The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the enormous fragility of our world and laid bare the risks and dangers we have ignored for decades: inadequate health systems; gaps in social protection; structural inequalities; systems built on accumulation with no respect for planetary limits or future generations.

 

On Nelson Mandela International Day, 18 July, UN Secretary-General António Guterres will deliver the 18th Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture  at 9:00 am EDT. 

 

In his speech “Tackling the Inequality Pandemic: A New Social Contract for a New Era”, the Secretary-General will take aim at the various layers of inequality that are being exposed and exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. He will outline the threat posed to our well-being and our future by historic injustices and current trends, from colonialism and patriarchy to racism and the digital divide, and make concrete recommendations for a more equitable, just and sustainable way forward in line with the Sustainable Development Goals.

 

The virtual event will feature the Secretary-General in New York and additional speakers in South Africa, including the President of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa, and Graça Machel, stateswoman, women and children’s rights advocate and wife of the late Nelson Mandela.

 

1:44:14 | Eng