NEW YORK, Sep 16 (IPS) – As heads of state and government fly to New York for the United Nations General Assembly and the Summit of the Future (22-30 September), 2.3 billion mothers, fathers and children do not know where their next meal will come from. Millions of people face the terror of brutal, protracted armed conflicts that make no distinction between civilians and soldiers.
The internet, once a shining promise of connection, is a battlefield of hateful echo chambers, amplified by warring states, political factions and extremists tearing apart the bonds of trust. Meanwhile, the richest 1% control nearly half of all financial assets, and a handful of companies are valued higher than the combined economies of Africa and Latin America. It’s no surprise that hope is hard to come by.
We have experienced this fear of despair before. For more than a decade after the AIDS pandemic struck the world, millions died in silence—ignored by leaders, abandoned by systems—as the virus ravaged entire communities. Finally, driven by waves of public pressure, a massive multilateral mobilization of political will, resources, and science turned the tide.
The world came together, invested, broke the silence, dropped the debt, shattered stigmas, changed rules and rescued millions from the brink. As a result, three-quarters of people living with HIV are on life-saving medicines and ending AIDS is an achievable goal this decade. The transformation of the AIDS response shows what happens when leaders act courageously and together.
The contrast between the progress leaders have made in the HIV response and the paralysis in addressing many of today’s global challenges shows that effective leadership depends on inclusive partnership. Short-term, zero-sum, go-it-alone approaches do not win anyone. We win by working together.
The African principle of Ubuntu—“I am because you are”—is a profound ethical insight steeped in real-world practicality, recognizing that solidarity is ultimately shrewd self-interest. As the COVID-19 pandemic has reminded us, in the time it takes for a flight to land in our city, the suffering of a distant stranger can become our own.
In the same way, peaceful communities cannot survive when inequality increases: people seeking a decent life who find themselves trapped in inequality, exclusion and abuse are drawn into conflicts, with consequences that extend beyond borders. This reality — that global cooperation is essential for global security — must determine how we emerge from the crisis.
Governments can put the world back on track and restore hope by rediscovering the political will that once fueled global progress against AIDS and inspired a wave of transformative action. To do so, they must embody the best of the international collaboration that gave rise to UNAIDS, the Global Fund, and the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), delivered comprehensive debt forgiveness, made generic medicines available, promoted human rights, and embraced the power of community leadership.
The work leaders must do is not easy, but the stakes are too high for failure. The path to success is known and the time to make a decision is now.
If leaders act courageously in unifying their response, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will still be achieved. If they do not, the SDGs will fail and even the hard-won progress against AIDS will be undermined, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
Leaders will need to protect public goods. The delay in ensuring access to COVID-19 vaccines for people in the Global South exposed the consequences of handing medicines over to private monopolies. Leaders must ensure that medical technologies are produced and distributed at scale.
Today, a breakthrough drug exists that protects people from HIV with just two injections a year, but it costs $40,000. Generic manufacturers could produce it for as little as $40 per person per year. Large-scale generic production, facilitated by the UN-backed Medicines Patent Pool, is what is needed so that this and other life-saving, life-changing technologies can reach everyone who needs them and protect the world.
Leaders will need to reform global finances and alleviate crushing debt to free up money for investment in health, education and development. Four out of 10 people worldwide live in countries where governments spend more on interest payments on debt than on education or health.
Coordinated, significant debt restructuring and relief by leading creditor countries and investment firms based in those countries is essential. The costs of inaction on debt would far exceed the costs of action. Tax cooperation is also essential. Cooperation on wealth taxes, as proposed by Brazil and Spain, would free up trillions of dollars to build a better world.
The breakthroughs the world has achieved by working together to combat AIDS remind us that walls that seem to close in on us can still be broken down by human action. Governments must once again heed the demands of justice activists and remember what collective resolve can achieve.
We cannot pull ourselves out of the crises of our time if we are pulled apart. The legacy of world leaders may be that they have fulfilled the promise of the Sustainable Development Goals and secured a safer, fairer world for all. But they can only rise to the top together.
Winnie Byanyima is Executive Director of UNAIDS and Under-Secretary-General of the UN. Martin Kimani is Executive Director of the Center on International Cooperation (CIC) at New York University (NYU) and former Permanent Representative of Kenya to the UN.
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© Inter Press Service (2024) — All rights reservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service
