Tony Curzon Price (London, oD at the Progressive Governance Summit):
The second session of the Global Governance Summit - devoted to
environment, poverty and the governance of the multi-lateral
institutions painted a truly daunting scale of tasks without leaving
the impression that the fundamental impediments to progress had been tackled. Yes, the outlines of solutions to these problems can be seen---but is there really a popular will, a progressive majority, to allow the solutions to move from good intentions to realities?
The shape of environment deal looks clear---but compliance to the
self-set goals of the Kyoto deal has been terrible. Everyone
present agreed that there needed to be aid to help the worst off to
adapt both to climate change and to the policies put in place to
combat it. But what about getting to the point where even the well-off
are prepared to make sacrifices? Show me the rich-country majority
that has demonstrated this willingness. So what will make the next deal more than Kyoto-like in achiving its goals? Voters being truly behind it would be a good start. It would have been interesting to hear about changing people's minds as much as about setting up carbon trading schemes.
The Millenium Development Goals will not be achieved. And growth is
falling. Again, where is the real commitment on the part of the rich
to show international solidarity? The OECD has just published last
year's numbers: rich-world aid has fallen by 8.4% in 2007. More will would bring more capacity. Have Bono and the concerned-celebrity crowd delivered this sustainably? Can we turn elsewhere?
So what about the international institutions? Gordon Brown wants the
IMF to be a real Early Warning System; the UN a real conflict resolver;
and the World Bank a real Environment Bank. This is all fine, and a
rather philosophical paper on "a functional approach to designing international institutions based on shared operating systems, shared
awareness and shared platforms" provided a framework. But again, where are the basic democratic
movements for international solidarity that will demand these
institutional changes be made a reality? Where is membership of the UN Organisation? Where is the national government that does not hide behind the actions of the transnationals, instead of offering them legitimacy? One feels the functional approach should have dug deeper into the underlying basis for solidarity, and might have produced something more practical as a result.
Here was a room-full of elected progressive politicians. More on how
to build and communicate the vision would have been interesting - and
even useful. Tbor Mbeki expressed his frustration: "It's all very interesting, but I don't get it ... Where is the progressive agenda here?"
