Keeping the human person at the center of development efforts is central, and Pope Francis has recently called for “concrete ideas and decisive actions that will benefit all people”, recalls Archbishop Auza.
On May 22, 2017, the Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See to the UN gave an intervention during the Forum on Financing for Development. Archbishop Bernardito Auza, Apostolic Nuncio and Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations spoke about the need for a greater sense of solidarity and responsibility for justice in coordinating financing efforts to achieve integral human development.
There’s a particular need to reform protectionist trade systems and inhibitions to technology transfers. Markets alone are insufficient, he added, but must be guided by solidarity and social justice.
As a solution, Archbishop Auza suggested that public and private stakeholders should coordinate their efforts in financing to achieve integral human development.
Pope Francis, speaking in December 2016 to CEOs of Fortune+Time Global Forum in Rome, said, “What is required now is not a new social compact in the abstract, but concrete ideas and decisive actions that will benefit all people and that will begin to respond to the pressing issues of our day.” Some of these concrete actions include the reform of an international trade system that is, among others, inclined to protectionism, disinclined to technology transfer to benefit the developing world, and prone to harm the interests of the weaker trade partners.
The Holy See underlined that solutions to global poverty and hunger cannot be left to market forces alone. “The acceptance of proper ethical values informing market forces begets solidarity and social justice, and generates joint political will for sustained attention to the critical needs of the most vulnerable sectors of society and those of economically disadvantaged countries,” Archbishop Auza stated.
“It is no longer enough for us to declare our desire to end poverty and hunger and to achieve sustainable development; we must translate declarations into actions, and commitments into achievements.” In other words, the goal would be to reach sustainable development that leaves no country and no person behind.
