September 20, 2017

Back to basics - the ‘global new deal' for a world makeover

located:	USA
editor:	Bob Koigi

On average, 40% of youth in Africa are jobless, despite a majority of them having attained the highest level of education. On the other hand Africa loses over $50 billion each year to illegal and unethical practices fanned by both governments and private sectors, including grandiose corruption, tax evasion and transfer pricing. This has put brakes on Africa’s quest to address some of the continent’s pressing problems including health, poverty and lack of education. The gap between haves and have nots has staggered to unprecedented levels. In Kenya the phenomenon is christened, a country of ten millionaires and ten million beggars.

Yet this is not a case unique to just Africa. Corporate rent seeking behaviour, economic neoliberalism and warped macroeconomic policies have created an uneven global economy that not only excludes a bulk of the population, but is a precursor to a dangerous trend that could erupt as a result of a sense of disenfranchisement.

It is therefore timely and commendable for the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) to have rallied the world behind the need to have a complete overhaul of our understanding and philosophy of global economy, and instead, look to a more sustainable, inclusive and caring economy that has everyone on board. Through its recently released report, ‘The Global New Deal’, the agency roots for going back to the basics that healed and fixed the post-world war II economy. In a bid to rebalance the post war economy, Bretton Wood Institutions, the United Nations and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade teamed up, heralding the launch of the Marshall plan. In a similar arrangement during the 1930s, the United States revisited its approach to economic power, bestowing more voice to society’s weaker groups like farmers, labour organisations and consumer groups. It is the glue that held the superpower.

Decades later this is the only route in a world where millions continue to be born to a reality where jobs have become elusive and new threats like climate change are taking a toll on every facet of our very existence.

The Sustainable Development Goals remain the ultimate bible to transitioning the world to one successful all-inclusive and responsive economy that promises a just world for us and our future generations. That however calls for sobriety, tough decisions and the goodwill of the community of nations.