It’s a show of humanity if the world – countries and peoples – come together to address shared challenges. But international intervention should be second-level responsibility.
The ultimate responsibility, however, of addressing immediate challenges lies with individual governments. Leaders supposedly elected on development platforms, of rarely realised promises of a turnaround, run these governments.
Any other umbrella plea, to the international community, for a fairer world is an excuse to escape leadership responsibilities to tax-burdened citizens of the ‘Global South’.
Easy references to the ‘Global North’, which has exploited the vulnerable ‘Global South’ for centuries, are a fact. But it is not the only truth that needs to be addressed to restructure the social and economic order in aggrieved countries.
People see the world through local communities. The welfare of these communities is the business of national governments. Anything else is no less than perennial hunt for scapegoats.
The neglect of pastoral communities in Baringo county cannot be blamed on skewed multilateralism. President Daniel arap Moi reigned for 24 years. He was also part of the post-independence system for 11 years as vice president. These regimes promised to exterminate disease, ignorance and poverty.
But the second President lacked the patriotism to address the priorities, even of his home county. He should have looked in, even as he presided over the entire country, where politics and self-perpetuation were priorities. That is the brutal history of national negligence.
The pain of indigenous communities like the Ogiek cannot be blamed on callous international systems in Washington that favour the Global North. Traditional systems of the Ogiek were exploited under the watch of a national presidency. The system inherited colonial structures that abetted exploitative partial practices.
The false start of the Jomo Kenyatta presidency created excuses that run across regimes during 60 years of self-rule. Each successive regime blames the preceding one.
There is no accountability. There is no compulsion to right the wrongs of yesterday. Historical injustices accumulate, as victims of impunity are impoverished and dehumanised.
Turkana or Baringo, other parts of rural Kenya, and urban slums show how the other Kenya struggles to survive amidst excruciating poverty.
The plight of the Maasai cannot be blamed on unfair lending rates of the Bretton Wood institutions—the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. You can ride a horse only with the complicity of the beast, or a training that favours the rider.
The running invasion of the Mau Forest has ensured there would be no ice on the mountains. The effect is drought or perennial water scarcity in the Maasai plains. When there is no ice in the mountains, there can be no water in the plains.
The destruction of local water towers cannot be blamed on the failure of the United Nations Conference of Parties to enforce realisation of climate justice. It is the responsibility of national governments to enforce respect for the sanctity of the ecosystem.
National security systems allowed the crisis to spiral out of control. Now, nearly every challenge, including the plummeting value of the local currency, and rising fuel prices, is blamed on climate change, the Ukraine-Russia war and Covid-19.
We added fuel to the fires. Now we are pleading with the ‘Global North’ to help us put out the inferno. The Global South deferred action, now it’s demanding reparations from the Global North.
This was the motif in nearly every speech of leaders from the Global South during the 78th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, which closed yesterday.
The trendy parlance is to overemphasise the contribution of skewed ‘multilateralism’ to global disparities. But this can sometimes be a deliberate attempt to share blame for crises that national governments should address.
To be sure, multilateralism offers an international framework for solving gigantic global problems, but it may divert the attention of national governments from doing their homework — at home.
National governments should take responsibility, and show commitment to solving national challenges, before pleading with the Global North or blaming skewed multilateral systems that favour developed countries.
The new trajectory should align national priorities with prudent use of national means: Take tax or borrowed money where it is most needed.
Sometimes national challenges can seem so intractable that meaningful interventions seem impossible. But what if the answer has been right in front of us all along? What if the answer is actually throwing money at addressing national priorities?
