is estimated that an additional 100 million people have been already pushed into poverty and we see it here in the Caribbean with what we have experienced as one of the world’s most travel and tourism-dependent regions. Levels of unemployment are higher than they have been in decades, and we face the calamitous prospects of entering into an extended period of global economic depression. Inequality within and between countries is growing at a tremendous pace. The inherent vulnerabilities of small island developing states like our own have been exposed, my friends, in vivid detail.
As the Secretary-General said and he has so emphatically explained, the pandemic threatens to exacerbate inequalities in all facets of life and to undermine the fundamental rights and freedoms that we hold dear. Access to basic income, as well as the public goods – healthcare, education and commodities – are all at risk. Barbados therefore welcomes Secretary-General Guterres’ timely call for a new social contract to counter the growing gaps in trust between people, institutions and leaders, and for a new global deal that is more inclusive, that recognizes the different levels of development among countries, and that secures a more prosperous future for generations to come.
We strongly support the call for the new social contract as almost 30 years ago we established in Barbados our own social partnership based on those same premises advanced by the Secretary-General. I say to you, without that social partnership of government, labour and the private sector and more recently, the third sector – without that social partnership, working together to share in good times and to share in bad times, without that, my country would not be where it is today, especially in fighting the recent challenges of death, of climate, and of course now, the pandemic.
And as for the new global deal, it will remain an elusive dream unless we as leaders have the courage to recognize and act upon an inconvenient but obvious truth, namely that the glue that held nations together in 1945 in the aftermath of a traumatic world war will no longer be the one that can hold us together in the face of the profound new challenges of the 21st century; far less this new war that is COVID-19. Only 51 nations were at the table then, less than a third of the current membership of the United Nations today. The vast majority of development states had no seat and no say. Most were not yet independent and fundamental decisions about the global security, economic and financial order were taken on their behalf, on our behalf, but not necessarily in our best interests, by the colonial powers of the day.
And so if COVID-19 has a silver lining, it must be the unique opportunity that the crisis gives us to reimagine all of the existing development paradigms of the wider United Nations system and to devise innovative policies for new and unprecedented times and a new framework for governance. Lest we forget, what is commonly known as the World Bank was founded in 1944 as the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Reconstruction and development of a devastated Europe was a priority then in 1945. Surely reconstruction of the COVID-shattered economies of our countries is a priority now. Unless we forget, financing was found in the form of a Marshall Plan for the rebuilding of Europe, and financial space was given to war-indebted Britain for over 50 years through bilateral loans and lines of credit at exceedingly low interest rates. Surely it is not beyond the international community’s capacity to develop mechanisms to ring-fence and differentiate COVID-related debt and to treat to it with the far-sighted realism that was shown then to the British debt. In the absence of such an approach, my friends, it is clear that the debt to GDP ratio of our region and many small island states will be unsustainable and there will be no fiscal room to build the resilience that we need as we stand on the frontline of the climate crisis.
Already, small island developing states like mine, find ourselves having to reengineer our nation building in an increasingly unstable and uncertain world. The overlapping realities of the pandemic and increasing debt levels; the dramatic collapse in revenue and employment following the near total shutdown of the travel and tourism sector; the consequences of the ongoing climate crisis not just hurricanes but drought and sargassum weed; the widening digital divide that threatens us, particularly within our educational systems if we do not spend the money that we don’t have to provide the children with the tablets that they need; the closure of many businesses (small, medium and large); the disruption to supply chains and the impact on food security are testing the resolve of individuals, companies and governments alike. In plain language, our inherent vulnerability to circumstances not caused by ourselves keeps us on the edge and keeps us fighting to survive in today’s world. As middle-income small island states, we need fiscal space. We need policy space. We need to move away from arbitrary definitions that do not appropriately capture our condition.
As the United Nations turns 75, the value of multilateralism has seldom been more apparent, its need more pressing, or its future more under attack. For those of us who were spoken for in the past, and who are determined that our voices must be heard today and our seat at the table respected, the United Nations remains the indispensable guarantor of that right. For a global community in dire straits, the consequences of division and inaction are too devastating to imagine, and we are already seeing the early signs of the absence of that global leadership.
Now is not the time for leaders and countries to resort to unilateral conduct and actions that project power and might at the expense of cooperation; at the expense of building a more inclusive world that recognizes the different stages of development and that provides opportunities for all to live with dignity, in peace and prosperity. And just as human beings are different, but all human, countries are different, but all sovereign – those who participate here at the table today. But now is most emphatically the time for us to come together, as truly united nations, and in common purpose, to build a better world. First, let us reimagine our world and then let us build it in a sustainable and resilient manner. That’s what COVID has done for us; to let us know that we really are interdependent. Let us also settle on a new global leadership initiative – rooted in moral leadership – inclusive of not just the voices of Nation States, but those institutions and individuals globally who can also assist in helping to reform the behaviour that threatens the agenda of 2030, our attainment of our sustainable development goals, and that threatens equally and undermines the values that we cherish dearly – those that are reflected in the United Nations charter.
Together, the world can do this just as together, the world did this 75 years ago – to a brighter future for our children and their children.
Thank you.