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OAS Secretary General Participated in Debate on Inequality organized by the President of the UN General Assembly

The Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), José Miguel Insulza, participated today, together with the Secretary General of the United Nations (UN), Ban Ki-moon, in the "Thematic Debate on Inequality" held at UN headquarters in New York.

The debate was organized by the President of the UN General Assembly, Vuk Jeremic, and was attended by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Guyana, Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, and the Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, Alicia Barcena, among other officials and representatives of international organizations and agencies of the United Nations system.

In his speech, the leader of the hemispheric Organization recognized the "timeliness" of the event convened by the President of the UN General Assembly, "which comes as many countries around the world have recently witnessed protest movements attributed to a widespread perception of inequality.” Although these protests have been caused by diverse factors, he said, "they have similar characteristics and feature new protagonists: they are mass movements that bring together various actors, especially young people. Their common theme is the demand that, given the state of development of their countries, they are entitled to a more just distribution of income or social benefits from society and the state. What is behind these protests is the public demand for economic, political and social equality.”

The conference was opened by the President of the General Assembly of the United Nations, Vuk Jeremic, the host of the event, who thanked the OAS for its "significant assistance in organizing this thematic debate" and emphasized the "invaluable contribution that Secretary General Insulza has made to the High Level Advisory Panel "which is helping to reflect on the future of multilateralism in our increasingly globalized and interdependent world."

Referring to the subject of the debate, President Jeremic said that "the struggle for social justice, together with the aspiration to mitigate inequality has been a universal quest for millennia, inscribed in the holy books of humanity’s great faiths." Therefore, he added, "to tackle social inequality is a moral duty, a political necessity and an imperative for the due protection of human rights."

For his part, the Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon said that "in a time of profound change and considerable uncertainty, the Millennium Development Goals have been remarkably successful in generating global actions across a range of issues." Nevertheless he recalled that, although 600 million people have risen from extreme poverty, "social and economic inequalities can tear the social fabric, undermine social cohesion and prevent nations from thriving. That's why equality is emerging as a central plank in the discussion on the post 2015 development agenda.”

Secretary General Ban Ki-moon opened the discussion by calling for the identification of solutions to the economic and financial crisis bring universal benefits. "We will need to create about 470 million new jobs between 2015 and 2030," he said, and concluded that "tackling inequality, eradicating poverty and promoting shared prosperity should be at the heart of the sustainable agenda of the United Nations.”

In his speech Secretary General Insulza explained that Latin America has reduced poverty substantially in recent years, "but this important achievement has been accompanied by only a very marginal reduction in the gap between the lowest and highest incomes in society." "Although poverty has dropped to 30% of the population of Latin America, that figure is still high for a region with our level of development," he said. Moreover, he noted factors such as discrimination, vulnerability and social exclusion that exacerbate the effects of inequality, especially in the case of indigenous peoples, Afro-descendants and rural populations.

The head of the hemispheric Organization also cited unemployment, access to education, health, housing quality, and social security as factors that set the parameters of inequality in the world and said that it is not just a matter of distribution, because throughout the Hemisphere, "more than 250 million people lack health insurance."

The Secretary General further analyzed the causes of rising inequality stating that “it is usual to attribute the phenomenon to ‘positive’ factors of economic growth: there is a much greater demand for and higher salaries paid to skilled professionals, the reward for talent, risk and innovation, the road to global competitiveness provided by greater access to markets, etc," but he recalled that "even if one accepts that inequality is caused by changing market conditions, it is clear that we will not find solutions in the market to address it. The sustained increase in inequality has occurred over the last four decades, when some began to proclaim that "the state is part of the problem, not the solution.”

At the end of his presentation, the OAS Secretary General insisted the problem of inequality "is not simple one to solve, because as we have seen, greater equality does not come as a result of economic growth." He therefore advocated seeking to reduce inequality through public policies focused on providing greater opportunities, “increasing social mobility through better education and health care, equal access to credit as well as housing, transportation and public safety services.”

The development of these policies today faces also an “additional obstacle” which is the loss of confidence in institutions that affects many of our countries, he said. “This makes it difficult to undertake changes that involve an increase in resources to finance public policies and strengthen institutions. Regaining that trust by undertaking a deep reform of our institutions is the great challenge of the political class in our Hemisphere” he concluded.

A gallery of photos of the event is available here.

For more information, please visit the OAS Website at www.oas.org

Reference: E-264/13