World should return to multilateral agenda: OECD

ANKARA – The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on Monday said the world should return to a multilateral approach to global affairs for a strong, resilient, green, and inclusive recovery from coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19).

Commemorating the 60th anniversary of the organization, the OECD published an opinion article jointly penned by Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and Secretary-General of the OECD Angel Gurria.

“The Covid-19 crisis must be an opportunity, a turning point, for reinforced and more effective multilateralism,” Sanchez and Gurria said.

Pointing the virus has left no country or region untouched, they said “efforts at home need to be complemented with an equally decisive and ambitious response through international cooperation.”

“We need to work together to develop effective global solutions for today’s global challenges: the Covid-19 recovery, climate change, biodiversity loss, growing inequalities, the concentration of wealth, digitalization, or the future of work,” they added.

For the first time in four years, Sanchez and Gurria said OECD members were able to put aside their differences and agreed on a statement reflecting their collective vision for a strong, resilient, inclusive, and green recovery from Covid-19.

“Today, perhaps more than at any other time in the last 60 years, the world needs, once again, to draw inspiration from those values, as it confronts the worst health, economic and social crisis since the Second World War,” they said.

They also stressed the importance of developing a new narrative on economic growth.

“National recovery and resilience plans constitute unique opportunities not just to jump-start our economies, but also to undertake bold and transformative action to make them more equal, cohesive and environmentally sound, in line with the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals,” they said.