The value of solidarity as a driving force in Asia and the Pacific

Bangkok hosted from 26 to 29 April 2021 the most important United Nations event of the year in the field of multilateral diplomacy as practiced at the regional level.

As reported, but without the benefit of large publicity, the biggest United Nations (UN) regional commission - the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) - composed of 62 members and associate members had its annual virtual session under the very difficult conditions generated by the pandemic COVID-19.

A cogent theme

The session took place under the theme "Building back better from crises through regional cooperation in Asia and the Pacific".

The tone of deliberations was given by the president of the session (Kazakhstan) who inter alia asserted:" Recovering from this crisis will need truly innovative solutions and urgent collective efforts that no country can do alone. It will require a whole-of-society, whole-of-government and whole-of-the-world approach, strong political will, and bold leadership, driven by compassion and solidarity."

The value of solidarity is universal, as clearly expressed in the UN Millennium Declaration of 8 September 2000.

Only 52 Asian and Pacific countries attended the 77th session of ESCAP. In the final resolution of the session ESCAP called for a "whole-of-society" response to COVID-19 and encouraged coordinated action across the region to mitigate the economic and social devastation brought on by the pandemic.

In more specific terms, in this comprehensive resolution (16 operative paragraphs), in one of the very first operative paragraphs the ESCAP "Emphasizes the key leadership role of the World Health Organization and the fundamental role of the United Nations system in catalysing and coordinating the comprehensive response to the COVID-19 pandemic for the international community, ensuring universal and equitable distribution of vaccines and their accessibility and affordability, particularly in developing countries and least developed countries, and the role of extensive immunization as a global public good."

This UN regional body, the only one in which all five permanent members of the Security Council are full members, also reaffirmed its commitment to multilateralism in response to global crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a spirit of solidarity

In their statements, in a spirit of solidarity, many delegates, from a total of over 500, underlined the importance of ensuring universal and equitable access to vaccines, investing in social protection systems that promote access to essential services and decent jobs, particularly to meet the health and social care needs of the most vulnerable populations, and promoting the continued flow of essential goods and services.

Many speakers helped ESCAP shape the narrative of forging regional alliances and solidarity. It is in this context that Australia declared :" Meetings such as this 77th session of the ESCAP Commission are now more important than ever, to build our common agenda towards inclusive and sustainable development in our region. As we know, the impacts of crises have a greater effect on those who are already disadvantaged, particularly women and girls, people with disabilities and other marginalised and vulnerable groups".

The US delegation stated inter alia that "Faced with a global health crisis of unprecedented proportions, the people of the United States are proud to support the international COVAX vaccine facility. We have already contributed an initial two billion dollars and committed to provide an additional two-billion-dollar contribution through 2022. We urge current donors to fulfill their pledges and call on others to contribute to address the COVID-19 vaccine funding shortfall".

Guided by solidarity, China announced that "We are working on providing vaccines to 80 developing countries with urgent needs, exporting vaccines to more than 40 countries, and donating vaccines to UN peacekeepers. We have announced our decision to supply 10 million doses of vaccines to WHO's COVAX facility".

From a similar perspective , Russia reminded that "The events associated with the coronavirus crisis have become another reminder, if not a warning, to all of us, the peoples of the United Nations, that the only way to defeat global threats is not by erection of dividing barriers, but by solidarity, by combining the efforts of all states. The age-old wisdom says: "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. "

Speaking on behalf of the 10 ASEAN members, as current Chair of this regional organization, Brunei Darussalam said :" , We agree that the promotion and strengthening of multilateralism is pertinent in accelerating global economic recovery and in mitigating the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, we welcome the ESCAP resolution which will be adopted during this session that calls for closer cooperation in multiple sectors to enable the realisation of the building back better agenda".

As a general conclusion formulated in the official account of the ESCAP session, "The Commission agreed that multilateral and regional cooperation were essential to build back better and should be aligned with the 2030 Agenda to ensure more sustainable and resilient economies. It was stated that regional and global cooperation should be promoted under the principles of multilateralism, unity, equality, mutual benefit, solidarity and respect for sovereignty, while preventing politically motivated factors and sanctions rhetoric from destructively affecting the overall efforts to recover from COVID-19 and achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals".

An ambitious policy agenda

The report (112 pages) which animated the debates sets out an ambitious policy agenda grounded in regional cooperation. It recommends that countries reject protectionist measures, favouring regional solidarity to aid trade facilitation and decarbonize industry, shifting to a more sustainable and lower-carbon, multimodal freight transport. To support long-term, resilient and sustainable development, countries should reorient spending away from non-developmental areas and consider tax reforms to mitigate inequalities.

The Secretary-General of the United Nations has argued for global action on debt and solidarity, which should involve writing down debt in the poorest and most vulnerable countries. Moreover, all countries need to arrive at a national consensus on social protection leading to transparent and well governed schemes based on principles of solidarity across populations and between generations.

From a more general perspective , ESCAP documents revealed that COVID-19 has affected countries all over the world. Indeed, it has led to the first recorded drop in the global human development index. But in contrast to other international crises, the global impact has not been matched by global solidarity. This is partly because the pandemic affected the traditional donor countries and cut across conventional disaster cooperation models.

Looking into the future

"We are committed to supporting governments to building back better from the COVID-19 pandemic through inclusive, resilient and sustainable recovery strategies," Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana, United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of ESCAP, said in her closing remarks to the Commission's 77th session. "It is my utmost hope that the resolution on regional cooperation to build back better from crises in Asia and the Pacific will further mainstream our response to COVID-19." In her view, the spirit of goodwill prevailed, and "solidarity remained at the core of our responses".

The scale and urgency of the pandemic reaffirmed the importance and relevance of regional and subregional cooperation, more so for countries in geographical proximity to each other. In this regard , it is useful to remind the topical considerations expressed by the delegation of Australia :

"The Indo-Pacific is Australia's home, which is why Australia reshaped our development program to establish a new COVID-19 response and recovery partnership with the region. The pivot will ensure Australia's development partnerships become even more relevant and responsive to partner countries' needs, focused on supporting our region's health security, economic recovery, and stability. Underscoring the importance of regional and multilateral cooperation, Australia is proud to have supported the COVAX facility to improve access to safe, effective, and affordable COVID-19 vaccines for 92 countries in our region and around the world. This is in addition to our landmark Regional Vaccines Initiative focused on Southeast Asia and the Pacific".

These words are encouraging , as ESCAP will celebrate its seventy-fifth anniversary in 2022. Its main team will be "A common agenda to advance sustainable development in Asia and the Pacific".

The Executive Secretary of ESCAP remarked that "regional cooperation is as needed today as it was 75 years ago." She noted that as the Commission approaches this landmark milestone it is poised to take concrete actions on shaping the future of regional cooperation to advance the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and deliver on the common agenda set out by member States.

The Executive Secretary of ESCAP was requested to assist member states, upon request, in further enhancing national social protection systems, including through the implementation of the Action Plan to Strengthen Regional Cooperation on Social Protection in Asia and the Pacific.

A similar request was addressed to the Executive Secretary to facilitate the implementation of the resolution entitled "Building back better from crises through regional cooperation in Asia and the Pacific" and to report to the Commission at its seventy-eighth session in 2022 on progress thereon.

In this complex process, the guiding light should be the truth cogently formulated by the UN Secretary General António Guterres according to whom "Solidarity is humanity. Solidarity is survival."

Let's hope that in 2022 regional diplomacy practiced in the area of Asia and the Pacific will do its best to give tangibility to this truth.

As António Guterres secures from 2022 a second term as UN Secretary-General, his very recent calls for new era of "solidarity and equality" should be taken most seriously by the whole world community of nations during the current era of global vulnerabilities , perplexities and discontinuities.

In a spirit of solidarity, ESCAP, the largest UN regional commissions , is expected to have an important role to play in materializing the collective commitments of all its members and associate members, as formulated during its 77^th session.