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#BTEditorial – UNCTAD a time to take a stand for our future

by Barbados Today
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This week Barbados is at the centre of global attention, the smallest country ever to host the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the 15th session (UNCTAD 15).  The UN’s 197 countries are participating in the event virtually.

No stranger to the international stage is this country which one UN Secretary General declared punches above its weight in global affairs. Barbados hosted the United Nations Global Conference on the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States in April 1994, which attracted representatives from over 125 countries.

Over the last two days, we have watched as high-level officials discussed decades-old complex development challenges on the agenda and examined From inequality and vulnerability to prosperity for all.

Countries are deliberating on measures to reduce inequality and vulnerability by ensuring trade works for all and they are seeking to set out proposals to fix the fractures across the world in favour of a better life for the world’s population.

On the sidelines of the conference, particularly on social media, scores are looking on with interest.  In some circles, there are provocative debates on whether the five days of dialogue involving the influential officials isn’t just another talk shop.

“What will be different this time around,” some commenters asked.

“After five days of talks what will trickle down to the ordinary man and woman. Talk is cheap, action is promised, but hardly delivered. But, of course, they will be another summit and the chatter continues,” others suggested.

There’s no denying the validity of these concerns. Time and again, from fora too numerous to mention, we have heard the declarations and the perfectly coined phrases. We watched the signing of agreements and the warm handshakes but thereafter it’s not often easy to point to realistic outcomes that improve the lives of people across the globe.

Our own Prime Minister, the incoming chair of UNCTAD, asked international leaders at the United Nations General Assembly last week in a speech that has earned accolades across the globe: “How many more times must we say the same thing over and over and over, to come to naught?”

Mottley went further to invoke Bob Marley’s famous Get up, stand up, asking, “who will get up and stand up for the rights of our people?”

We earnestly hope that given the glaring, weighty matters facing small island developing states like ours, that the leaders will take a stand.

For indeed we can’t afford to be silent. if we opt to stop talking, lobbying and negotiating, who will do it for us?

Do-nothing cynicism won’t solve our problems.

The voices of the nonchalant and the critical are rallying cries for leaders to muster the political will, to press through until the world sits up and listen.

The issues raised at the UNCTAD meeting are sobering.

The global health crisis of COVID-19 which has not only virtually wiped out the economic and social development gains in most SIDS, remains a crippling stumbling block to recovery as millions die or become infected with the virus.

So too is the paralyzing mountain of debt facing SIDS, exacerbated by the collapse of our economies, that have lost critical tourism earnings as the coronavirus grounded travel. All this has been compounded by the high-handed actions of developed nations who issue travel advisories and enforce unfair financial rules that threaten to upend gains in other critical sectors.

And then there’s the glaring impact of climate change, which is not a textbook phenomenon for us even with our sandy beaches and pristine blue waters.

Director-General of the World Health Organization Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has warned: “The risks posed by climate change could dwarf those of any single disease. The COVID-19 pandemic will end, but there is no vaccine for the climate crisis. The IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] report shows that every fraction of a degree hotter endangers our health and future. Similarly, every action taken to limit emissions and warming brings us closer to a healthier and safer future.”

The global community should be held accountable for its actions.

It’s time developed countries commit to fair trade rules, debt forgiveness and increased climate finance – not in the form of loans but grants.

The real question is who will take a stand and act?

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