The UN's appeal must be heard

The UN Secretary-General launched yesterday an appeal for funds to help the developing countries to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic and to finance their socio-economic recovery. António Guterres stated very clearly that this pandemic is by far the deepest crisis the world has faced since World War II. It has many dimensions and all of them tremendously affect the weakest people in the poorest countries of the world. The amount he deems necessary is about $8 trillion US, meaning 10% of the global GDP.

I agree with the Secretary-General’s analysis, approach and amount he is looking for. But I am extremely pessimist as it regards to the response the richest countries will provide. Every country, in the better off regions of the world, is desperately looking for resources to deal with the impact of the Covid-19 within their own borders. The call for international solidarity is a distant call. It will not be heard. The developing world will be left to its own fate.

The developing countries that were better connected to the global economy will gradually re-establish those connections. It will take time for different reasons. The logistical chains of supply have been seriously disrupted, the demand in developed economies will remain weak for a good period and there will be an attempt to produce locally what was up to now imported from afar. International trade might take a new shape, to operate within smaller circles of nations.

The countries that were outside the global sphere of production and commerce will continue to struggle at subsistence level. Poverty will continue to be as widespread as it is now. The opportunities to go beyond the local level will not open. And we can easily guess that international cooperation and aid priorities will go further down in the multilateral agenda.

In both cases, food production for local consumption will become the central concern. Any assistance to the agricultural sector will make a difference. The other concern will be to maintain peace and security in societies that have been profoundly de-structured and further impoverished.

The media that matters is too busy with the Covid-19 progression in the most developed societies to give any serious echo to Antonio Guterres’s appeal. No media attention means additional hurdles in terms of money mobilisation. 

Independently of the success of this initiative, the Secretary-General did the right thing. He must be the moral voice of those who are too far from the wealthy and the powerful to be heard.