U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres accused world powers of ignoring inequality in global institutions but said the coronavirus pandemic has created a “generational opportunity” to build a more equal, sustainable world, writes Reuters.
Antonio Guterres said a so-called New Global Deal must ensure power, wealth, and opportunity to be shared more broadly and fairly at the international level.
“Inequality starts at the top: in global institutions. Addressing inequality must start by reforming them” - Guterres said.
He said the pandemic has revealed, like an x-ray, “fractures in the fragile skeleton of the societies we have built.”
“It is exposing fallacies and falsehoods everywhere: the lie that free markets can deliver healthcare for all; the fiction that unpaid care work is not work; the delusion that we live in a post-racist world; the myth that we are all in the same boat,” - said Guterres during the virtual lecture.
The Secretary-General said that the world needs and new social security policy that ensures universal health coverage.
“Now is the time for global leaders to decide: Will we succumb to chaos, division, and inequality? Or will we right the wrongs of the past and move forward together, for the good of all?” – said Antonio Guterres.
