Jackie Smith

Last month nearly 200 world leaders met at the United Nations Headquarters in New York for the largest such gathering in history. The meeting marked the opening of the UN General Assembly, and it was designated as a time to evaluate governments’ progress in the area of development and poverty reduction. As the five-year anniversary of the much celebrated “millennium summit,” this meeting was to measure how well governments followed through on the commitments they made in 2000 to achieve the eight “Millennium Development Goals,” (MDGs) including the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, universal primary education, gender equality and women’s empowerment, strengthened efforts to combat major diseases such as HIV/AIDS, and other steps to reduce global inequalities.

But despite the urgency of many global problems, governments –particularly the most powerful ones-- staunchly resist change. At this meeting, Hurricane Katrina pounded governments with reminders of the inter-connected crises of environmental degradation, poverty, and governance. But even this was not enough to move officials to take meaningful steps to remedy obvious policy failures. The world summit produced a lackluster agreement that revealed a widening gap between the world’s rich and poor countries.

This global standoff reflects a division between the global “North,” or the rich countries (principally those represented in the Group of Eight or G-8), and the global “South,” or the lower-income countries of the world in which the vast majority of the world’s population lives. While the poor countries of the global South want the UN to devote more urgent attention to addressing issues of poverty and development, the minority global North countries have used their disproportionate influence in global affairs to defend their own economic and security interests. Moreover, since the World Trade Center attacks of 2001, the G-8 has been more of a “G-1”, with a unilateralist United States promoting its global struggle against terrorism over all other issues on the global agenda.

The summit revealed three major lines of tension in global affairs. First, there is debate over whether to focus government efforts on combating terrorism or poverty. Second, governments disagree over whether it is more urgent that they reform the UN to make it more effective or to make it more democratic. Third, the world’s people are beginning to demand a place at the negotiating table, signaling a growing challenge to the privileged role of governments in world affairs. By understanding these core tensions, we might gain insights into how to address the complex problems arising from global interdependence.

Should the world’s governments focus their attention on terrorism or poverty? Many analysts see these problems as intimately linked, and Kofi Annan’s report, “In Larger Freedom” sought to make this connection a core part of the summit agenda. But the U.S. and other Northern governments have preferred to focus on the “supply side” of terrorism—namely the policing of terrorist networks and the transnational financial flows that support them. The U.S. position at the world summit emphasized a global treaty on terrorism to the exclusion of nearly all other issues.

Meanwhile, the countries of the global South were growing increasingly frustrated that more powerful countries have repeatedly sidelined the concerns most vital to them. They recognize that they can never hope to control terrorist organizations in their countries without attention to the “demand side,” of terrorism—namely, poverty reduction. But the September 11 attacks that occurred just one year after the MDG campaign was launched derailed global efforts to address poverty. And the U.S. preoccupation with UN reform and terrorism again trumped poverty on the agenda of this year’s world summit. Global South countries and their allies in civil society had to scramble to keep references to the MDGs from being eliminated from the final conference document.

The second debate is over whether to make the UN more effective and professional or more democratic. The highly anticipated report of the Voelker commission on the oil-for-food scandal generated several proposals for reforms that would prevent future scandals. But while U.S. officials have made much of the scandal (emphasizing the failures of the Secretary General over the more systemic failures the Voelker commission implicates), they seem to have little interest in following up on the Voelker commission report. For their part, the global South is not interested in seeing a stronger UN that remains under the control of the United States. Without a major reform of the Security Council, no leader in the South is likely to support its much-needed organizational reforms. Thus, although many people support major organizational reforms to strengthen and democratize the UN, governments at this summit made progress on neither.

The third tension evident at the summit reveals a silver lining. More popular groups around the world are making connections between their local struggles and global politics. Activists worldwide have joined global campaigns to promote greater government attention to the MDGs and to demand a fairer and more equitable global economy. Their efforts were reflected in the “Live 8” concerts over the summer, which unlike similar concerts in the past, focused on political processes rather than simply generating aid for victims. Rock stars urged their fans not to send money for starving children but to send messages to governments that they should abandon policies that exacerbate global poverty. They urged their fans to pay close attention to what their governments were doing at meetings of the G-8, the UN, and World Trade Organization. Live Aid was coupled with an even broader “Global Campaign Against Poverty” symbolized by the white band campaign (www.whiteband.org). Activists’ white wristbands symbolize their commitment to advocating for global economic justice in global institutions. This campaign generated hundreds of street protests and teach-ins in more than 80 countries in the days prior to the world summit (including one at Notre Dame). Such events helped increase popular awareness of the issues surrounding the world meeting, denying governments the ability to negotiate in secret.

Although the final document of the summit leaves much to be desired, the emergence of coordinated international efforts by civil society to target global political meetings gives reason for hope. Without concerted pressure on governments to address the root causes of war and terrorism and to otherwise address the pressing needs of the world’s people, the UN will become increasingly ineffective and irrelevant. The Global Campaign Against Poverty represents major progress in the struggle both for global social justice and for a stronger United Nations.

**This article appeared in the September/October 2005 issue of Notre Dame’s independent student newspaper, Common Sense.

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