Ladies and Gentlemen,
It’s an enormous pleasure and an enormous honor to be here. I am very grateful to your Highness [Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum] for your very kind invitation.
If one looks at today’s governance problems at the country level, between countries or at multilateral governance in the world, we face a terrible lack of trust. Lack of trust between peoples, between governments and political establishment. Lack of trust between countries and lack of trust in relation to governance in global multilateral institutions.
Looking at country level, it is clear that globalization has been an enormous progress, complete with technological development, globalization brought a huge increase in wealth, a reduction in absolute poverty in our world, improved welfare in general, but globalization had its losers. We have the rust belts of this world. Lots of people who feel they were left behind and that the political establishments of their countries have not taken care of them. On the other hand, we see the inability to handle problems relating to the movements of people, to migration, refugees and then linkage that is made to terrorism, the feeling of insecurity and anxiety. Also, this sense that governments are not taking good care or being able to handle it properly.
We see youth, youth that is the potential of mankind. But, in many countries that have problems in relation to the capacity to find hope, to find jobs, even if they are educated, creating enormous frustrations. All this generates, in a context where also political systems have not been able to adapt to the new changes in the communication and information technologies, this has generated a gap between public opinion, societies, and governments. That is one of the factors, today, that undermines governance. And then, if we associate it, in certain societies, with corruption and other problems, we understand that we have a serious problem to handle.
Now, it is clear that reform is needed to reconcile people with political establishments; political establishment need to adapt to these technologies in information and communication; need to empower citizens and empower young people. I am a strong believer in a German philosopher, [Jurgen] Habermas, who said: “the key element of democracy is the permanent intercommunication between the political society and the civil society and the fact that the civil society influences the decision making process in the political society."
see full statement: https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/speeches/2017-02-13/secretary-general%E2%80%99s-remarks-world-government-summit
Related story
In Dubai, UN chief addresses deficit of trust between governments, citizens and institutions
13 February 2017 – The world faces a “terrible lack of trust,” United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said today addressing the World Government Summit in the Emirati city of Dubai, and called for reconciliation between people, their governments and global multilateral institutions.
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=56162#.WKMsUfkrIps
For more world news headlines click here
