XIA Lu: Why We Need the Global Development Initiative Today

In September 2021, Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed the Global Development Initiative (GDI) at the United Nations General Assembly, attracting worldwide attention and a warm response, particularly from developing economies.

In June 2022, Xi hosted a high-level dialogue on global development in Beijing, calling for joint efforts to foster a new development paradigm featuring benefits for all, balance, coordination, inclusiveness, win-win cooperation and common prosperity.

The world today is facing serious challenges, not only in economic and financial fields, but also in social, political, cultural, and ecological dimensions. With this in mind, Xi told the first Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in May 2017 that the world faces "three deficits": deficit of peace, development and governance. In March 2019, he added a fourth deficit, the deficit of trust.

Although the four deficits are correlated, the development deficit has become more serious and urgent in both developed, developing, and underdeveloped economies. There are several reasons for this. The momentum of global development is insufficient. The dividends of growth brought by the previous waves of scientific and technological revolutions have been exhausted and there is a shortage of a driving force for development.

Also, the present global growth is not enough. After the Great Recession in 2008, the growth of the global economy, especially in developed countries, has slowed or even stagnated, resulting in insufficient growth.

In June 2024, the World Bank released the latest Global Economic Prospects report, saying that despite an improvement in near-term prospects, the global outlook remains subdued by historical standards. The report also predicts that in 2024-2025, growth is set to underperform its 2010s average in nearly 60 percent of countries and economies, which account for over 80 percent of the global population.

In addition, there is significant imbalance in global development. As globalization deepens, the development gap between different groups and countries has widened. This has led to populism and protectionism in certain countries, and thus to the intensification of deglobalization trends.

In addition, there is also imbalance in individual development, and the gap between the rich and the poor in the world is widening. Earlier this year, the UN Human Development Report warned that the world's unbalanced development process is further leaving the poorest behind, not only exacerbating inequalities, but also creating greater political polarization on a global scale. It stressed that development could come to a dangerous impasse as a consequence.

Can we deal with these challenges? We can and one practicable way is to implement the GDI, steering global development to a new stage of balanced, coordinated and inclusive growth.

An important public good provided by China to the world, the GDI is an effective platform for all parties to align their development policies and deepen practical cooperation, displaying the important characteristics of commonality, cooperation, inclusiveness and innovation.

Although different economies have different national conditions and levels of development, they all face some common challenges that are not limited by national borders. And the solutions require the joint efforts of international organizations, governments, corporations, non-governmental organizations, and other actors. Achieving inclusive development for all is the fundamental way to address inequality and eliminate the root of different kinds of conflict.

The GDI has brought people and people's need to the center of development by focusing on key issues such as poverty reduction, food security, climate change and green development.

It bears the legacy of the excellent traditional Chinese culture, focuses on mutual learning with advanced economies, and stresses that the principle of development is inclusive. In the face of crises, we must work together, coexist in harmony and continue to move towards building a community with a shared future.

A Chinese expert introduces desert plants to people from different countries at a desert research station in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, June 13, 2023. /Xinhua

Source: CGTN