The United Nations Association of Western Australia (UNAAWA) hosted a panel discussion at our series sponsor, Ernst & Young (EY), on 3rd of June 2021. A New Globalism & Achieving the SDGs highlighted the definition of globalism and its role in the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
The evening commenced with a keynote speech delivered by Robin McClellan. She spoke about the impacts of Covid on achieving the goals and shared tips on how to make the best use of the resources to achieve them. She
concluded by saying that even though there has been a progress over the past five-years, we still need to develop a worldwide consensus around the SDGs and worldwide consensus of support for rule-based architecture. This was followed by a panel discussion that featured four speakers: Professor Peter Newman AO, Professor Anu Rammohan, Ky Cao and Adam Carrel.
The discussion opened with Adam Carrel who began by defining the difference between globalism from globalization. He highlighted that the former was a concept of shared humanity while the latter was borne out of n
eoliberalism. He added that globalism is a simple concept of shared humanity. He added that we need to try to reconcile democracy and globalism. “Globalism isn’t meant to be about pushing power upward toward a central ideology/doctrine but pushing it downwards to the individual level where we can all agree on something like the SDGs”. The responsibility of achieving the SDGs should not only lie on the shoulders of one or two countries; it is incumbent on all member states to work in synergy towards the goals.
Professor Rammohan gave the example of China to say that even though globalization was useful to drive the population out of poverty, its unfortunate consequences were the increasing tension between developed and developing nations and anti-immigrant sentiments. She also added that the Covid-19 pandemic only made it worse with the rise of ‘vaccine nationalism’. Ky Cao also shared how the rise of China was a central focus and argued that the world needs to confront the reality so
that they can shift the focus and capital towards the SDGs. Professor Newman referred to the adoption of Paris agreement to say that we could not rely on nations alone to lead the way, the business and civil societies must come together to implement these strategies effectively.
The event was attended by 90 guests, UNAAWA members and community partners and it concluded with light snacks and drinks.