Gulf between rich and poor increases risk of climate breakdown as well as entrenches poverty, say Stiglitz, Ghosh, Piketty, Ortiz …
Top economists call for action on runaway global inequality | Inequality | The Guardian
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In 2015, almost all heads of government in the world committed to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including universal health coverage (UHC). This was consistent with the World Health Organization’s commitment to Health for All.
The COVID-19 pandemic exposed most countries’ under-investment in public healthcare provisioning and other weaknesses. Clearly, health system reforms and appropriate financing are needed to improve populations’ wellbeing.
Instead of helping, more profit-seeking investments and market ‘solutions’ in recent decades have undermined UHC. Health markets the world over rarely provide healthcare for all well. Instead, they have increased costs and charges, limiting access. Worse, public funds are being diverted to support profits, rather than patients.
Read the article by Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Public investment is high on the political agenda in the European Union—but not for those who need it the most. The companies, often very profitable, extracting or refining critical raw materials or developing green, digital, military and other strategic technologies have ample access to it. While all this shiny technology gets a lot of political attention, the public services citizens rely on to live decent lives—such as affordable housing, energy, water, healthcare or food—are however rather ignored.
A call to the European Investment Bank, by Frank Vanaerschot
In the face of the unprecedented global crises that the world is currently facing, upholding and fulfilling the human right to food and a clean, safe and healthy environment have become critically important. The Human Rights Council (HRC) adopted two important resolutions on these issues in its 52nd Session, held from 27 February to 04 April 2023. The present policy brief discusses the implications and scope of these resolutions to strengthen and advance fundamental human rights, building resilience and promoting the role of multilateralism as a tool to face the triple planetary crises and recover better from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Read the South Centre’s Briefing
A civil society briefing – published in response to the World Bank’s public consultation on the ‘Evolution Roadmap’ and endorsed by 74 organisations and indidivuals (see pp. 9-10) – calls for a World
Bank Group roadmap that prioritises people, participation and the planet over profit and economic
growth. It provides an alternative analysis of the current ‘crisis of development’ which the Evolution
Roadmap seeks to respond to; presents key evidence on the damaging effects of the ´Cascade´
approach to date; and proposes an alternative pathway towards a more equitable and sustainable
World Bank Group ‘evolution’, which would reverse the flow of the Cascade, putting public interest –
including grassroots voices, and economic, social, women’s, girls’ and human rights – at the centre
of the public development paradigm for the 21st century, rather than the profits of corporations and
private finance
Read the briefing
The recent Paris Summit for a New Global Financing Pact was touted by its organisers, including the French president, Emmanuel Macron, as a groundbreaking initiative to forge a ‘new contract’ between the global north and south that would address climate change and foster sustainable development. The fact that most G20 leaders did not even bother to show up, however, casts doubt on the feasibility of the effort.
Despite the participation of roughly 50 heads of state, high-ranking representatives of international institutions, private-sector executives and climate experts, the summit did not live up to its lofty promises. It failed to introduce the necessary measures to narrow the climate-finance gap, provide lower-income countries with the fiscal space they need to weather the current debt crisis and overhaul the global financial architecture.
Shockingly, the summit concluded without a single firm commitment.
Read the article by Jayathi Ghosh and others
Don’t tax the rich! If you do, they will leave the country … Well, no, they won’t! Read here why not
Debunking the Five Major Myths About Outmigration – Mass. Budget and Policy Center (massbudget.org)
No matter how rich you are … The deaths aboard the Titan submersible are a tragedy — a tragedy born of the hubris of the ultra-wealthy.
Read Jacobin’s article
At the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development held in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), member states decided to replace the Millennium Development Goals (established in 2000) with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The first SDG was to ‘end poverty in all its forms everywhere’. Despite the enthusiastic verbiage, it was clear that poverty was simply not going to be ended across the world. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the data showed that poverty had become intractable.
So how did China eradicate poverty ?
Read Vijay Prashat’s story
The ITUC warns that the World Bank’s new “B-Ready” project signals bad news for working people, as it will undermine labour rights and social protection across employment sectors.
Described as the Bank’s “corporate flagship”, B-Ready presents itself as an index that supposedly measures the business and investment climates in 180 economies worldwide annually.
ITUC’s Analysis https://www.ituc-csi.org/IMG/pdf/b_ready_memo_en.pdf
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