When world leaders meet at the UN in New York this week, they will likely discuss the invasion of Ukraine by Russia and a global food crisis made worse by the war. However, it is unlikely that any progress will be made toward resolving the conflict.
Before the high-level gathering of the 193-member U.N. General Assembly, which begins on Tuesday, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, ‘It would be naive to think that we are close to the possibility of a peace deal. At this time, the odds of a peace agreement are slim.’
The seven-month-old war has exacerbated geopolitical divisions, which are set to be fully on show as the United States and its allies struggle with Russia for diplomatic clout.
‘Other countries have expressed the concern that… as we focus on Ukraine, we are not paying attention to what is happening in other crises around the world,’ U.S. Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said.
Although Ukraine will be discussed next week, she assured reporters that ‘it will not be the only issue that we’re dealing with.’
The global rifts, according to Guterres, are ‘the biggest they have been since at least the Cold War.’ He cited war, climate change, poverty, hunger, and inequality as examples of the ‘dramatic issues we confront’ and warned that they ‘are crippling the global response.’
The United Nations has attributed the war for escalating the food crisis, which was already being exacerbated by climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic. Russia and Ukraine are major exporters of grains and fertiliser.
Along with the COVID-19 global action plan ministerial meeting and the replenishment conference for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, the United States is scheduled to co-host a food security summit with the European Union and the African Union on the sidelines of the U.N. event.
According to Richard Gowan, U.N. director at the International Crisis Group, ‘a great deal of tension between Western countries and representatives of the global south in particular will underlie a lot of these meetings.’
There is still a lot of animosity surrounding topics like the COVID vaccination rollout, financing for climate change, and now food prices. According to Gowan, all of these issues are causing serious divisions among U.N. member states.
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