By Siddharth Chatterjee, UN Resident Coordinator in China
In Beijing, UN Secretary-General António Guterres meets with
Chinese President Xi Jinping. Photo credit: UN China/Zhao Yun April 2018
READY TO GET TO WORK
The United Nations (UN) Secretary-General, Mr António
Guterres, has selected me as the UN Resident Coordinator in China. I am
privileged to be the Secretary-General’s representative to China, and I am
honoured that the Government of China has accepted my credentials to serve in
this post.
I am excited at the prospect of working with the Government
of China and other stakeholders including academia, private sector, non-gvoernmental
organizations, and the people of China to advance sustainable development
within the country and to support China’s leadership in global health, peace,
development and the 2030 Agenda.
China’s leadership is longstanding. It has been a champion
for multilateralism at least as far back as 1953 when Premier Zhou Enlai set
out the Five Principles: mutual respect, mutual non-aggression,
non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit.
These principles are at the cornerstone for world peace.
China’s leadership is an example for the world. With over 40
years of astounding progress in human development, China is on track to
eradicating poverty and has the world’s second-largest economy. All nations
have much to learn from China about delivering on commitments made in the UN’s
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
China’s leadership crosses national boundaries. China
understands that its success is bound up with the success of the world, and
vice versa. That, I believe, is why China is an outstanding partner in
South-South Cooperation, not least in Africa; shows solidarity in the fight
against climate change and global pandemics; and pursues international
projects, most notably the Belt and Road Initiative.
China’s leadership is all the more remarkable now,
considering the stresses that the COVID-19 pandemic has placed on global
partnerships. Rather than shirk from international cooperation, China proposes
to expand its role. This point was raised in a January 2021 white paper by the
China International Development Cooperation Agency (CIDCA). The paper points to
the value of investments in multilateralism and humanitarian support.
China’s dedication to multilateralism and development
resonates with so much of my career and life. I have 25 years of experience in
precisely these areas, much of it with the United Nations. Most recently, I
served as the United Nations Resident Coordinator in Kenya, after holding other
leadership positions across the organization, including with UNDP (Kenya),
UNFPA (Kenya), UNOPS (Middle East and Europe), UNICEF (Indonesia, South Sudan
and Sudan), the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), and the UN Mission in
Bosnia and Herzegovina (UNMIBH).
The SDGs are not just a pleasant idea. Their fulfilment is
essential to the flourishing—and, ultimately, the survival—of all humanity. We
have ten years left before the 2030 deadline.
What we do in what has been dubbed the “Decade of Action” will have
lasting ramifications for people and the planet.
China has the will, the resources, and the experience to
contribute mightily to the 2030 Agenda. The United Nations is keen to have
China as a leading partner in this world-historical endeavour. I too bring my
personal experiences, spanning continents and causes to this fight.
As I take my post in China, I see several potential areas of
fruitful cooperation areas between China and the United Nations.
• COVID-19 recovery and a lasting
global health system;
• Infrastructure and education in
China and around the world;
• Multilateralism and the SDGs;
• South-South Cooperation,
especially with Africa;
• Gender equality and women’s
rights.
Together, we have much to accomplish. I can’t wait to get
started.
HEALTH FOR ALL: COVID-19 AND BEYOND
China’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, a
once-in-a-century worldwide health crisis, has been commendable. It has gone
beyond domestic solutions to help others with the global shortage of health
supplies. Kenya, where I’ve concluded my service as the UN Resident Coordinator,
was one of 53 African countries to receive critical medical supplies. In
Ethiopia, China is also supporting the construction of the headquarters for the
Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which will help respond to
future challenges, including novel pathogens.
In Kenya, I led the UN country team in developing a
socio-economic response to COVID-19. By working with regional bodies such as
the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), I will
similarly unite the UN country team in China in supporting the Government.
Together we will ensure that China’s post-pandemic recovery is inclusive,
sustainable and leaves no one behind, through the newly launched United Nations
Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework for 2021-2025.
Beyond the pandemic, the UN urges countries to adopt
universal health coverage by 2030 to ensure health and wellbeing for people of
all ages. To also respond to the national priority on eliminating health
disparities, and the 2030 Agenda principle of leaving no one behind, I will
work with partners to protect the most vulnerable groups, prioritizing women
and young people, and support their access to health services. China can be at
the forefront of this effort, enshrined by the Sustainable Development Goal 3.
Speaking at the World Health Assembly in May 2020, President Xi Jinping called
for more consolidated international response in ensuring global health. He also
pledged that any vaccines developed and deployed by China would be offered as a
global public good. In an expression of global solidarity, he called for
supporting the WHO, helping Africa, and strengthening international
cooperation.
With my UN colleagues in China, I will work with partners to
assess the broader socio-economic impact of COVID-19, to apply lessons learned
to the Government’s future programming and recovery efforts. These lessons will
assist other countries during the recovery phase to build back stronger. Other
countries are already emulating China’s work on community-based disease
surveillance systems, effective triage through primary health care, deployment
of health workers to meet frontline needs with ensuring their safety, and
discovering and deploying COVID-19 vaccines.
With its disproportionate and deadly impact on older
persons, the pandemic has shown that we must fundamentally rethink how we see
and treat older people in our rapidly ageing societies. As countries adjust to
changing demographic realities, they need to make sure that their populations
stay active and healthy, starting from a young age. China has valuable lessons
to share from its integrated, life-cycle approach to population ageing.
BIG SOLUTIONS FOR BIG CHALLENGES: INFRASTRUCTURE AND
EDUCATION
To achieve the SDGs in any one country, let alone in all
countries, we need to work on a large scale. Working on a big scale requires at
least two things: infrastructure and systemic change in education. China is a
global leader in both areas and offers lessons—and concrete support—to the
entire world.
In infrastructure—and the jobs that come with it—China’s
leadership is without parallel. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) furthers
China’s importance as a model for developing countries. The BRI builds on one
of the most extraordinary successes in humankind’s history, the raising of over
850 million Chinese out of extreme poverty. BRI now helps other countries take
advantage of China’s depth of experience, in addition to financing. Indeed,
Secretary-General Guterres said that the BRI “could contribute to a more
equitable, prosperous world, and to reversing the negative impact of climate
change.”
I have seen first-hand how partnerships around
infrastructure have transformed remote parts of Northern Kenya. A spectacular
highway built in record time, connecting Isiolo town in Kenya to Ethiopia,
constructed by a Chinese state company. Funded by the African Development Bank,
the European Union and the Kenyan Government, this road is part of the Lamu
Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia Transport Corridor (Lapsset). It is proving central
to regional integration and unlocking economic potential in the entire East African
region. Most importantly, the road has reduced the travelling distance between
Nairobi and Moyale (a town on the Kenya-Ethiopia border) to 7 hours.
Previously, travel on this route was torturous, with days spent on unforgiving
bumpy terrain.
Before and After: Isiolo-Marsabit-Moyale Road. Photo credit:
LAPSSET Development Authority
These partnerships between the public and private sector
will be key to unlocking Africa’s real economic potential. Such economic growth
will help not only Africans but people the world over. China has shown itself
to be a shining example and a generous partner in pursuit of international
development.
In education, too, China’s work is exemplary. This work is
no mere piecemeal effort, but rather a systematic expansion of education
nationwide, offering the world great food for thought. Education and training
was part and parcel with the country’s reform and provided much needed human
capital to propel sustained social and economic development. Over the last four
decades, China has universalized 9-year compulsory education and eradicated
adult illiteracy. Gross enrolment rates at the senior secondary level have
increased from 29% to 78%, with higher education levels going from 4% to about
40% during the past three decades.
China’s education system has evolved by blending its
cultural heritage with Western style teaching. China provides skilled labour
and researchers for the world, yet avoids brain-drain due to favourable
production and local employment policies. Professional development of teachers
in China is well integrated with curriculum and assessment, providing a
school-based, structured career ladder. The focus on developing teachers as
professionals underpins China’s success in every subsector from early-childhood
education to higher education. Key to this progress has been advancing girls’
education, with increased equality of access and retention rates from primary
to higher education being a remarkable development in past years.
Educational progress over this period reflects this rapid
expansion, not only in terms of enrolments and graduates, but also in quality,
relevance, systemic and institutional development, and local and international
employability of graduates. China now
strengthens universities’ capacities in Africa, one example of success being
the Bamako University in Mali.
China’s work on education is all the more remarkable given
our current global crisis. Earlier last year, with COVID-19 still a challenge,
the country demonstrated how to continue providing quality education,
efficiently switching to online teaching. The Government also implemented
several policies to support business productivity in a safe and coordinated
manner. It stimulated the economy to ensure job security, especially for vulnerable
groups.
China’s experience in infrastructure and education
demonstrates the value of going big.
TOGETHER, NOW: MULTILATERALISM AND AGENDA 2030
2020 already marked the 75th Anniversary of the UN. The time
to recommit to coming together in global solidarity is now. Not next month or
next year, but now. And again. And again. Indeed, multilateralism is the
lodestar to which we must constantly return. It is not achieved once and for
all. Our ongoing efforts are required to refresh it.
We need to make sure this crisis doesn’t stop us from
reviving multilateralism or achieving the 2030 Agenda. China, as a UN Member State, a leader of the
G77, and a permanent member of the UN Security Council, has a vital role in
this renewal. This need rings especially true in Africa, where the challenges
and the opportunities are immense.
With over 75 million displaced people around the world,
fleeing conflict, instability, climate change and poverty, Secretary-General
António Guterres said, “The world is in pieces, we need world peace.” China, a
peacekeeping powerhouse, is responding. It is in the top-ten of
troop-contributing countries and is the second-largest donor to the UN
peacekeeping. A recent white paper on 30 years of Chinese peacekeeping makes
the essential point that development must accompany peacekeeping. Without these
two actions happening in lockstep, often only the pieces remain.
Ever since reopening to the world economy, China’s
significance in global governance has grown exponentially. The country is now
leading a renaissance in multilateralism. Its recent foreign policy discourse
emphasizes the need for a Chinese voice in global leadership with its
representation in international institutions now transcending economic,
security, and legal realms. The country has lived up to the Chinese expression
“Jia You” (“come on”/“keep going”).
China is actively engaging in regional fora and global
institutions such as the UN, G20, ASEAN, SCO and BRICS. Its role in founding
the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the New Development Bank (BRICS
Development Bank) also epitomizes the administration’s determination to place
China at the heart of reform in global economic governance.
The Chinese approach to development—based on infrastructure
development, universal health coverage, educational exchanges and intellectual
connectivity, in conjunction with the private sector—is advancing prosperity
and sustainability, compatible with the UN’s best practices.
China is a country of great promise and global leadership
for the acceleration of the SDGs. As the UN Resident Coordinator, I will work
with China to help it attain the SDGs, and ensure its crucial role in
South-South Cooperation to advance the SDGs elsewhere. Making China’s bilateral and multilateral aid
work better for developing countries is one of my central aspirations.
The UN Kenya SDG Public-Private Partnership platform was
established in 2017 in partnership with the Government of Kenya. Under my
leadership, we promoted collaboration with American, UK, Chinese, Kenyan and
European companies, to harness big data and other emerging technologies.
Likewise, the Kenyan UN Development Assistance Framework 2018-2022 received
praise as an exemplary framework that aligns with national development
priorities, conceived through a highly consultative process led by Government.
I look forward to lead similar engagements in China to advance the SDGs.
ACROSS CONTINENTS: SOUTH-SOUTH COOPERATION AND THE
OPPORTUNITIES IN CHINA-AFRICA COOPERATION
As McKinsey & Company recently noted, China has become a
significant force in Africa’s development, substantially increasing commitments
and engagements in past years. Pragmatism argues for moving the discussion
ahead, to how China’s involvement can reap benefits for Africa and China.
Ambassador Wu Peng (the former Chinese Ambassador to Kenya,
now the Director General for Africa in MFA, China) and the author Siddharth
Chatterjee at the UN Resident Coordinator’s office in Nairobi, Kenya. May 2019.
Photo credit: United Nations Kenya
China has expressed readiness to engage with African
Continental Free Trade Area efforts to boost trade and cooperation in the
digital economy, including 5G technologies. Sino-African trade has grown
steadily with trade volume in the first half of 2020 exceeding $80
billion. Chinese investment in Africa
has increased by 1.7 per cent year-on-year despite the global economic
downturn, demonstrating China-Africa cooperation’s vitality.
China’s agricultural experience is particularly relevant to
the realities of many African countries. Africa has the highest proportion of
populations living in rural areas. China has achieved laudable successes in
raising agricultural output, gaining market access, and improving lives through
new technologies. Its experience in dealing with agricultural development
challenges and increasing income and food production—while minimizing
environmental damage—provides a fount of knowledge for the developing world.
While in Kenya, I observed a striking alignment in China’s
development priorities and those of the African nation. The two countries have
forged a strong partnership to advance their aspirations. By adoptingdisruptive technologies, Kenya is now working with companies in Silicon Valleyand elsewhere to re-tool current public health, agriculture, affordable housingand manufacturing approaches. I hope to build similar partnerships between
Kenya and China’s tech sector.
I will work with UN Agencies, Funds and Programmes in China
to support the Government in achieving sustainable development and assisting
other developing countries, particularly in Africa, to grow economies and
improve livelihoods. During the High-Level Roundtable on South-South
Cooperation, held in 2015 at UN Headquarters in New York, China announced a
“Six One-Hundreds” plan to support developing countries. This intiative
provided 100 new programs in poverty, agriculture, international trade, climate
protection, construction of 100 hospitals and clinics, and 100 schools and
vocational training centres. Future efforts like these are welcome
opportunities for the UN Country Team in China to work with counterparts in
programme countries to advance these objectives.
Though many parts of Africa are affected by the egregious
effects of climate change, poverty and instability, the continent’s are not
just victims or a burden for other countries to bear. Africans have talent,
expertise, skills, and drive. They have rich cultural, historical, economic,
and natural and human resources. They are equal partners in development and
have much to teach other nations. The relationship is two-way.
By 2050, Africa’s population will grow to 2.3 billion, with
over 850 million young people. But realizing Africa’s demographic dividend
requires we invest in Africa’s human development and economic growth today. It
is prudent to accept China’s role in Africa. It is also time for China to
enhance that role.
NO PROGRESS WITHOUT WOMEN: GENDER EQUALITY AND WOMEN’S
RIGHTS
Gender equality is not a discrete issue that is separate
from other policy areas. It is an essential dimension of peace and development.
Our progress on gender equality shapes everything else we do. There is no peace
and prosperity if we exclude women and girls from the solutions and
decision-making processes. We must give equal weight to their needs and ideas
in our work, and women must be in seats of power. We have to understand the
history and structure of gender inequality and toil away to uproot it. And we
cannot advance peace and prosperity in the world without stability in the home.
It is high time to end the global pandemic of violence against women and
girls.
2020 was the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and
Platform for Action. This milestone enabled us to note progress on gender
equality and women’s rights, evaluate where we lag, and seek how we avoid
regression to achieve lasting, transformative change.
Within the UN in Kenya, and the country itself, I advanced
structural change for gender equality and women’s empowerment, with zero
tolerance for sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment.
Also in Kenya, from 2014 to 2016, the UN family along with
Huawei (China), Merck (USA), Philips (Netherlands), GlaxoSmithKlein (UK),
Safaricom (Kenya) and Kenya Health Care Federation forged a public-private
partnership. This partnership supported the Government’s efforts in reducing
maternal deaths in some of the highest-burden counties. There was close to a
one-third reduction in maternal mortality in these counties. This partnership
was hailed as a best practice when invited to the World Economic Forum inDavos, Switzerland in 2017. In September 2017, the former Foreign Minister of
Kenya, Ms Amina Mohamed, launched the Kenya UN SDGs, Public-Private Partnershipplatform at the UN General Assembly.
As a staunch believer in gender equality, I look forward to
continuing my advocacy on this critical agenda. China’s push to prioritize
gender equality and women’s empowerment in its global cooperation priorities,
as indicated by the recent CIDCA white paper, is most welcome. Progress here in
China will be an engine for economic growth in Africa and the world.
ONWARD: THE ROAD AHEAD
The economic upheaval caused by the COVID-19 pandemic rivals
the Great Depression of the 1930s, upending lives and livelihoods.
As President Xi reminded us in his special address at the
World Economic Forum on 25 January 2021, “The pandemic is far from over. The
recent resurgence in COVID cases reminds us that we must carry on the fight.
Yet we remain convinced that winter cannot stop the arrival of spring and
darkness can never shroud the light of dawn. There is no doubt humanity will
prevail over the virus and emerge even stronger from this disaster.”
The UN and other international organisations have an
important (and challenging) role in responding to the pandemic. Amidst the
terrible impact of COVID-19, there is also an opportunity.
There is a reason countries around the world came together
for the SDGs: to create a plan of action for people, planet, and prosperity.
The challenges facing the world now are as complex and intertwined, requiring
complex solutions.
As I start my new role as the UN Resident Coordinator in
China in 2021, there are ten years left for the world to keep its promise of
meeting the SDG targets. 2021 must be the harbinger of hope and for global
collaboration to regain momentum in achieving the SDGs. Now is the time to
unite and align our efforts as we move swiftly into the decade of action.
I look forward to leading the UN Country Team in China and
continuing to champion the UN values and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development, in partnership with the Government of China.
Let us begin.
Siddharth Chatterjee is the United Nations Resident
Coordinator to China.
