Guterres said problems such as poverty, debt, online hate and harassment and loss of biodiversity arise from the failure of the international system. “The divisions are getting deeper and deeper. Inequalities are widening. The challenges are spreading further,” Guterres told the annual gathering of leaders at the United Nations General Assembly in New York. “We have a duty to act. And yet we are mired in colossal global dysfunction,” he said. The diagnosis was echoed by some of the more than 100 leaders attending the week-long event, but little consensus emerged on how to bridge differences between nations deeply at loggerheads over how to respond to the war in Ukraine. . The United States seeks to pressure and isolate Russia on the world stage over the violence and destruction that has occurred in Ukraine since Moscow’s forces invaded on February 24. The fighting resulted in tens of thousands of casualties and millions of refugees as Russia seized and then retreated from Ukrainian territory to the south and east. Many developing countries in Africa and Latin America, meanwhile, resent the global push to condemn Moscow while bearing the brunt of rising food and energy prices stemming from the war. Washington is trying to respond to those concerns this week by prioritizing reducing global food costs and making gestures toward reforming the UN Security Council – a long-term goal of developing countries that see the institution as outdated and unrepresentative. “For the West, the goal this week is to win the hearts and minds of non-Western leaders,” said Richard Gowan, a UN expert on the International Crisis Group. In theory, the UN gathering provides an ideal platform for the West to push its agenda following the decisions of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping not to attend. But many countries that had resisted condemning Russia remained so during the first day of talks. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, the first head of state to speak, remained neutral in the conflict, instructing both sides that a solution “will only be achieved through negotiations and dialogue.” Macky Sall, the president of Senegal, also called for de-escalation and negotiation in a speech that did not use the word “Russia” once. Some criticism of Moscow came from Chilean President Gabriel Boric, who opposed Russia’s aggression toward Ukraine and also criticized the US trade war with China for having a negative impact on the global economy. “You have a lot of countries that were once willing to criticize Russia earlier in the year, but have developed fatigue in Ukraine and are trying to stay out of the war,” Gowan said. This is especially true for nations that have political and military ties to Russia or face particularly harsh economic pressure. Even before the outbreak of war in Ukraine, a slow global food crisis, caused by conflict, climate change and the coronavirus pandemic, was driving malnutrition in areas such as the Horn of Africa, Haiti, Yemen, Syria and Afghanistan. Putin’s invasion dramatically exacerbated these problems, depriving world markets of a key supplier of grain. Rising prices have increased the cost of the UN’s World Food Program by almost 50%, meaning existing funds can feed fewer people. About 50 million people are on the brink of starvation. It’s just one of several issues Guterres said are being overlooked as leaders focus on daily gains and losses on the battlefield in Ukraine. “Much of the world’s attention remains on the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” he said. “At the same time, conflicts and humanitarian crises are spreading — often out of sight.” He highlighted less publicized concerns, such as Afghanistan’s economic collapse, the proliferation of armed groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the worsening human rights situation in Myanmar and “cycles of violence” in Israel and the Palestinian territories. The United States’ efforts to win goodwill from the developing world this week are manifesting themselves in different ways. President Biden is expected to discuss Security Council reform during his visit to New York, but US officials have not yet decided whether to do so publicly or privately, the president’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, told reporters on Tuesday. Since its inception, the Security Council has given veto power to five states: the United States, China, Britain, France and, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia. While other nations take rotating seats, countries from the global south are pushing for an overhaul that would result in a council that better reflects today’s diversified centers of global power. “The abuse of the veto has effectively paralyzed the council in countless crises preventing meaningful action — on Syria, Russia’s abuses in Ukraine and Myanmar,” said Louis Charbonneau, UN director at Human Rights Watch. Russia has been the most active user of its veto in the Security Council, while the United States has vetoed proposals aimed at Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. He said a new rule requiring permanent members of the Security Council to justify their vetoes to all member states was a step in the right direction toward accountability. Biden’s aides are also hosting a food security summit with the European Union and the African Union on the sidelines of the general assembly, as well as meetings on the coronavirus and a conference on the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and AIDS. Malaria. Those gestures will coincide with a tough push by Biden during his speech on Wednesday for nations to rally against Russia and “stand up to the bare-bones aggression that we’ve seen these past few months,” Sullivan said. In his remarks, the president is expected to portray the challenge of the 21st century as a struggle between “democracies and autocracies.” The refrain, which Biden often uses, offers a digestible view of the world, but also risks excluding some non-democracies from which the United States seeks cooperation, such as Singapore or the Gulf monarchies. Other Western leaders have tried to take a more inclusive approach. French President Emmanuel Macron, for example, planned a dinner on Tuesday night to bridge the “North-South divide” with guests including the leaders of Senegal, Ivory Coast, Colombia, Argentina and European Council and ministers Foreign India, Egypt. and Indonesia. “Our goal is not to perpetuate the idea that it’s the West against the rest,” said a French official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss Macron’s diplomatic discussions. “A collapse of the world order is in nobody’s interest.” Guterres said there are some signs of hope for solving global problems through multilateralism. A Turkey-UN-brokered deal to end Russia’s blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports and resume Ukrainian exports in July has helped ease global food and grain supply problems and created vital silo space for the next harvest of Ukrainian farmers. “Some might call it a miracle at sea,” Guterres said. “In fact, it is multilateral diplomacy in action.” But major challenges remain, as economists warn the global economy could remain mired in inflation and weak growth for years. Foreign Secretary Anthony Blinken said some nations were doing less than they could to ease the food crisis. Officials in the United States, the biggest funder of UN efforts to combat hunger, often say that Russia and China have contributed far less than their share of the problem. “This has to change,” Blinken told a meeting on food security on the sidelines of the UN gathering. “And regardless of what countries have done so far, every country is called upon to do more.” Also on Tuesday, Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Zomart Tokayev said the proliferation of global sanctions, a byproduct of competition between major powers such as Russia and the United States, was partly to blame for problems with global supply chains, prices and food security. security. “The security architecture is eroding,” he told the General Assembly. “Mutual mistrust among world powers deepens.” Chrysoula Zacharopoulou, France’s minister of development and international cooperation, said the key to addressing long-term food challenges is to help developing countries reduce their dependence on imports, an effort supported by Paris and others. He rejected claims by Russia and its allies that the West’s response to Russia’s actions was to blame, citing the exclusion of food and fertilizer from global sanctions. “We have to be honest that Russia has chosen to weaponize access to food, just as it has chosen to weaponize energy supplies,” she said in an interview. “Of course the most affected are the most vulnerable countries.”
