According to the UN, “global shocks” have challenged our institutions and impeded the progress of achieving those Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).
But fret not, like middle management morons in any given office, let’s call a meeting to talk about talking about the solution! Rah!
The Summit of the Future is planned to be held in September 2024 during which an “action-oriented outcome document called the Pact for the Future” will be negotiated and endorsed by countries. The discussion will be based on what is proposed in Our Common Agenda policy briefs which are “to turbocharge the 2030 Agenda”.
In other words, it seems the UN is desperate and in a hurry to impose its world order by implementing Agenda 2030 and SDG.
As expected, even at a glance at the summit overview or the more-detailed policy briefs, one can see that it is the usual high-level waffle that tries to sound professional and helpful. If one is familiar with SDG, then there is nothing to elaborate on, but I will mention merely a couple of examples that show how helpful these are.
One of the issues is to reform the “International Financial Architecture”. There is, as expected, no explanation of the flaws of the current debt-based financial system and no mention that money should represent human effort. It is assumed, not explicitly perhaps and despite the proposed reforms, that debt and taxation as we know it is the norm. But not to worry, according to the policy brief, “they” plan to discuss the “Global Tax Architecture”:
Member States should: 1) Explore options to make international tax cooperation fully inclusive and more effective, including the possibility of developing an international tax cooperation framework or instrument at the United Nations; 2) Simplify global tax rules (such as through digital services taxes and withholding taxes) and adopt a higher global minimum corporate income tax rate, which can benefit under-resourced developing country tax administrations; 3) Create global tax transparency and information sharing frameworks that benefit all countries.
Somehow, I don’t think this is about making taxation easier for us.
As for the UN body itself, there is “UN 2.0” because 1.x has worked so well for the past 78 years. One of the areas of focus is “behavioral science” which is fine in itself, except neither the body nor the current state of the world inspires trust. The UN wants to “nurture” the following capabilities, amongst others:
● Cultivate a broad set of behavioural science methods, such as randomized controlled trials, field experiments, journey mapping and long-term studies to better understand real-life behavioural patterns, biases and factors.
● Employ behavioural science methods responsibly, such as gentle nudges, optimized default choices or more effective approaches to keeping commitments.
● Integrate consideration of unconscious biases into all areas of work, including evidence-based demonstrations on how they affect effectiveness, as well as context-informed measures to address them at every stage.
If the above isn’t about control or facilitating control, then nothing is, especially if considers the above with digital advancements, particularly AI. Consider the below “data” capabilities as part of this UN 2.0:
● Support international data cooperation in line with the policy brief on a Global Digital Compact.
● Deepen core strengths in primary data collection and descriptive and diagnostic analytics to improve stewardship of high-quality gender-disaggregated statistics for global stakeholders.
● Invest in predictive and prescriptive analytics, enhanced with machine learning and artificial intelligence, to help users to better understand what may happen next and how to respond.
● Explore responsible data-sharing with non-United Nations partners to leverage a broader range of data.
Of course, there are references to doing all of this responsibly but… oh wait, never mind.
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