The 2017 High Level Political Forum addresses the theme “Eradicating poverty and promoting prosperity in a changing world,” an imperative that is also a prerequisite for sustainable peace. Achieving these aims will not be possible unless the structural and systemic barriers to achievement – and root causes of exploitation and degradation of the environment – are addressed. Current neoliberal macroeconomic policy is a major driver of unequal distribution of wealth and power and the destruction of natural resources, and must be reconsidered and replaced. Notions of development based entirely on economic growth present a myopic view of progress and must be discarded, and corporations must be held to account for their social and environmental records. We call for a new development paradigm which furthers the well-being of humans, nature and animals, and which sees as its ultimate aim the achievement of equity and justice, to “leave no one behind.”
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