Recovery: The Global Green New Deal

Jomo Kwame Sundaram, re-posted from the World Policy Institute’s World Policy Blog, a Triple Crisis partner. The World Policy Journal, in its Spring 2011 issue, asked nine global experts – including Esther Duflo and Triple Crisis blogger Timothy A. Wise, among others – to provide short answers to the journal’s “big question”: What policy fixes or new innovations are needed to sustain the global economic recovery? Jomo K.S.’s answer follows. Read all the responses here.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the Green Revolution dramatically increased crop yields and food production in wheat, maize and rice. It was an achievement that would have been impossible without considerable financial support from governments, international institutions, and philanthropists. Yet, 40 years later, we need a second Green Revolution for other food crops, especially water-stressed food agriculture in arid areas. The key is finding a way to finance it that will sustain, rather than threaten, the global economic recovery.

That is the goal of the Global Green New Deal proposed by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in early 2009. The GGND will accelerate economic recovery and job creation while addressing sustainable development, climate change and food security challenges. The program would be built around massive, multilaterally cross-subsidized public investments in renewable energy and small-holder food agriculture in developing countries.

The GGND proposal has already inspired and encouraged several countries—most notably South Korea and China—to channel stimulus packages towards investment in renewable energy, public transport, waste management, and integrated water management. However, the bulk of the work has yet to be done—or even started. The response to the food crisis needs to combine short-term relief with longer-term investments in sustainable and sustained growth in food production.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram, a Malaysian, is the Assistant Secretary General for Economic Development at the United Nations.

Read all the responses to the World Policy Journal’s “Big Question”.

One Response to “Recovery: The Global Green New Deal”

  1. I read the responses. My impression is we need to help a democratic economy that serves the purpose of life evolve. Planning of the Chinese sort is copying corporatism and benchmarking itself even into the military and imperialist aspects. We need to evolve a way to focus vast human intelligence more similar to the Egyptian dreams for expressed a modern democracy that includes the economy.