As heads of state and government fly into New York for the United Nations General Assembly and the Summit of the Future (September 22-30), 2.3 billion mothers, fathers, and children are unsure where their next meal will come from. Millions face the terror of brutal, protracted armed conflicts that make no distinction between civilians and soldiers.
The internet, once a shining promise of connection, is a battleground of hateful echo chambers, amplified by warring states, political factions, and extremists tearing apart our bonds of trust. Meanwhile, the wealthiest 1% controls nearly half of all financial assets, and a handful of corporations are valued higher than the combined economies of Africa and Latin America. It is little surprise that hope is hard to come by.
We have experienced this dread of despondency before. For over a decade after the AIDS pandemic hit the world, millions were dying in silence--ignored by leaders, abandoned by systems--while the virus ravaged entire communities. At last, driven by waves of public pressure, came a massive multilateral mobilization of political will, resources, and science that turned the tide.
The world united, invested, broke the silence, dropped the debt, smashed stigmas, changed rules, and saved millions from the brink. As a result, three-quarters of people living with HIV are on lifesaving medicine, and the end of AIDS is an achievable goal this decade. The transformation of the AIDS response shows what happens when leaders work boldly and together.
The contrast between the advances that leaders have secured in the HIV response, and the paralysis in addressing many global challenges today, demonstrates that effective leadership depends on inclusive partnership. Short-term, zero-sum, go-it-alone approaches bring victory to no one. We win by working together.
The African principle of Ubuntu--"I am because you are"--is a profound ethical insight steeped in real-world practicality, recognizing that solidarity is, ultimately, smart self-interest. As the COVID-19 pandemic reminded us, the suffering of a distant stranger can, in the time it takes a flight to land in our city, become our own.
Likewise, peaceful communities cannot endure as inequality widens: people seeking a decent life, finding themselves trapped by inequity, exclusion, and abuse, are swept into conflict, with effects that spill across borders. This reality --that global cooperation is essential for global security-- must guide how we emerge from crisis.
Governments can steer the world back on track and reignite hope, by rediscovering the political will that once fueled global progress against AIDS, inspiring a wave of transformative action. To do so, they must embody the best of international cooperation that gave rise to UNAIDS, the Global Fund and the US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), delivered comprehensive debt cancellation, enabled generic medicines, advanced human rights, and embraced the power of community leadership.
The work that leaders must undertake is not easy, but the stakes are too high for failure, the path to success is known, and the moment of decision is now.
If leaders act boldly in uniting their response, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will still be achieved. If they don't, the SDGs will fail, and even the hard-won progress against AIDS will be undermined, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
Leaders will need to protect public goods. The delay in ensuring access to COVID-19 vaccines for people in the Global South exposed the consequences of ceding medicines to private monopolies. Leaders need to ensure that medical technologies are produced and distributed widely.
Today, a game-changing medicine exists that protects people from HIV with just two injections a year, but it costs $40,000. Generic manufacturers could produce it for as little as $40 per person annually. Widescale generic production, facilitated by the UN-backed Medicines Patent Pool, is what is required so that this and other lifesaving, life-changing technologies can reach everyone who needs them and protect the world.
Leaders will need to overhaul global finance and relieve crushing debt to free up funds for investment in healthcare, education, and development. Four out of every 10 people worldwide live in countries where governments spend more on debt interest payments than education or health.
Coordinated significant debt restructuring and relief by leading creditor countries and investment firms based in those countries is essential. The costs of inaction on debt would be much higher than the costs of action. Tax cooperation is essential too. Collaboration in instituting wealth taxes, as proposed by Brazil and Spain, would unlock trillions of dollars to build a better world.
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The breakthroughs that the world has secured by working together in the fight against AIDS remind us that walls that seem to be closing in on us can still be shattered by human action. Governments must once again heed activists' demands for justice and remember what collective determination can achieve.
We cannot pull ourselves out from the crises of our time if we are pulled apart. World leaders' legacy can be that they fulfilled the promise of the Sustainable Development Goals and secured a safer, fairer world for all. But they can only rise to the summit together.
Winnie Byanyima is UNAIDS Executive Director and UN Under-Secretary-General. Martin Kimani is the Executive Director of the Center on International Cooperation (CIC) at New York University (NYU) and former Permanent Representative of Kenya to the UN.
