Impressive Speech by Jeffrey Sachs but not Quite
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZ1xc491mnU
Jeffrey Sachs delivered a jolting speech during the ongoing pre-summit of the UN Food System Summit. It was a wake-up call meant to jolt the people attending the summit. It’s also a reminder that the root causes of our dysfunctional food system is still anchored on inequality and on the many faces of the growth-driven development models.
I was watching this video while I was having dinner of sauteed local vegetables with meat. The meat I bought from a local butcher shop here, the okra/lady finger I got from the garden in my yard, and the long beans too. The squash I bought from a small store in the corner just outside IIRR campus. I served the vegetables with red rice (Filipinos always have rice) that I bought from a supermarket, this rice I don’t know if it came from China or from a Filipino farmer in the north. I spiced up my dinner with spiced (chilies, garlic and onions) coconut vinegar made in the southern part of the Philippines but sold in the supermarket here. Somewhere in that process of making my dinner there is some business/trading that has happened before I got the food I need.
The point is, while I hate to admit it, unfortunately, our food system is a system that is driven by markets, demands, consumption and profit-making, where the private sector IS one of the many players. I am not against the private sector per se, they play a critical role being the “masters” of the market-based systems we are in now. What I am not agreeing with is the market-based systems, consumption-driven development models that has taken over the discussions seeking to address inequality. Our food system is based on a massive global market economy that has to change if we want to take back the planet for the future generations.
The pursuit of financial gain and prosperity is what drives inequality, the pursuit of accumulation or “hoarding” is what drives all metrics of development. It’s the metric of the World Bank and ADB, enslaved by those small percentages of GDP growth and GDP per capita. That’s what is driving the over extraction of the planet’s resources and the enormous wastes that are dumped on to the same planet. It’s a system that rewards those who can accumulate more rather than channel investments to those who have nothing. Richer countries having better credit ratings versus poorer countries that are considered not “bankable enough”.
This market-based system has eaten the discussions on climate finance before, now COVID-19 vaccines and now apparently in the food systems transformation. Climate change mitigation has devolved into conversations on carbon trading and climate finance has become a new venture for the private sector to engage in "climate-smart investments" whatever that is. Take the Philippines, it promised 70% reductions of its GHG but at the same continues to approve a significant number coal power plants to feed its growth-obsessed economic development model.
I think what is needed for change in the system has been presented in many UN events and Jeffrey Sach’s speech just reminded us of them—that we need governments to take back the power they used to have over markets and its players, regulate, tax and institute fairness. We need a stronger representation of those “outside the table”, representation from poorer countries and sectors. We also need large scale equitable financing and investments to drive change from the ground and up, richer countries pay up according to how much they take out of the planet. I wonder what has happened to the “loss and damage” discussion within CoP of the UNFCCC.
I have heard these messages in the climate change discussions, in the disaster risk reduction space, in Rio.
I am not too fond of UN meetings and these large-scale, “up there” discussions as I prefer to stay closer to my own realities. Perhaps I have gone disillusioned with big talk, big conferences and then nothing happens when I return home. Big talk and conversations like this summit and all other summits that came before are very important there is no doubt about it but I think we also need a groundswell of action where change is demonstrated that it inspire others to action inspire neighbors, local governments, other NGOs, then maybe just maybe it can inspire national leaders and global leaders too. That is I think is my place and contribution to systemic change.
Great speech though and I hope it indeed "jolted" the powerful people attending the summit.
