Debt Restructuring a Priority in United Nations Socioeconomic Response to COVID-19, Deputy Secretary-General Tells Group of Friends Meeting

Following are UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed’s remarks on the United Nations development system’s socioeconomic response to COVID-19 at the virtual extraordinary meeting of the Group of Friends of Sustainable Development Goal Financing, in New York today:

Excellencies, friends and colleagues, let me start by thanking the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Canada, the Honourable François-Philippe Champagne and the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade of Jamaica, Senator [the Honourable] Kamina Johnson Smith for convening this timely discussion.

I [would] like to thank the President of the General Assembly for his presence, voice and leadership, and in particular, the recent General Assembly resolution on COVID-19 last week.  I also thank the Permanent Representatives of Canada and Jamaica for their commitment and the fire that they keep under our feet to keep sustainable development — and how we finance it — on the front burner.

The United Nations family — and I know many have joined this virtual meeting today in our global network of regional, subregional and country offices working for peace, human rights, sustainable development, humanitarian action — are all together with us on the front lines trying to move the speed and at scale of the COVID-19 response.

I would like to give a special shout out to health workers that are on the front line.  Particular recognition of the role that WHO [World Health Organization] plays in the United Nations.

Our first and foremost priority really is to address the human face of this global crisis and do it with a global response; and that really does mean solidarity; it means in our enlightened self-interest, and at the end of the day, I think we all know that COVID anywhere will be everywhere.  It’s important to keep putting that on our table every day until we get the ambition of the scale of the response that we need.

Therefore, in the United Nations, we see the emergency response as threefold and this will be the first time — the first two you will recognize, but we see that they are threefold and there are no choices between the three.  They all have to be taken together.

The health response in suppressing transmission of the virus.  The humanitarian response, which we have to keep fuelling to ensure people are safe in this crisis situation; and the newcomer to this, the socioeconomic impact on the people — so the socioeconomic response to an emergency.  It is a reminder that, mindful of the context of the 2030 Agenda [for Sustainable Development] and Paris Agreement [on climate change], had we made those investments in time, we perhaps would have been better able and better prepared to deal with this crisis.

Three quick points that I would like to make.  First, the United Nations recognizes that this crisis requires all hands on deck.  A multilateral response like none ever before.  One that needs the courage to flip the orthodoxies because we need new tools, new measures and we do need to lift the policy barriers that we often find as an excuse as to why we can’t do things at the speed that it needs to be done.

We also recognize that it needs all of us to pull together in one direction and that is the collaboration, the flexibility, the speed and the scale at which we have to address things to get ahead of the crisis; and one that needs solidarity even more today than could ever be if we are to recover and build back better prepared for the new norm.

The second point would be that our global village has great inequalities and they are rearing their ugly heads both in the North and in the South as we look at the analytics and the demographics of those affected and those to be affected.  We see today women bearing the brunt of this, whether we speak to losing our incomes, mental health or gender-based violence; this is a reality.

Third, resources are needed — and we have just heard [earlier speakers] talk about that — but they need it now and we know that we have them.  Of recent, we have seen in the stimulus packages for the $2 trillion overnight, the United Kingdom making offers where workers are able to stay at home with 80 per cent of their salaries paid; in Japan, almost 20 per cent of their gross domestic product (GDP).  All these almost overnight trillions, yet we are still arguing the merits of the debt standstill in the billions, when we know this is just the beginning and we are going to need trillions.

Next week is going to present all of us with an opportunity to yet again meet for a truly global response or we suffer the consequences.  The Secretary-General has said over and over again:  what is a good solution for the North is a good solution for the South.  We need to make sure that everyone has an opportunity to feel those stimulus packages to address their economies.

So, what is the United Nations doing?  The Secretary-General’s voice — and I think this is important — has been loud and clear that the global response needs leadership.  We need ceasefires, sanctions lifted, 10 per cent global GDP at the minimum and the COVID vaccine as a global public good, as this matters to all of us.  Again, where there is COVID-19, then it will be everywhere.

Another area the Secretary-General has underscored is the debt management challenges that low-income and middle-income countries are grappling with.  Debt restructuring is a priority — including immediate waivers on interest payments for 2020.  By relaxing the burden of debt financing, countries will have the fiscal space to deliver the agile and aggressive response required to reduce the impact of the crisis.

For the United Nations system itself, WHO has been leading the health response, suppressing the transmission of the virus around the world, testing, tracking, isolations, treatments, the solidarity trials in which 90 countries are already part of, looking at the supply chains, vaccines, new treatments.  So, for the health response, we are right there.  Preparedness plans in almost all countries in which they are already beginning to be financed and rolled out.

Turning to the humanitarian family, the launch of the $2 billion response plan for 40 crisis countries and looking to increase those crisis countries.  These are people on the front lines of existing crisis, preparing for the additional burden of COVID-19 and hopefully we can prevent that because it would be a catastrophe for millions of people.

The third is the United Nations development system’s footprint in 131 countries.  The socioeconomic offer to deal with livelihoods — and here we already hear the International Labour Organization (ILO) talking about 195 million jobs that will be lost in the next three months.  We are building on the Secretary‑General’s report “Shared Responsibility and Global Solidarity” in responding to the socioeconomic impacts of COVID-19.  It is a call to action to address many of the socioeconomic dimensions of the crisis and underscores an emergency.

The framework we have developed across the system will be rolled out next week.  It provides us an operational landing for the United Nations development system in countries across the world - not only to respond, but to take the opportunity of the crisis to try to build back better.

The framework consists of a number of streams of work and [an] integrated support package offered to protect needs and rights of people living under the duress of the pandemic, with particular focus on the most vulnerable countries.  It will still address the health response, social protection, education, basic services, community-led engagement, jobs and the [small and medium-sized enterprises], the stimulus packages, the multilateral support from both the global and regional levels, and of course really addressing social cohesion.

From the United Nations, we are switching to emergency mode.  We are also looking to see that a significant proportion of the United Nations’ existing $17.8 billion portfolio will be repurposed, adjusted and be expanded towards COVID-19‑related needs.

This includes the Sustainable Development Goals joint fund, and fortunately, the “Spotlight” fund that we have with the European Union on violence against women and girls.  However, given the scale and scope of the socioeconomic impact, additional funds will be required to support technical expertise in helping design and implement programmes taken to scale, with the addition of supporting Governments that will need budget support and other financial tools.

We welcome the partnerships we have with the [international financial institutions] and the needed collaboration to get the job done now.  The World Bank’s offer really does present a solid first step in responding to the crisis and we very much welcome the areas in which we will work together going forward.

Finally, for those of us in New York, it is surreal to see a system that is on its knees, but it is also hopeful to see the human courage of health workers ready to go to the front lines; the leadership of Governor [Andrew] Cuomo and Mayor [Bill] Di Blasio.

For me as an African and Nigerian, our continent is already feeling the brunt of COVID-19 as it attacks our economies and our livelihoods, while we still see the health emergency on the horizon.  The development emergency has already landed.

Let’s try to do all of it together.  I often see people asking us:  “Which do you want us to fund if we have to prioritize?”  There is no priority in these three issues.  The health response, humanitarian and the socioeconomic — they have to be taken together.  We are still talking about billions.  We will soon be talking about trillions.  The social unrest that we are already seeing around the world should be a wake-up call to the importance of the socioeconomic emergency response that we need now.

I believe that, together, we can do this.  The seemingly impossible is doable today and the people in this virtual room that we have today can actually make the change that we need.  Let’s start by doing that next week when you come to work to make the decisions that have to happen at the World Bank-International Monetary Fund Spring meetings.  I thank you.