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AFTER COVID, WHAT NEXT? Open letter calling for emergency planning session of UN Assembly.
Margaret S.
started this petition to
World Leaders through ANTÓNIO GUTERRES, Secretary-General of the United Nations
Call for an EMERGENCY SPECIAL SESSION of the UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY to plan for a better future .
AN OPEN LETTER from the PEOPLE OF THE WORLD to all LEADERS of EVERY NATION through ANTÓNIO GUTERRES, Secretary-General of the UNITED NATIONS.
- “Everything we do during and after this [COVID-19] crisis must be with a strong focus on building more equal, inclusive and sustainable economies and societies that are more resilient in the face of pandemics, climate change, and the many other global challenges we face” (António Guterres).
- “When the pandemic is over, the world must come together…. Even today, we need to start thinking about life after it retreats… and decisions will have to be made by the entire world community” (Mikhail Gorbachev, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and former President of the USSR).
- “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere" (Martin Luther King).
- “Our most serious shortcoming is our inability to prevent crises” (António Guterres).
- "We have a small window of opportunity, in overcoming the challenges of the current crisis, to avoid sowing the seeds of future ones" (four leading international scientists with IPBES).
Instead of returning to the status quo once the global threat of COVID-19 is over, we believe we need to seize this opportunity for a new start by making fundamental and far-reaching changes as the world emerges from the pandemic. We want our children to inherit a better world and to be proud of their parents and grandparents.
The COVID-19 pandemic, the latest of so many disasters, has united and changed the whole world for ever. It has made us reconsider and evaluate our priorities through the universally shared experience of suffering.
So many people in the world feel powerless, hopeless and fearful about the future and have lost confidence in their Governments, politicians and global institutions, including the United Nations.
In this critical period, we call on the Leaders of our Nations to work together, through the United Nations and other international agencies, to make the necessary changes. “Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.” (Winston Churchill adapted from George Santayana).
Therefore, on behalf of the children of the world, we THE UNDER-SIGNED PEOPLE of all nationalities, races, religions and political views, call on all our Leaders to put aside political, national, racial, economic and religious self-interests and differences, and prepare to attend a Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly as a matter of urgency, and before making any significant decisions about the post-pandemic future, so that together they can evaluate the past and plan for a better future for all people and for the planet, our shared home.
We ask our Leaders to listen to their people and to each other and to take advice from relevant experts as they seek to work together through a reformed United Nations General Assembly (along with other international agencies and institutions) in a spirit of unity and solidarity, compromise and sacrifice, humility and generosity to make the necessary changes.
- The future of our children and the planet, our home, is at stake.
- We appeal to the United Nations and our Leaders to facilitate a better future where the strong support the vulnerable and the least important people matter.
- Insecurity anywhere threatens security everywhere.
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May the sacrifice and compromise made by millions of ordinary and extraordinary people during the pandemic not be in vain.
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