Part 3: The Common Wealth of Binding Together!

I BEGAN Part 2 of this 4-part series saying the South ‘can be heard louder, even in silence’ on the world stage today; and concluded that it not only ‘has always been able to’ but is now ‘even better able…’
Why?

For many reasons, starting with the world’s poor and developing nations, big and small, representing the vast majority of member states of the United Nations (UN); and now, more than ever, them needing to start binding together to press harder for meaningful democratization by applying their collective political and economic clout in pursuit of common objectives.

The South needs to become the UN’s 21st Century Change Agent in 2022, if only because of the do-or-die nature of the challenges brought by current economic, security, food and energy crises facing most (if not all) developing nations.

Urgent issues affecting the South, including inequality, Climate Change and Global Warming, have been repeatedly raised — and just-as-often swept under the UN’s long red carpets, or simply ignored.
Take flooded Pakistan today… 30 million people affected, 7 million displaced, 4 million children helpless, 2 million homes destroyed, 1.8 million jobs lost, 70% of displaced living in the open, 70% of affected areas still flooded — and water-borne diseases now spreading.

Pakistan needs urgent help to start repairing the $30 Billion worth of damage assessed thus far, but help is coming by drips, while the North is spending US $48 Billion to provide arms to continue a Ukraine war that no side can win.

The majority of UN member states might have voted to urge that help for Pakistan be fraise with similar speed, but the General Assembly, where their votes count, doesn’t have the power to make it happen – again underlining the vital and urgent needs for change in the UN’s structure.

With the majority have no power and a powerful minority decides everything, the UN is being understandably described by some as ‘toothless’, ‘always deadlocked’, ‘unable to solve global issues’; and the General Assembly being an ‘annual showcase’ where world leaders make ‘long and dramatic speeches that amount to nothing…’

The priority differences between North and South were quite glaring at the UN last week: Africa was largely concerned about security, food insecurity and calling for lifting of sanctions on Zimbabwe; Asia worried about oil and gas prices and skyrocketing inflation; and Small Island Developing States (SIDS) were again anxious about worsening Climate Change effects.

The power of the Security Council (where single nations with permanent membership have outright veto powers over all others) vis-à-vis the General Assembly (where majority votes don’t necessarily matter) is another long-running matter that contributes significantly to the powerlessness of the South, despite their numbers.

Measured by the yardstick that defines democracy at the UN as ‘One Nation, One Vote’ the General Assembly is therefore seen by many as democratic but powerless and the Security Council as undemocratic and powerful.
Africa and South America, representing 1.9 billion people (as many as China) have no permanent place on the Security, with Brazil, Germany, India and Japan making ongoing bids to get equal status as the Permanent 5 (China, France, Russia, UK and USA).

In the last 40 years, the UN has failed to deal adequately with major international issues like Climate Change and Global Warming, preventing or ending wars or global pandemics, all thanks to differences of priorities between North and South.

But today, with everyone’s back against the wall and the South facing serious make-or-break challenges not of their own doing, poor and developing nations, now more than ever, need to summon the political will to bind together in pursuit of taking advantage of the new opportunities that always come with new challenges.

The South needs to start building the capacities of and within the international entities that will permanently press for placing and keeping the South’s agenda in focus in the UN and other global fora.
The North has long depended on trusted entities they created to care for their common interests over the past seven decades — from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the World Trade Organization (WTO).

The South also has the minds and means to shape common approaches to similar problems, even though experienced differently, with the support of leading nations within the developing world with more people and resources, political and economic clout, willing to offer more than just a lending hand in the common endeavor to change world affairs for the better.

The South is better placed today to start quietly but purposefully walking the talk on the global stage, to ensure the causes of developing nations do get their equally-deserving place at the top of the UN’s agenda.
Indeed, the South’s readiness for moving to make changes will soon be put to the test at the UN.

Ahead of an upcoming General Assembly meeting to be summoned by the North after Tuesday’s Security Council meeting on latest developments in Ukraine led to nowhere, the South needs to urgently reassess whether it can continue to be used or treated like cannon fodder in the North’s continuing battles to preserve global dominance.

Pakistan’s state today is the best example of why everything must change if the nations of the world are to really help each other in times of need – one of the reasons for the UN’s existence.
The South must seize the upcoming opportunity to tell the North — point-blank and in no uncertain terms — the time has come for the minority to listen more to the majority.

Failing this, the South cannot be criticized for turning to other sources willing to assist without the crucifying preconditions that have always kept developing nations in check while the North continues playing Snakes & Ladders with Southern causes and asking poor nations to keep playing Hide & Seek.