UNRISD Press Conference 19 October 2022

Welcome everyone.

We're about to start the press conference on the launch of andrist United Nation Research Institute for Social Development.

It's actually a report called Crisis of Inequality, Shifting power, power for a new eco social contract.

So I'm just going quickly introduce myself.

I'm Karima Sheriff, the head of communication of the Institute.

And we have here today our director, Paula, who will introduce a little bit about the Institute and the flagship reports.

And then our two authors, Katya Huyo and Maggie Carter, that will also dive in a little bit in the report and share with you present some of the key messages.

Also, I'll share with the with the list of journalists embargo copy of the overview yesterday.

In case you haven't received it, please contact me.

The embargo, it's will be lifted or in the morning at 10 AM on Friday.

So I'll just remind you also, we'll have the presentation will last about 15 minutes and then we'll have space for your questions and answers after that.

So I'll just give the floor to our director, Paul Ladd for first intervention.

Good morning, everyone.

My name is Paul Ladd.

I'm the Director of the UN Research Institute for Social Development, based here in the Paladinacion in Geneva.

Unrest is a is a unique organisation in the United Nations system, an autonomous Research Institute set up in 1963 to focus on social development, and what the Institute does is independent research to address questions of social development in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals.

The Institute's strategy is focused on reducing inequalities of all types in all dimensions as a contribution to the 2030 Agenda.

And our work supports Member States directly, our academic and practitioner community worldwide and civil society.

Every five to six years or so, not every year, Unrest crystallises its research and contextualises it in a contemporary debate.

And clearly the world is in a very perilous state at the moment, facing overlapping and multiple crises.

And what we've done in this report is asked questions such as what is driving these crises at heart?

Are there common elements that are pushing us towards these types of crises?

What role does inequality play in driving crisis?

What happens to inequalities after crises happens?

And what is a positive vision for the future if we want to avoid crises and inequalities in the future?

That's what this report tries to do.

We will launch it formally on Friday, but we wanted to give you a taste of some of the messages in the report and some of the implications for policies that we think governments should follow.

And now I'm going to pass to Catcher and Maggie, the authors of the report, to present some of the findings.

Thank you very much.

Good morning, everybody, and thank you for your interest in this report.

We are very pleased indeed to launch this report at a time when the need for constructive analysis and policy guidance based on research evidence could not be greater.

The world is at crossroads, confronted with violent conflict and war, environmental destruction, political and social polarisation, the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic and skyrocketing inequalities.

The question arises how we got to this stage and how we can successfully overcome the challenges that are threatening to reverse much of the progress the world has seen over the last decades.

Seven years ago, the UN embarked on a development agenda, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which for the first time in the UN history agreed on a goal to reduce inequalities within and between countries.

This was a milestone after the previous agenda the MDGs had focused on poverty eradication without considering the implications of rising income and wealth concentration at the top.

Celebrating this week the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, our report makes very clear that for combating poverty and addressing its root causes, it is not enough to look at the bottom of the pyramid.

Instead, we have to pay attention to the entire income distribution and how it evolves, how poverty and discrimination intersect, how wealth and privilege compound each other, and with which impacts on social and sustainable development.

The report provides in depth analysis of our current global context, the trends and crisis shaping it, inequality in its various forms, and policy recommendations based on normative and empirical analysis, with a particular focus on country studies from the global S.

The objective of the report is to make a key contribution to the debate on how to address inequality, break the cycle of multiple and interlocking crises and work towards a more equal, just and sustainable future.

One of the key messages of the report is that inequality in multiple crises are not destiny, but a largely the result of political and policy choices.

This means that we can change course and create a new development consensus for climate and social justice, what we call an eco social contract.

Let me now pass over to my colleague Maggie Carter to provide some more details on the report.

Thank you.

Thank you, Katya, and thank you all for joining us.

There's no denying the fact that our world is presently plagued by recurring and escalating crisis.

Just in the news cycle of recent weeks, we've seen devastating floods across the world which will disrupt livelihoods for years to come.

The violent suppression of protesters putting their lives on the line in the name of equality and human rights.

Growing concern over the cost of living crisis and fuel shortages and the ****** they pose to people's ability to meet their daily needs.

Further aggressions in a war that has taken many lives, displaced many more, and sent shock waves of insecurity and geopolitical tensions across the globe.

And all of this is occurring in the context of a global pandemic that continues to to destroy the lives and livelihoods in all parts of the world.

Yet despite the direness of this picture, not everyone is losing out.

Wealth concentration has increased considerably, with most recent data from Credit Suisse showing that the number of **** net worth individuals is increased has increased by 50% in the past two years.

This is not a coincidence.

Our global system is set up in such a way that allows a small subset of people to profit off the losses of others, as well as the opportunity that crisis provides to exploit them.

Inequality and crisis are intimately linked, and a report seeks to make these links extremely clear.

Inequality drives crisis, and crisis increases inequality, compounding and accelerating to create extreme vulnerability, disparity and unsustainability.

Many people have said that our system is broken.

However, we argue in this report that inequality is not in fact a flaw in this global system, but rather a feature of it, built in by design to benefit the few at the expense of the many.

It looks to the past to explore the policy choices that have set us on a path of neoliberal hyper globalisation in which economic and profit objectives supersede social and ecological ones.

The report sets out to identify and investigate the actors, largely responsible elites, exploring the way power imbalances drive global inequalities and crisis, and vice versa.

The report examines the different ways that elites accumulate resources and translate these resources into power and influence, and what the consequences of that power are for our global society.

We explore the role of business networks, lobbying and media capture in influencing electoral processes and the outside sway corporations have in global decision making.

Further, we show how the wealthy are better able to shield themselves from crisis and even profit from it because of this power and influence.

On the other side, we look at vulnerable and marginalised groups who bear the brunt of the negative consequences of crisis and how their power to do something about it is highly constrained because they lack the resources and because of the way in which political space is dominated by elites.

Given the bleak picture the report presents, it comes as no surprise that citizens are increasingly concerned about their future, losing trust in governments and in the rules and norms and values that bind societies together.

Our social contract It is not only the UN Secretary generally calling for a new social contract in his Common Agenda report, but also social movements, civil society groups and the business community.

The report licks into the different proposals these stakeholders put forward and identifying lines of potential consensus, but also areas of disagreement.

In addition, we analyse where previous social contracts have fallen short in order to better fix, report, repair or reinvent them, and what we can learn from past experiences of making social contracts more inclusive and more sustainable.

Based on this analysis, we propose a new approach, one that incorporates ecological and social objectives and constitutes a contract for nature, which we call an eco social contract.

An eco social contract needs to create a vision for systemic change, rebalance relationships between states, markets, people and nature.

Guarantee human rights for all.

Create fair fiscal contracts, restructure economies and societies to hold climate change and environmental destruction and reverse economic disparities.

Address historical injustices such as colonialism and slavery and the contemporary legacies as well as the unjust impacts of patriarchy and gender essentialism, and strengthen solidarity.

The report does not stop here.

This vision requires concrete policies and institutional reforms as well as changes in norms, values and behaviours, which we present in the form of a new development paradigm that rests on three pillars.

Alternative economic approaches that centre environmental and social justice, transformative social policy underpinned by a fair fiscal contract and a reformed and strengthened multilateralism and solidarities.

Finally, the report highlights the importance of rebalancing power relations and building broad based alliances as the only way to truly address inequalities and crises.

Therefore, building a new eco social contract and implementing the type of policies that pave the way to more sustainable, inclusive and resilient futures needs to be grounded in a broad consensus between different stakeholders, arrived at through democratic and inclusive processes at multiple levels.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Katya and and Maggie and Paul for the intervention.

I would like now to open the floor if there's any question from journalists, we have some in the room and some online just for those online if you just just remind you to raise your hand and I will give you the floor if you have any questions.

Any question in the room, anyone?

I see Laura in the room in online.

Yeah.

Thanks Karima for taking my question.

Actually it's a broader question on on unraised because a few weeks ago the organisation was mentioned that the Swiss Federal Parliament by an MP after the Swiss government decided to to cut most part of its financial support to an unraised.

And that MP suggested that the organisation, because of that, might be willing to leave Geneva.

So the question is simple, are you going to stay in Geneva or is there any plan to move the activities of Henry's to another city?

Thank you.

Thank you, Lauren.

Yes, as an independent Research Institute, we we draw no resources from the main UN budget.

So each year we mobilise from governments, from foundations, from other partners, the the resources that we need to do our work.

And Switzerland has long been a supporter of unrest and has provided confidence to other partners that then come in and fund unrest.

But we received a communication this summer that Switzerland will no longer fund unrest from the beginning of next year.

And my board has given me the remit to explore other hosting agreements in other countries because it's very expensive to be AUN agency in Geneva.

And unfortunately, without some sort of support from our host government, it's very difficult to commit to staying here on the back of the Swiss decision to not fund unrest from next year.

Sweden, because of the uncertainty this has created, which has also been a long term partner, has now also decided not to give funding to unrest for next year.

So it's a very, very perilous time for the institute.

It's a perilous time for independent research and we hope to be able to find a way out of this over the next few months in dialogue with partners.

Thank you.

Any other question from someone online?

Don't see much so far on there's no more questions.

Maybe I can leave the last word to to Paul to mention about the launch.

Yes, just to to remind you, we will have a formal launch in the Palais on Friday afternoon at 4:00 PM.

That will be an audience of our collaborators and supporters from across Geneva will also be broadcast on YouTube.

We'll be able to go into the report in a little bit more depth at that point.

But hopefully today has given you a flavour of our perspective on these issues and some of the policy implications if we want to reduce both inequalities and crisis.

But thank you very much for attending.