2021, Jeffrey Sachs 在聯合國糧食係統峰會演講

傑弗裏·薩克斯在聯合國糧食係統峰會前的演講

July 27, 2021 ,Jeffrey Sachs' speech at the U.N. Food Systems Pre-Summit

https://www.jeffsachs.org/recorded-lectures/5jf86pp5lxch35e6z3nct6xnmb8zy5

我們從小組成員那裏聽到的是全球糧食係統目前的運作方式。我想強調的是，我們確實擁有一個全球糧食係統。 它基於大型跨國公司、私人利潤和非常低的國際轉移來幫助窮人（有時根本沒有轉移）。它基於強國對環境的極度不負責任。正如我們剛剛聽到的那樣，它是基於對窮人經濟權利的徹底否定。

我們剛剛收到剛果民主共和國部長的來信。許多人將貧困歸咎於剛果民主共和國和其他貧窮國家。然而，我們似乎不記得，也不想記住，從1870年左右開始，比利時國王利奧波德在剛果建立了一個持續了大約40年的奴隸殖民地；然後比利時政府又管理了該殖民地50年。1961年，剛果民主共和國獨立後，中央情報局暗殺了剛果民主共和國第一位受歡迎的領導人帕特裏斯盧蒙巴，並在接下來的大約30年裏任命了一位美國支持的獨裁者蒙博托塞塞塞科。近年來，嘉能可和其他跨國公司在不支付一定程度的特許權使用費和稅款的情況下吸取了剛果民主共和國的鈷。

我們根本不反思剛果民主共和國和其他貧困國家努力擺脫貧困的真實曆史。相反，我們指責這些國家並說：“你們怎麽了？ 為什麽不好好管教自己呢？”

是的，我們有一個全球糧食係統，但我們需要一個不同的係統。我們不能將全球糧食係統交給私營部門。 大約100年前，我們已經這樣做了，不僅針對私營部門，而且還針對有美國軍方支持的私營部門來保護這些公司。

我們剛剛收到洪都拉斯部長的來信。讓我們回想一下，聯合果品公司基本上在很長一段時間內管理著他的國家。 聯合果品的代理人是美國國務卿約翰·福斯特·杜勒斯，他的弟弟艾倫·杜勒斯是中央情報局局長。兩位杜勒斯兄弟代表聯合果品公司密謀推翻與洪都拉斯相鄰的危地馬拉總統雅各布·阿本斯，以阻止阿本斯試圖實施的土地改革。

所以，是的，我們有一個全球糧食係統，但我們需要一個不同的係統。這種不同的製度必須基於《世界人權宣言》中的普遍人類尊嚴原則、聯合國憲章》中的國家主權原則以及《世界人權宣言》和《經濟、社會、文化國際公約》中的經濟權利 權利。在《世界人權宣言》中，所有政府都同意社會保護是一項人權，不僅僅是一件“好事”或令人愉快的事情，而是一項基本人權。那是73年前。

可持續發展目標是我們這一代人對遵守《世界人權宣言》的承諾。 然而，我來自一個不僅不關心世界上的窮人，甚至也不關心自己的窮人的國家。 現在有七分之一的美國人在挨餓，但一個政黨隻關心為富人減稅和阻撓任何真正的貧困解決方案。

我們生活在一個非常艱難的世界。私營部門不會解決這個問題。我很抱歉要對在座的所有私營部門領導人說這些。私營部門的關鍵很簡單：行為、納稅和遵守規則。這才是企業應該做的。

政府應該做的是：

首先，G20應成為G21，邀請非盟成為第21個成員。 歐盟是G20 的成員。 如果我們將非盟添加為第21個成員，使其成為G21，我們將在G20表中再增加 14 億人。

其次，我們需要在發展融資方麵有一個數量級的增長。根據國際貨幣基金組織的數據，富裕國家為應對 Covid-19大流行已借入並支出了約17 萬億美元。貧窮國家的支出不到2萬億美元。富裕國家可以以接近於零的利率（甚至歐洲一些國家的負利率）在資本市場上借款。然而，貧窮國家必須支付5%至10%的票麵利率，而且許多國家根本無法獲得市場借款。

Covid-19暴露了貧窮國家在獲得市場融資方麵的嚴重不平等。美國政府花費了大約7萬億美元用於緊急響應 Covid-19，其中幾乎沒有任何資金用於世界其他地區。美國國會顯然沒有想過要為世界上最貧窮的人提供哪怕一點麵包屑。

需要更多的發展融資是我們應該從世界銀行那裏聽到的信息。然而我們沒有聽到。我們沒有從世界銀行那裏聽到任何真實的數字或融資解決方案。

未來十年，發展中國家的實際金融需求將達到數萬億美元。畢竟，世界經濟現在的年產出約為100萬億美元。然而，我們不想談論窮國的真正金融需求。我們需要大量增加流向窮國的發展融資，並且利率接近於富國支付的零利率。如果有足夠的資金流向貧窮國家，條件適當，我們就可以完成一些事情，包括實現可持續發展目標。

順便說一下，為了在未來幾個月內實現Covid-19疫苗的普遍覆蓋，我們真正需要的是美國政府與中國、俄羅斯、歐盟和英國坐下來分配正在進行的全球疫苗接種 以公平和包容的方式每月生產疫苗，而不是讓少數富裕國家囤積不成比例的疫苗，然後，在疫苗到期時處理掉許多疫苗。

作為聯合國糧食係統峰會的一項重要成果，我們將擁有“國家糧食係統路徑”。這樣的途徑是一個絕妙的想法，但這些途徑將需要足夠的發展資金。你想增加電力供應嗎？ 它必須得到資助。您想推廣對數字服務的訪問嗎？ 這種訪問必須得到資助。您想確保獲得安全的用水和灌溉嗎？ 它必須得到資助。我們需要將可持續發展目標——包括普遍獲得健康營養、安全飲用水、綠色能源等——與必要的資金聯係起來。

國際貨幣基金組織最近進行了一些精彩的研究，表明低收入發展中國家 (LIDC) 麵臨每年約400至5000億美元的可持續發展目標融資缺口。盡管國際貨幣基金組織已經表明了這一缺口，但還沒有人提出解決融資缺口的辦法。 這並不難做到，因為每年 5000 億美元並不是一個很大的數字。這僅占世界年產量的0.5%。如果我們真的想找到答案，G7就不會承諾投入30億美元用於教育，而聯合國教科文組織已經表明我們每年至少需要300億美元，至少。但富國政府不喜歡看真正的金融需求。他們寧願勾選他們為教育提供了一定金額的符號框，即使這隻是真正需要的十分之一。我們需要真正的融資，數量級合適，以支持國家糧食係統路徑。

第三，我們需要聯合國作為我們世界的核心和中央機構。我們要擁有一個和平、文明的世界的唯一途徑是通過一個強大的聯合國。荒謬的是，聯合國的核心預算每年僅為30億美元，而紐約市的預算約為1000億美元。我們長期為聯合國係統提供資金不足，然後問：“為什麽事情不順利？”

富人越來越多地囤積一切。如果億萬富翁想去太空，他們至少可以把錢留在地球上，以解決關鍵的地球問題。我們現在估計有2,775位億萬富翁，他們的總資產淨值約為13.1萬億美元。我有充分的證據表明，你不需要超過10億美元就可以過上舒適的生活。即使每個億萬富翁都保留10億美元，也將留下大約10 萬億美元用於消除饑餓、貧困和環境破壞。我們應該對龐大且快速增長的億萬富翁財富征稅，以幫助資助一個文明的世界。

 

Jeffrey Sachs' speech at the U.N. Food Systems Pre-Summit

 

Transcript (with light edits)

July 27, 2021

What we’ve been hearing from the panelists is how the global food system works right now. I want to emphasize that we indeed do have a global food system. It’s based on large multinational companies, private profits, and very low international transfers to help poor people (sometimes no transfers at all). It’s based on the extreme irresponsibility of powerful countries with regard to the environment. And it’s based on a radical denial of the economic rights of poor people, as we just heard. 

We’ve just heard from the Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Many point a finger of blame at the DRC and other poor countries for their poverty.  Yet we don’t seem to remember, or want to remember, that starting around 1870, King Leopold of Belgium created a slave colony in the Congo that lasted for around 40 years; and then the government of Belgium ran the colony for another 50 years. In 1961, after independence of the DRC, the CIA then assassinated the DRC’s first popular leader, Patrice Lumumba, and installed a US-backed dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko, for roughly the next 30 years. And in recent years, Glencore and other multinational companies suck out the DRC’s cobalt without paying a level of royalties and taxes.  

We simply don’t reflect on the real history of the DRC and other poor countries struggling to escape from poverty. Instead, we point fingers at these countries and say, “What’s wrong with you?  Why don’t you govern yourselves properly?”

Yes, we have a global food system, but we need a different system. We cannot turn the global food system over to the private sector. We already did that about 100 years ago, and not only to the private sector, but to the private sector with the U.S. military behind it to defend these companies.  

We just heard from the Minister of Honduras.  Let us recall that United Fruit Company essentially ran his country for a long time. United Fruit’s attorney was US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, and his brother Allen Dulles was the head of the CIA. On behalf of United Fruit Company, the two Dulles Brothers conspired to overthrow President Jacobo Árbenz of Guatemala, next door to Honduras, in order to stop the land reforms that Árbenz was trying to implement.   

So, yes, we have a global food system, but we need a different system. That different system must be based on the principle of universal human dignity in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the principle of national sovereignty in the UN Charter, and the economic rights in the Universal Declaration and the International Covenant of Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. In the Universal Declaration, all governments agreed that social protection is a human right, not merely a “nice thing,” or a pleasant thing, but a basic human right. That was 73 years ago. 

The Sustainable Development Goals are our generation’s pledge to honor the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Yet I come from a country that not only doesn’t care about the world’s poor, it doesn’t even care about its own poor. One in seven Americans is hungry right now, but one political party cares about little more than cutting taxes for the rich and filibustering any real solutions to poverty.  

We’re in a world that’s really tough. The private sector is not going to solve this problem. I’m sorry to say this to all the private sector leaders here.  The key for the private sector is simply this: behave, pay your taxes, and follow the rules. That’s what businesses should do.  

What the governments should do is the following: 

First, the G20 should become the G21 by inviting the African Union to be the 21st member. The European Union is a member of the G20.  If we add the AU as the 21st member, making it the G21, we would add another 1.4 billion people to the G20 table.  

Second, we need an order-of-magnitude increase in development finance. According to the IMF, the rich countries have borrowed and spent around $17 trillion in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.  The poor countries have spent less than $2 trillion.  Rich countries can borrow on the capital markets at near-zero interest rates (or even negative rates for some countries in Europe). Yet the poor countries must pay 5% to 10% coupon rates, and many have no access to market borrowing at all.  

Covid-19 has exposed the grotesque inequality of access to market finance that poor countries face.  The US government spent roughly $7 trillion for emergency Covid-19 response with hardly any funds included for the rest of the world. It apparently didn’t cross the mind of the U.S. Congress to include even a few crumbs for the poorest of the poor of the world. 

The need for vastly more development financing is the message we should have just heard from the World Bank. Yet we didn’t hear that.  We didn’t hear any real numbers or financing solutions from the World Bank. 

The real financial needs of the developing countries in the coming decade are in trillions of dollars.  After all, the world economy is now at around $100 trillion a year of output.  Yet we don’t like to talk about the real financial needs of poor countries.  We need to massively increase the flow of development financing to the poor countries, and at near-zero interest rates like the rates paid by the rich countries.  With adequate financial flows to the poor countries, on adequate terms, we could get something done, including achieving the SDGs.  

By the way, in order to achieve universal coverage of Covid-19 vaccines in the coming months, what we really need is for the US Government to sit down with China, Russia, the European Union, and the United Kingdom to allocate the ongoing global monthly vaccine production in a fair and inclusive manner, rather than having a few rich countries hoard a disproportionate share of the vaccines (and then dispose of many vaccines when they hit their expiration date.) 

As a key outcome of the UN Food System Summit, we are going to have “national food system pathways.”  Such pathways are a wonderful idea, but the pathways are going to need adequate development financing. You want to increase access to electricity?  It will have to be financed. You want to promote access to digital services? This access will have to be financed.  You want to ensure access to safe water and irrigation?  It will have to be financed.  We need to link the SDGs – including universal access to healthy nutrition, safe water, green energy, and so on – with the requisite financing.  

The IMF has recently carried out some wonderful studies showing that the Low-Income Developing Countries (LIDCs) face an SDG financing gap of some $400 - $500 billion dollars a year.  Although the IMF has shown this gap, nobody has yet come up with a solution to close the financing gap. This wouldn’t be so hard to do, because $500 billion per year is not such a big number. It’s a mere 0.5% of annual world output.         If we really cared to find answers, we wouldn’t have the G7 promising to devote $3 billion to education, when UNESCO has shown that we need at least $30 billion dollars per year, minimum. But the rich-country governments don’t like to look at the real financial needs. They’d rather check the symbolic box that they’ve given some amount for education, even if it’s only a tenth of what is really needed.  We will need real financing, of the right order of magnitude, to back the national food system pathways. 

Third, we need the United Nations as the core and central institution of our world.  The only way we’re going to have a peaceful, civilized world is through a strong UN.  It’s absurd that the UN core budget is a mere $3 billion per year, when New York City’s budget is around $100 billion.  We chronically underfund the UN system and then ask, “Why don’t things work well?”  

The rich individuals are increasingly hoarding everything.  If the billionaires want to go to space, they could at least leave their money on Earth to solve the critical Earthbound problems.  We now have an estimated 2,775 billionaires with a combined net worth of around $13.1 trillion. I have it on good authority that you don’t need more than $1 billion to live comfortably.  Even if every billionaire kept $1 billion, that would leave around $10 trillion for ending hunger, poverty, and environmental destruction.  We should be taxing the vast and rapidly growing billionaire wealth to help finance a civilized world.