Inequality is pushing world to ‘breaking point’

UNITED Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres warned yesterday the world was at “breaking point” and called for a new model for global governance to tackle inequalities exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic.

Delivering the annual Nelson Mandela lecture online, Guterres said the pandemic “has been likened to an X-ray, revealing fractures in the fragile skeleton of the societies we have built”.

“It is exposing fallacies and falsehoods everywhere: the lie that free markets can deliver health care for all; the fiction that unpaid care work is not work; the delusion that we live in a post-racist world; the myth that we are all in the same boat,” the UN chief said.

He outlined the main drivers of inequality, including systemic racism, the legacy of colonialism, patriarchy, gaps in access to technology and inequalities in global governance.

“The nations that came out on top 70 years ago have refused to contemplate the reforms needed to change power relations in international institutions,” Guterres said in his blunt speech, pointing to the voting rights in the UN Security Council, where Britain, China, France, Russia and the US have veto powers.

Guterres said the response to the pandemic “must be based on a new social contract and a new global deal that create equal opportunities for all and respect the rights and freedoms of all”.

The new model would ensure inclusive and equal participation in global institutions, fair globalisation, a stronger voice for the developing world in global decision-making, and a more inclusive and balanced multilateral trading system, he said.