2009-03-18
We live in a time of increased international uncertainty. After a long period of global economic upturn the world is now facing the sharpest decline in many decades.
What started as a U.S. mortgage crisis passed last fall to a global financial crisis that in the end of the year, in turn, were in a dramatic suppression of the real economy. In financial terms, 2009 is by all appearances a lost year. No region and no single country of significance will be able to avoid the consequences of the downturn.
The question is not whether we are affected, but how hard and how well equipped we are faced with a declining production, rising unemployment and growing deficit.
Unfortunately the same economic uncertainty coincides with a rise in political temperature. We saw it in the Caucasus in August, in Bombay in December, in the Middle East right now and in the still ongoing Russian-Ukrainian gas-conflict. It is also increasingly clear that the economic slowdown will lead to increased instability in the most vulnerable countries with the weakest institutions.
The globalization has clearly slowed down. We see fragmentation and increased tensions in which we previously saw integration and increased understanding. In all likelihood, we will again see poverty increase after several years of significant progress in poverty reduction.
The growing uncertainty means increased political challenges. It is now that the leadership is tested nationally and internationally. Can the political leaders resist populist outcries against open borders and freer trade and a freer flow of people, ideas and resources? And are they able to deal with the anchoring of the necessary steps that must appear to lift the economic crisis without decay due to policies and protectionism?
To this is added more long-term challenges: climate change, work for peace and stability in Southwest Asia, the Middle East and Africa, the threat of nuclear proliferation, and everything that lies in the concept of "sustainable globalization".
These challenges must also be taken into consideration. Emergency events cause us to forget the long-term challenges. But they disappear, unfortunately, not without waiting only for a better opportunity to become aware of the situation. From this perspective, an institution such as the Globalization Council has a given task. To look towards the horizon and see what lies ahead.