SPECIAL REPORT: UNITED NATIONS AT 75 THE COMMONWEALTH AND THE UN
'THE FUTURE WE WANT, THE UN WE NEED: REAFFIRMING OUR COLLECTIVE COMMITMENT TO MULTILATERALISM' 2020 was to be a pivotal year for multilateralism. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, and the 20th anniversary of the groundbreaking UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security. As such, it was to be a year of great mobilization for the rights, voice and leadership of women and girls. 2020 was also supposed to serve as an opportunity for the world to recommit to the Paris Agreement’s 2-degree limit on global temperature increase, through new and more ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). The Human Rights Treaty Body Review was foreseen as a chance to re-evaluate the system that monitors countries’ compliance with international human rights obligations. Similarly, the review of the UN’s Peacebuilding Architecture promised an informed assessment of how well the international community - through the UN - is prepared to sustain international peace. Finally, as the commencement of the decade of action on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), 2020 was to be a year of recommitment to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, with its aim to eliminate global poverty and inequality while respecting the planet’s natural limits. As we approach the final quarter of 2020, however, the overwhelming focus of Member States has, understandably, been their response to COVID-19. Yet it is timely to recall that the pandemic represents not merely a health crisis. COVID-19 has exposed deeply-entrenched inequalities the world over, placing disproportionate costs on the already vulnerable, including the poor, those in the informal sector, migrant laborers, daily-wage workers, persons with disabilities, and refugees. Women and girls, and members of racial, ethnic and sexual minorities, have been exposed to new and multiple forms of discrimination and
violence. A record number of children and young people have been forced out of school, up to 100 million people are being pushed into extreme poverty in 2020 alone, and some 265 million more people now face food insecurity. In every continent, authoritarian tendencies have re-asserted themselves. And all the while, natural disasters and extreme weather events have continued unabated. The virus moreover struck the planet at a time when close to 50% of people across the globe had already indicated a lack of trust in their governments. In many countries, the governance response to COVID-19 has been uneven. It has exacerbated this disconnect, especially when characterised by outright official denial; reprehensible leadership; poorly-executed lockdowns, prematurely lifted and then re-imposed; and failures to coordinate in the delivery of health messages and services. In such cases, the result has been a failure to either contain the virus or preserve people’s economic security. A feature of these poor responses has frequently been a weak, inadequately-capacitated, or marginalised Legislature that has been unable to translate popular will into action by governments. In some cases, Parliaments have even been shuttered indefinitely, and elections postponed. There are, however, examples of good governance responses, in countries where to date the pandemic response, and its economic and social consequences, have been well-managed. These have tended to involve effective service delivery, transparency and good communication on the part of governments, combined with high levels of trust and social cohesion on the part of populations. In many of these cases, Parliaments and Parliamentarians have played a significant leadership role. First, they have maintained effective oversight of the immediate pandemic response, ensuring that it is evidence-based; fit-forpurpose; and appropriately-targeted. Where emergency powers
Charles Chauvel is Global
Agata Walczak is a
Lead, Inclusive Processes at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). He is also a former Parliamentarian in the New Zealand Parliament.
Parliamentary Project Manager at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
234 | The Parliamentarian | 2020: Issue Three | 100 years of publishing 1920-2020
