Indian development economist Jayati Ghosh has been appointed as a new member of the high-level advisory board on effective multilateralism.
Jayati Ghosh, 66, a member of the UN’s high-level Advisory Board on Economic and Social Affairs, is a Professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She was a professor of economics and chairperson of the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
The announcement was made by UN chief Guterres on Friday. He announced that the Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism to be co-chaired by former Liberian president and Nobel laureate Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and former Swedish prime minister Stefan Lofven. A 12-member board will be supported in its work by the Centre for Policy Research of the United Nations University in close coordination with the Executive Office of the Secretary-General.
A press release issued last week said the UN Secretary-General’s report on ‘Our Common Agenda’, released in September 2021, calls for stronger governance of key issues of global concern. The UN said that the ‘Our Common Agenda’ is an agenda of action designed to strengthen and accelerate multilateral agreements – particularly the 2030 Agenda – and make a tangible difference in people’s lives.
It contains recommendations for renewed solidarity between peoples and future generations, a new social contract anchored in human rights, better management of critical global commons, and international public goods that deliver equitably and sustainably for all.
The report proposed a Summit of the Future in 2023 to advance ideas for governance arrangements in certain areas that could be considered global public goods or global commons, including climate and sustainable development beyond 2030, the international financial architecture, peace, outer space, the digital space, major risks, and the interests of future generations.
The board members include Xu Bu, president of the China Institute of International Studies; Poonam Ghimire, a Nepalese climate activist, Next Generation Fellow (2021) with the United Nations Foundation and Youth Power Climate Representative for COP26; Rwanda’s former finance and economic planning minister Donald Kaberuka; and Kenya-based writer and researcher Nanjala Nyabola.
Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Senior Minister of Singapore, and Anne-Marie Slaughter, CEO of US-based think tank New America, Professor Emerita of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University and former Director of Policy and Planning at the US Department of State are also the members of the board.
