World leaders call for financial reforms to tackle looming crisis

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. [Denish Ochieng, Standard]

World leaders have united in calling for reforms of the financial architecture for the world to solve current challenges.

Speaking at the global financial summit in Paris on Thursday the leaders, led by France President Emmanuel Macron and UN Secretary-General Antonio Gutierrez, they said the challenges are shared and unless everyone is on board the world is fighting a losing battle.

While opening the summit, President Macron told leaders, corporate and activists, the summit should seek solutions to the shared challenges. He said poverty cannot be separated from climate challenges.

Mr Gutierrez hailed the summit for organising a discussion on a financial system in crisis. "Covid pandemic and the Russian-Ukraine crisis has made matters worse," he said.

He noted that many countries are torn between meeting their needs or paying debt. "This is an unbearable situation... it shows the global financial architecture has failed," said the UN boss.

Barbados prime minister Mia Motley said the current rush is a result of opportunities missed decades ago.

"Let's not leave Paris without results," she said. "Let's not just do the right thing but at the right time," she concluded.

The summit at the Palais Brongniart seeks to redefine global financial architecture to address modern challenges.

President William Ruto is expected to hold a press briefing today together with the host, President Macron, to outline the resolutions passed and the way forward of the summit.

On Thursday, Ruto shared a platform with Ghana President Nana Addo to deliberate on instruments of financial innovations in the face of new challenges.

Unicef goodwill ambassador Vanessa Nakate put a case for those displaced, starving or facing conflict as a result of climate change by asking the leaders to "make the polluters pay, think in trillions not billions and remember more fossil fuel only leads to damage."

She went further asking the summit to consider reforms.

Giving an example of a Turkana child who died because help arrived late, Nakate asked for funding to be fast tracked and governments to put people ahead of profits. "Please remember, we the people," she concluded.

Economist Nicholas Stern warned should the leaders fail to act now; "delaying is dangerous." He said the need to increase funding was a matter of emergency if the world is to avoid a catastrophe.

Amma Battacharya, an economist, echoed Stern's words, saying the world needs a common framework to ramp up funding. "We must break the vicious cycle between climate change and debt," he said.

"We must unleash the potential of multilateral banks. They must support scaling up of investment," he added.

He urged the leaders to make this possible.

Niger President Mohamed Bizoum said everyone has experienced effects of climate change, which include conflict and displacements.