Across the world we face enormous shared challenges. These include the threat of resurgent killer infectious diseases, the risk of major disasters, and the need for cheap renewable energy technology.
No country can face them alone, and no few countries should monopolize the response.
Global public investment is how such shared challenges can be overcome. Working together is the way we can tackle shared risks and maximize shared rewards.
Global public investment works by pooling efforts: all benefit, all contribute, and all decide.
Everyone plays their part in meeting a common need from which everyone gains, and everyone steers those efforts together.
This is not charity—it is collective self-interest.
Collectively, yes we can. In fact, we can’t afford not to make them. These investments will ultimately save money.
Countries are already putting resources into disaster preparedness, research for medicines, and renewable energy technology, but too often, they operate in isolation or even competition with one another. With global challenges, cooperation is always a more effective strategy.
Of course, not all countries would pay the same amount. Just as within a country we all contribute through taxes to shared services from which we all benefit, international contributions would be scaled to each country’s means. From this pooling of resources, everyone wins out.
Global challenges are complex, and no single measure will suffice. Alongside global public investment in shared challenges and opportunities, we also need to take other urgent steps, including addressing the global debt crisis and stepping up international cooperation to prevent tax avoidance. This era of “polycrisis” can only be resolved through “poly-action.”
Countries in the Global South are at the forefront of advocating for global public investment.
Colombia, championing reforms to make the international financial system more equitable and inclusive, has declared itself “very much aligned with the global public investment approach.”
Chile has called on the world “to be creative and ambitious. Crucial will be a significant increase in public money, that cannot be managed as we managed it in the last century. Governance in the 21st century needs to be representative and effective. Chile supports the development of global public investment.”
South Africa’s leadership of the G20’s Development Working Group has named “global public goods and global public investment” as its number one priority, “aimed at the construction of a new architecture of international cooperation, based on three precepts: all contribute according to their means, all benefit according to their needs, and all decide equitably”.
This call from the South is also winning support amongst forward-thinking countries in the North. “A new system geared toward solving truly common problems must be based on equitable relationships between countries,” says Norway’s Norad agency. “Global public investment is the closest thing to a shared vision for the transformation of international development.”
Over fifty civil society organisations are also backing the call for global public investment, including the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition, Southern Voice, Civicus, and Global Citizen. For a list of some of the organisations involved click here.
The call for global public investment is backed too by international experts including Mariana Mazzucato, Winnie Byanyima, Jayati Ghosh, Helen Clark, and Thomas Piketty. To read some expert calls for global public investment click here.
Together, experts, organizations, and governments have been building plans for the global public investment approach for over a decade, and support and momentum have continued to grow.
Your voice is vital.
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