Now more than ever, as everything falls apart, perhaps we can consider a different path towards the future we want, built on a clean slate of our shared values, says Esther Githinji

The undoing of an already fractured global system

The 80th session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) was opened last month against the backdrop of escalating global turmoil. However, despite this high-level forum being exclusively dedicated towards addressing global issues, what should have been a highly anticipated and timely session this year felt futile to many.

With only five years to go until 2030, we are nowhere near achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This year is shaping up to be one of the most catastrophic for global progress with accelerating wars, famine and poverty, abandoned climate commitments, the callous disregard for democracy and international law, a failing economic and global financing model, retracted global donor support and the purging of equality and inclusion.

How we got here in the first place has been as a result of unfulfilled multilateral commitments emerging from faulty, inequitable and outdated power structures that fail to represent our world or our shared values. But things have significantly worsened in the past few years because those most able to are retreating from addressing the pressing challenges facing our world when we can least afford to, leaving the most vulnerable to pay the price.

So, as we face the uncharted waters of our long-standing global system coming to its knees, has UNGA proved to be any different this year from the past high-level forums we have pegged our hopes on only to be met with political rhetoric, empty promises and inaction from world leaders time and again? Perhaps we can cast our gaze wider. Is an alternative path towards the future we want possible?

What will it take to fix things?

In these unprecedented times, there is certainly a........

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