State of the World 2005 Trends and Facts - Laying the Foundations for Peace

• Reinventing Global Governance
• Millennium Development Goals and Targets
• Shifting Government Priorities
• Engaging Civil Society
• Discussion Questions

“...building a secure world will require extensive interactions among a broad range of actors, including visionary and committed national and local politicians and government officials as well as engaged, globally minded citizens.”

Just as the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 provoked the United States to declare war on Japan, September 11, 2001 prompted U.S. President George W. Bush to declare war on terrorism, launching a new historical era. Unlike the territorial expansionism that marked the World War II period, however, today’s world is rife with new challenges, such as internal civil conflicts and international terrorism. Many of these are rooted in societal instabilities paired with a complex array of phenomena—from poverty and disease, to population growth and environmental degradation, to religious fundamentalism and ethnic hatred.

In the aftermath of September 11, President Bush made a decision to invade Iraq in early 2003 without securing backing from the United Nations Security Council. During and following World War II, in contrast, the United States emphasized the importance of international cooperation, working with its allies to create the United Nations. Today, laying the foundations for lasting global peace will require a similar approach, with countries collaborating on a broad range of fronts. These include resisting aggression, combating terrorism, mediating peace settlements, and addressing underlying causes of conflict and instability such as social disruption and environmental decline.

Reinventing Global Governance

“Despite all the achievements to date, there can be little question that bold reforms are needed to lay the foundations for peace by better equipping the United Nations for the security challenges of today and tomorrow.”

The crisis created by the controversy over the Iraq war had at least one silver lining: it created an opportunity to lay the foundations for peace by redesigning the United Nations for the security challenges of today and tomorrow. From the very beginning, the U.N. was intended to be about much more than military matters. The U.N. Charter states that one of the organization’s central purposes is “to achieve international cooperation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character.”

Through a series of high-profile international conferences over the last few decades, the U.N. has shone the spotlight on emerging issues of global concern and helped to propel action to address them globally and nationally. New understandings on the range of issues addressed by the global conferences of the 1990s ultimately found expression in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), adopted unanimously at the 2000 U.N. Millennium Assembly. (See Box 1, below.) And the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa, brought renewed political attention to sustainable development challenges, including the adoption or reaffirmation by governments of a broad range of targets related to water, energy, health, agriculture, and biological diversity. (See Box 2, below.) The U.N. is currently finding a growing role for itself in encouraging governments to implement the policy reforms needed to achieve these goals and targets and in tracking their progress along the way.

The U.N. system has also proved adaptable in the face of new challenges. For instance, as the seriousness of problems such as rapid population growth and environmental degradation become apparent in the 1960s and 70s, new institutions like the U.N Fund for Population and the U.N. Environment Programme were organized. Today, the U.N. is being called on to play a growing role in combating the spread of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.

Another high priority for a peaceful and secure future is redesigning global governance structures so they do more to harness the energy and insights of a broad array of actors, including civil society organizations and the private sector. Spurred in part by pressure from the globalization protest movement, both the United Nations and international economic institutions like the World Bank have recently taken steps to make their operations more transparent to civil society. But many hurdles remain in bringing about full and meaningful public participation.

Shifting Government Priorities

“Even as governments work to reach basic development goals, they will need to pursue them in an ecologically sustainable manner to avoid making short-term gains at the expense of long-term well-being and security.”

The United Nations and affiliated organizations lay out visions, enumerate goals for the global community, and help guide implementation efforts. But national governments have the tough tasks of marshaling the domestic political will and resources needed to make that vision a reality and of ensuring that their priorities are in line with today’s burgeoning new global security threats.

While the commitment to achieving the MDGs is strong, progress has been excruciatingly slow. According to the World Bank, less than one-fifth of all countries are currently on target to reduce child and maternal mortality and provide access to water and sanitation, for example, while even fewer are on course to contain HIV, malaria, and other major diseases. Nevertheless, some countries are finding creative ways to tackle many MDGs simultaneously. Mexico, for instance, has created a “conditional cash transfer” welfare program to provide for basic needs and to ensure that families receive medical care and children are enrolled in school.

To address non-traditional security threats successfully, more aid will have to go directly toward achieving the MDGs. The World Health Organization estimates that to sustain a public health system, a minimum of $35–40 per person each year is necessary. For the poorest countries, where GDP per capita is in the low hundreds, this will be impossible without outside aid. According to studies, removing tariffs and subsidies could pull 200 million people out of poverty by 2020. Redirecting just 7.4 percent of donor governments’ military budgets to development aid would provide all the additional funds needed.

Unfortunately, even if the Millennium Development Goals were achieved by 2015, there would still be 400 million people who are undernourished, 600 million who live on less than $1 per day, and 1.2 billion without access to improved sanitation. And the world is not even close to meeting these modest goals. To do so, governments will have to make strong commitments—and then live up to them.

Engaging Civil Society

“A globally oriented citizenry that embraced a sense of solidarity with the world’s poorest and responsibility for the planet that sustains us all would likely not only support new policy initiatives, it would insist on them.”

Actors from the civil sector have emerged as skilled players in global politics and even as leaders on a broad range of issues relevant to security. A powerful illustration of the civil sector’s skill in reaching across national borders came in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq war, when millions of people gathered in hundreds of cities worldwide to protest the looming hostilities. Mobilizing a global public at a single moment on a critical issue was itself a considerable advance for civil society. In general, there is evidence that civil society’s capacity to form the broader networks that give birth to events like regional and global Social Forums has been developing steadily for more than a decade.

The Centre for the Study of Global Governance in London reports that civil society organizations (CSOs) have stepped up their convening activities markedly in recent years. Some have sponsored large international gatherings, often with tens of thousands of attendees, which spawn advocacy and information networks with a global reach. Beyond their work with other actors in civil society, CSOs are also gaining valuable experience in collaborating with government and industry to address some of society’s most intractable problems, including issues of peace and security.

Meanwhile, the United Nations is currently taking steps to promote greater inclusion of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Civil society has long been active in U.N. economic and social work, particularly through major U.N. conferences and in other U.N gatherings such as the annual meeting of the Commission on Sustainable Development. Increasingly, however, even traditionally off-limits sections like the Security Council are allowing closed-door, off-the-record sharing of views between NGOs and official government delegates. U.N. promotion of this kind of partnership is an example of the kind of institutional support these initiatives need.

Education, the media, and religion are in strong positions to shape public understanding of global political processes and of how to make societies more peaceful and just. Twenty-first century schools could conceivably turn out “global citizens”: those who understand global interconnectedness, wrestle with fundamental questions of global justice, and feel deeply that the natural environment deserves protection. Meanwhile, the world’s media might be thought of as a parallel education system, so widespread is its reach and so powerful its capacity to shape worldviews. Finally, religious influence over worldviews is considerable, and there is hope that religious groups can combine their influence in the cause of peace. Such a new focus among these three centers of influence would contribute greatly to strengthening an invigorated and empowered civil sector.

Discussion Questions

1. Do you agree that it is important to increase government commitment to social and environmental concerns? Why or why not? A potential significant source of funding for addressing these concerns could be found in the $1 trillion currently devoted to military spending. Should a portion of military spending be redirected? Why or why not? And if yes, what strategies could be used to encourage governments to shift military spending to social spending?
2. Development is an important global priority—as reflected by the unanimous support of the Millennium Development Goals. How important is it that this development be sustainable? Why?
3. What reforms are needed at the United Nations to make it an effective instrument for safeguarding global security?
4. How can the relationship between the United Nations and the United States be improved?
5. Civil society organizations come in all political stripes, with some strongly supporting and others strongly opposing the international policymaking of governments. In light of this diversity, does it make sense to talk about civil society as an emerging political actor? Or is the civil sector too fractured, and ultimately possessing too little power, to be usefully analyzed as a rising force in international policymaking?
6. As NGOs and other actors from civil society gain influence in international policymaking, some governments have charged that as unelected entities, NGOs cannot legitimately claim to represent the public interest. What do you think of this criticism? How might the creativity and influence of NGOs be supported in international policymaking, while ensuring that these organizations have legitimacy in the eyes of governments and the public?

Further information as well as the references for this material is available in State of the World 2005.