„Conflict results from intolerance to differences“ – The Organization of Islamic Cooperation at the UN Hearing on Financing Development
Only six South-South organizations are registered as observers at the UN in New York. On 28 October 2024, a UN event on financing for development took place in New York, which was supposed to attract all those interested in South-South cooperation. In fact, only the UN missions of Burundi and Nepal were represented among 40 speakers.
The Basel Institute of Commons and Economics, holding a Side Event, invited the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, with its 57 members the biggest South-South organization today.
The almost 500 participants were able to hear from the IMF, the World Bank, Oxfam, the Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Bill Gates Foundations as well as from a group called ‘Global Investors for Sustainable Development’ (GISD) about how development should be financed: through ODA, Philanthropy and credits to those who meet the agenda of the donors.
This creates a problem: the total annual expenditure of ODA, the World Bank, the IMF, and development banks report at around 300 billion Dollars per year, which is less than half the gross national product of the German state of Bavaria with 12 million inhabitants.
The presentation by the UN Ambassador of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, Mr Hameed Opeloyeru, whose quote forms the headline of this article, is therefore all the more valuable.
While all speakers failed to point out the waste of state resources on conflicts, Ambassador Opeloyeru reclaimed to: ‘freeing up resources hitherto spent on national and inter-state conflicts‘. As many as 21 of the 45 countries characterized by the UN as least developed are members of the OIC.
Opeloyeru: ‘It is a truism that the enormous resources spent on military arsenals and waging regional wars have succeeded in crowding out investments for sustainable development’s support.’
As Opeloyeru illustrated with figures from the OIC’s research institute SESRIC in Ankara, the OIC countries represent 14.9 percent of the world’s gross national product and 15.2 percent of global direct investment. With a total sovereign debt of 2.064 trillion Dollars, the 57 countries have less debt than France.
In the end, Opeloyeru promises a ‘peace dividend’ if states, IGOs, and the UN were to invest 500 billion Dollars annually in the UN sustainability goals.
This would only be 16.6 percent of the 3 billion Dollar opportunity cost for mistrust annually estimated by the Basel Institute of Commons and Economics in their study on the opportunity cost of conflicts at the same event.
You can download the presentation of Ambassador Mr. Opeloreyu here.
So what are the strategies to diminish these costs?
According to Opeloyeru, much more funds have to be allocated to Peacebuilding.
This requires a mind-shift, as several participants of the event reclaimed.
Ambassador Opeloyeru came up with a call to think about the roots of conflicts:
„Conflict results from intolerance to differences“
With the invitation of Ambassador Opeloyeru, the Basel Institute of Commons and Economics has picked up this call.
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admin am November 1st 2024 in Allgemein