Trade for Sustainable Development Forum 2022
30 September 2022
Dear Pamela Coke-Hamilton, Executive Director of the ITC,
Dear members of the panel,
Excellencies,
Dear delegates,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Not long ago, in 2015, we celebrated a historical agreement on a common vision: The 2030 agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals. The emotions were high, it was a triumph of multilateralism and a fundamental step to build a better world. But our ambitions for sustainable development have been confronted with cascading crisis.
COVID-19 has triggered a socioeconomic crisis, which rapidly turned into a debt and finance crisis. Up to 60 per cent of low-income countries, and 30 per cent of middle-income countries are now near debt distress.
The climate crisis is hitting us harder every year, demanding enormous amounts of money – which most countries do not have - for disaster responses, mitigation, adaptation and investment into climate resilient infrastructure and sectors.
Increasing prices for key commodities exacerbate the cost of living: Despite recent falls, many commodity prices are much higher than, or even multiples of the averages of the previous decade. Food prices are at least 50% higher; energy prices are about twice and fertilizer three times as high.
Inflation is eating into people’s budget. Inflation has returned to rich countries. And in developing countries, inflation may be turbocharged by its ugly twin – depreciation - as most currencies struggle to compete with a stronger dollar. This combination of inflation, rising interest rates and depreciation makes servicing their debt even more onerous.
People are suffering: The number of food insecure people have tripled in the last three years, reaching almost 350 million. In the first three months of this year, an additional 70 million people lived in extreme poverty.
Workers are struggling: Three out of every five workers have lower incomes than before COVID.
And trade has been massively disrupted, with airspaces closing, pipelines being redrawn, and maritime routes taking the long road.
These crises have also shown that geopolitics, not economics, are now in the driving seat of globalization.
Dear friends,
We need to transform so that our aspirations embodied in the Sustainable Development Goals are not a dream but a tangible objective.
This requires strong commitments and substantial resources.
Commitments in our multilateral bodies and conferences, such as the COP. And much more resources for climate change adaptation. But the steep increase in oil and gas prices over recent months may create incentives to shift investment back into extractive industries and fossil-fuel-based energy generation, reversing the trend towards renewables we have seen over the past 10 years. This would take us on the wrong path.
And trade – particularly more sustainable trade - must be part of the solution for a more sustainable future.
I want to mention one tool that has power for such transformation, and for which UNCTAD and ITC collaborate closely: Voluntary sustainability standards.
VSS can play a significant role in aligning trade with various goals of sustainability, such as climate change, biodiversity, or human rights. They can provide incentives for governments and businesses to adopt practices that are in line with environmental, social, and economic objectives. They can help to build trust in consumers and other stakeholders towards these practices.
There are also challenges. We have to be especially mindful of increasing costs that may exclude smallholders and producers in developing countries from global trade. Especially when there is a multitude of different VSS requiring separate certification.
This is why we are there. UNCTAD and ITC have collaborated in creating the United Nations Forum on Sustainability Standards to advance the understanding of Voluntary Sustainability Standards in global value chains and contribute to VSS translating into real opportunities in developing countries.
This is just one example, but it shows that we need to work together, have the determination to transform, and be conscious about uneven implications. Only then can we ensure that we depart from a world of cascading crisis and build one of cascading opportunities.
