By: Kimberly Ramkhalawan
September 23, 2022
Requests temporary membership to security council, calls for equality in climate financing, refrains voting against Russia Human rights violations.
Guyana President Dr Mohammed Irfaan Ali tackled the added inequality developing countries have been facing as a result of the pandemic and now the war which is impacting food supplies.
Commencing his address to the United Nations General Assembly, the Guyana President stressed that we were “living in a troubled world which has lost its balance”, while “collective actions as leaders today will convey to the next generation that their aspirations and their future and their planet are worth fighting for”. Listing what he calls interlocking challenges the world is facing as a result of a global pandemic, climate challenges, energy and food crisis and interstate conflicts, the Guyanese President says has resulted in 97 million are now living on less than US$1.90 per day, with the developing world has lost much of its revenue that were marked for achieving many of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, pushing the world away from its 2030 targets.
Citing a March 2022 UN report which stated the unequal distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, and the impact on widening economic disparity between the rich and the poor, Dr.Ali says the report had found that low income countries could have increased their GDPs by US$16.7B by 2021 if they had a similar vaccination rate as high income developed countries.
In putting forward the question to the assembly as to how the collective world will address the inequality and injustice, he stated Guyana’s position is “that there must be an immediate reexamination of the financing gap and the debt portfolio of the developing countries. To open fiscal space and create an opportunity for recovery, bridging the gap and attaining the SDG goals. Guyana welcomes the global initiatives around pandemic”.
He says the “global food security problem has disproportionately affected the region. While the prevalence of moderate and insecure food security trended upwards sine 2014, with estimated increase in 2020 equaling that of the last five years behind. In 2020, 2.37B of the world’s population were food insecure.
Ali highlighted figures from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation which stated current cereal and grain production levels projected to decline by 40M tonnes, or 1.4 percent when compared to the preceding year, in comparison to the world’s food import bill is a whopping trillion dollars this year, with an expectation to rise by some US$51Billion this year, of which he says $49B which reflects higher food prices.
He posed the question whether the reversal of export bans on rice and wheat, and freeing up of grains help the situation, export bans on rice from India and wheat from Russia contributed to a price increase of 12.3 percent and 9 percent respectively.
The Guyana President urged world leaders to “find the right balance now. In honouring our commitment to world peace, stability, respect for territorial integrity and democracy and human rights for all, we must work collectively to prevent situations that can widen inequality and create social and economic havoc”.
Ali said now was the time for us to decide if a new approach is needed to guarantee food security and energy security, climate security, access to healthcare and quality education and security from conflicts and wars.
Dr. Ali added that “according to the world bank and global trade, between January to February 2022, 135 policy measures were announced and implemented to defected trade, food and fertilizer, during the same period 34 nations, imposed restrictive export measures on food and fertilizer, the questions are therefore, whether globalization is only applicable under normal conditions, or whether it is opportunistic in its application and when a crisis arises, we lock ourselves in and forget about multi-lateralism and globalization. The evidence is glaring, COVID-19 vaccinations, and now food and fertilizer. A welcome initiative is the FAO’s global food import financing facility, which seeks to respond to the prevailing, soaring food import costs, and addressing the needs of the most exposed. However, there is a need to revise the eligibility criteria, to accommodate countries beyond the categories of low income and lower income middle groups. This narrow grouping heightens the chance that many at risk, economic vulnerable countries such as the Caribbean with large food import needs will be excluded.”
Reminding those gathered of the current climate crisis ensuing and decisions taken in recent global forums such COP 26, agreements were made toward the ending of coal powered projects, what is the reality? He says while policies and planning for climate change adaptation are expanding, according to the policy adaptation report 2021, ‘The Gathering Storm’, financing and implementation are still far behind.
To this, the Guyanese President said “the cost of adaption is predicted to be higher than the range of US$140B by 2030, and US$280B- US$580B by 2050 for developing nations for planning and carrying out mitigation and adaptation measures. The gap between predictive adaptation cost and existing public adaptation financial flows, is generally growing and ranges from five to ten times more”.
Knocking what he described as “the paltry US$1B pledge”, He said the “failure to meet it, must be viewed in the context of the likely costs of climate action for mitigation, adaptation and addressing loss and damage. It is not enough. The adoption of broad rules on carbon markets in Glasgow, has the potential to unlock critical resources for forest-rich countries. Forested countries like Guyana could potentially earn billions of dollars accessible through the voluntary carbon markets, however, the current approximate price is US$10 per tonne on the voluntary market”.
Whilst according to an IMF report the price should be closer to US$70 per tonne, COP 27 must make progress in refining the rules for the implementation of Article Six of the Paris Agreement and make decisions that would increase the price of carbon in voluntary traded markets. The world is also faced with an energy crisis, almost 10.
Addressing other areas, the president stated his country’s request to obtain non-permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council.
President Ali in stating his case before the assembly, shared that his country “does not condone or support the threat of, or use of force in relations between states or in the resolution of disputes. Consistent with the Charter of the United Nations, Guyana subscribes to the use of peaceful means to settle disputes. In this context, Guyana thanks those who have already expressed support for our candidature for non-permanent membership of the UN Security Council”
He thanked his fellow world leaders for expressing support in his country’s candidacy for the non-permanent membership. He shared with a matter of Guyana’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, challenges and threats with Venezuela as it is, we remain to quote the Secretary General “committed to make the most of every diplomatic tool for the specific settlement of dispute as set out of the charter of the United Nations”. In this case, judicial settlement as determined the Secretary General himself, the world nations can be assured that Guyana shall remain true to those peaceful processes and deny every effort to depart from them. The International Court of Justice has already affirmed its jurisdiction in the matter. This assembly must reinvigorate the spirit of multilateralism in finding solutions to the existent challenges which bedevil the global community of states.
Ali Likened “a hungry man is an angry man, global inequality is linked to global security and global security is linked to the prosperity of all of humanity,” as part of his closing,
Meanwhile, on Thursday, one day after Guyana abstained from voting at the United Nations for Russia to be suspended from the UN Human Rights Council, the South American CARICOM nation shared that it was unable to participate in the vote due to the decision based on the absence of a full human rights violation report.
On Thursday, some 93 countries voted that the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) suspend Russia from the organization’s leading human rights body on allegations that Russian soldiers attacked and killed civilians during the invasion of Ukraine, while 24 voted against and 58 were marked absent in the voting. This included both Barbados and Guyana, nevertheless, the General Assembly was able to achieve its votes to secure a majority pass to resolution.