WEB DESK
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has compared the coronavirus pandemic to an “x-ray” that has exposed deep global inequalities and “fractures in the fragile skeleton of the societies we have built.”
Delivering a lecture for the Nelson Mandela Foundation, Guterres slammed rich countries for failing “to deliver the support needed to help the developing world.”
The UN has appealed for $10.3 billion (€9 billion) to help poor states hit by the pandemic, but has so far only received $1.7 billion.
“Entire regions that were making progress on eradicating poverty and narrowing inequality have been set back years, in a matter of months,” he warned, adding that the crisis could trigger “famines of historic proportions” and push 100 million more people into poverty.
Guterres stressed that there needed to be a new global system with change “at the top: in global institutions.”
He ended his address by urging leaders to build a more equal and sustainable world: “Will we succumb to chaos, division and equality? Or will we right the wrongs of the past and move forward together, for the good of all?”