daniel chigunwe
Gibson Nyikadzino
Correspondent
A dangerous scenario is being created by Western countries through the manipulation of multilateral institutions, reversal of globally agreed conventions and by the prescriptive nature of the Bretton Woods financial institutions in the pursuit of their nefarious goals.
These actions are producing multiple negative effects that hinder the realisation of the United Nations (UN) set 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Such manipulations by the US, the EU and the NATO alliance are, in totality, a grand scheme to prolong years of poverty, suffering, hunger and conflict in the world.
From these assessments, global poverty is not an accident.
It is a planned initiative by the greedy capitalist Western establishment that sees profit instead of humanitarian acts in times of crisis.
Of concern is how the impact of Covid-19 crisis has affected world economies and also pushed the world, especially in developing countries, into extreme poverty, statistics confirm this.
At a Tuesday round table discussion between Russian and African diplomats assessing global challenges to food security, the director of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation’s Russian liaison office Oleg Kobyakov revealed that in 2021 people suffering from global hunger increased by 150 million to 828 million since 2019.
Additionally, natural disasters and economic upheavals have driven the world into an abyss and dungeon of economic despair.
These misfortunes are primarily being authored by the Western world and evidence exist to substantiate such developments.
The behaviour of Western countries is not meant to serve the interests of the world because of the West’s selfishness which is threatening to reverse progress that had been made in the implementation of SDGs ending poverty, hunger, affordable and clean energy, reduced inequality, and peace and justice strong institutions.
In reality, these SDGs are not going to have full implantation because of the West’s anti-Russian sanctions that are creating new food security problems for Africa and the world.
Playing hunger games
The sanctions imposed by the US on Russia to dissuade the latter’s special military operation in Ukraine have impacted implementation of SDG 2 on the desire to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition by promoting sustainable agriculture practices.
Western propaganda machinery, that is its media, is telling the world that Russia is using food as a weapon of war, yet it is the US and EU’s sanctions that are barring Russian ships from docking on Western ports.
Because the world is an interdependent ecosystem, the importance of Russian grain and fertilisers to Africa especially in the tropical climates where wheat grows either very poorly or does not grow at all, cannot be overlooked.
African agricultural transport companies have stopped looking for alternatives to ferrying grain and fertilisers from Russia in fear of Western reprisals in the form of secondary sanctions.
It is key to remember that the US has legislation, the Countering Malign Russian Activities in Africa Act, meant to punish African countries intending to deal with Russia in all sectors.
In terms of meeting SDG 2, to end hunger, the behaviour of the US and her allies reveals they want to squeeze African countries and increase poverty by maintaining sanctions on Russia to which she will not export grain and fertilisers to African countries.
Where is Greta Thunberg?
Has Greta Thunberg become a climate denialist?
The Swedish climate justice activist over the past few years globe-trotted the world choreographing her desire for the adoption of renewable energy sources.
Among her stunts was the 2019 ride across the Atlantic by boat to attend a climate conference in the US.
Who also forgets how Western propaganda machinery, the Associated Press, cropped out Ugandan climate activist Vanessa Nakate at a 2020 Davos climate conference on to give prominence to Thunberg and a trio of other white activists as the only champions of climate activism.
That act was the simplest way to understand the word racism.
This took Russia’s President Vladimir Putin to later indicate that there was someone “using children and teenagers in personal interests, it only deserves to be condemned.”
Now Thunberg is nowhere near to be seen.
Europe’s biggest economy, Germany, after pledging to lead in the use of renewable energy by 2038 has just shown it reverting to the pre-historic energy era after the Deutsche Bank this week warned Germans “will have to burn wood to stay warm this winter.”
The 2015 Paris Agreement which former US President Donald Trump in his rebuttal of climate change optimism acknowledged was “mythical, non-existent and an expensive hoax” have, to some extent, exposed activists of climate change as prophets of doom.
By December 2021, Germany’s population stood at 83 million. Reverting to the use of wood as a source of energy in winter, Germany also has huge deposits of coal in the Rhineland and Ruhr regions that drive German industries to benefit from coal in an era where the Paris Agreement binds.
Africa has been ‘advised’ to stop using coal and resort to clean energy sources while Germany is by no measure willing to stand by the dictates of the Paris Agreement.
Scientists in 2019 recommended that planting billions of trees was one way the world could use to take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere to tackle the climate crisis.
Scientists said this was a “mind blowing exercise.”
Unfortunately, Africa has suffered climate disasters triggered by the non- commitments of European economic giants that, instead of reducing carbon emissions, are reverting to old energy sources that they recommend Africans should not use. It mocks the objectives of SDG 7 for the world to have sustainable, affordable and clean energy for all.
Manipulating the UN
The United Nations, headquartered in New York, gets 40 percent of its funding from the US, the biggest contribution by any other country. This institution has been prone to manipulation by the US.
As a multilateral institution, the UN, whose purpose among others include to “develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace” has been forced to present a position contrary to its values.
Condemnation of countries that are anti-Western abuse of the international order has become the order of the day. It is now presenting the militaristic side of US foreign policy establishments.
The US has changed rules to facilitate its agenda through by-passing international law in its preference of the “rules-based international order” and not the “law-based international order”.
Rules continue to be broken as there are no sanctions coming the US way from the UN as seen by America bombing of Serbia in 1998, the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the 2011 invasion of Libya and sponsorship of the genocide against ethnic speaking Russians in eastern Ukraine since 2014.
These actions are rendering the UN as a less-important institution that is expected to uphold SDG 16 which speaks to the promotion of peaceful and just orders that are enhanced by strong institutions.
The manipulation of the UN is impeding its SDG 16 target.
Targets abroad, targets at home
While the expectation is to have these SDGs met at the international level, they are also expected to be met at the local level by making use of local institutions and processes to ensure hunger and poverty are eliminated, clean energy is adopted and inclusive peace is realised.
Because the world is now an interdependent ecosystem, sovereignty and state interests determine who to enter into friendship and alliance with.
Africa’s desire to meet these goals is however being threatened by the US’s anticipated punitive measures barring African countries from dealing with Russia, a key partner in the unfolding multipolar system.
If SDGs are to be realised at a global level, impediments being thrown by the West should be removed so that benefits are also realised at home.
Yearning for a new system
There has to be a death or strangulation of the prevailing Western dictated international system, and indications coming through the expansion of the BRICS bloc, the new financial system between Russia and her allies, and plans to establish a Russian bank responsible for trade and transactions with Africa provide an alternative.
“Western banks have always been involved in financial settlements, and today all of these have been ripped up. But I believe that this question is being solved, and one possibility, I think, would be to open a Russian bank in Africa,” said Louis Gouend, a representative of the Council of African Communities in Russia on Tuesday.
More alternative supply corridors to move goods to Africa are needed.
This can also be done through Iran which applied to become a BRICS member.
This is happening because the world is now in need of a more honest economic system, one that is not dictated by only one group of countries or people.
Online Reporter