26 Jun How Ban Ki-moon sees the Sustainable Development Goals
Do you remember when you were in school and discussing Utopia? I recall thinking it would be so boring to live where everything was the same, where there was no argument about anything – every possible action had been determined a long time before. I thought that would be a horrible place to live; no one would have opinions, everyone would be exactly like everyone else.
But some of those who read about Utopia must have thought it was exactly the kind of world to build for the rest of us – not them and their kind. And that world was designed in Agenda 21 Sustainable Development in 1992. So for the past 13 years every action of the UN, almost, if not every, action of the US government and the actions of many other governments in the world have been designed to lead us to this supposed Utopia.
Now the designers (who2015 is the year when countries will shape and adopt a new development agenda that will build on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
As UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says, “2015 is not just another year, it is a chance to change the course of history.”
The Millennium Development Goals were established in the year 2000 and include eight anti-poverty targets to be accomplished by 2015.
More than 100 Mayors and elected leaders have committed to making their cities sustainable with the adoption of the “Seoul Declaration,” which was adopted today during the ICLEI (Local Governments for Sustainability) World Congress in the capital city of the Republic of Korea.
The 7-point Seoul Declaration commits signatories to “innovative and transformative sustainable urban development.”
What are those seven points? The same old tripe we have been hearing from the UN and globalists for decades now – Smart Growth, Low-carbon, sustainability (SD kind not the actual kind of sustainability), social justice.
How are they going to attain all this? I mean how will they pay for high-speed rail all across the country, rebuilding cities for so-called Smart Growth, doing away with rural living? By the ultimate in Public Private Partnerships.
“The world needs an international financial framework that is predictable and effective in meeting these challenges and achieving sustainable and inclusive development,” continued Mr. Ban. “We invite the private sector to be our partners in supporting and financing this agenda, including through partnerships and collaboration.”
“All sources of funding must be tapped – public and private, national and international,” Mr. Ban declared. “Domestic resource mobilization will be crucial.”
However, he noted, numerous obstacles in facilitating financing remained. In many countries, attempts to raise public resources through taxation continued to be hampered by loopholes, tax avoidance and tax evasion while private international capital flows also suffered from volatility.
In addition, the global financial crisis had further exposed the risks and underlying vulnerabilities in the international financial system, increasing inequalities, environmental challenges and rendering states susceptible to shocks such as the recent Ebola epidemic.
And if all the money is going to be used to fund Sustainable Development, how does Ban see measuring any country’s worth? Remember that hilarious program called Gross National Happiness with all the glossy hand-outs rating each city and state as to how happy their citizens are? Well, here it is folks:
In April 2012, the UN held a high-level meeting on “Happiness and Well-Being: Defining a New Economic Paradigm” at the initiative of Bhutan, a country which recognized the supremacy of national happiness over national income since the early 1970s and famously adopted the goal of Gross National Happiness over Gross National Product (GDP).
As promised, GNH is going to be the new measure of a country’s worth.
To read more about how the private sector “must fund the SDGs”
