The world at a turning point. Will philanthropy rise to the task of the moment?

The world today stands on the edge of a precipice – faced with a confluence of severe crises including deepening poverty and inequality, a looming ecological disaster, heightened risk of nuclear warfare, recurring natural disasters and a sharp deterioration of civic and democratic rights.

At its 2023 global gathering, the World Economic Forum framed it as ‘a critical inflection point’, lamenting the ‘sheer number of ongoing crises’. In a recent statement, the IMF announced that one-third of the world economy is expected to be in recession in 2023, further adding that ‘it would feel like recession for hundreds of millions of people’, even for countries not in recession. Equally, the latest Global Report on Food Crisis highlights that the world is ‘facing hunger at an unprecedented scale’, and points to a worsening global food security situation driven by conflict, economic shocks, the covid-19 pandemic, and climate change-related events such as the recurring droughts and floods. This admission of crisis by the lords of the current global is stunning and ironically underscores the concerns that progressive voices have always voiced.

Nowhere is the impact of these severe multidimensional global crises greater than in Africa. Following years of misplaced structural adjustment policies, and an exploitative global economic order that results in illicit financial flows and net outflow of wealth from the continent as well as endemic corruption and sheer mismanagement of national resources, most African economies are facing very difficult conditions including fast-rising cost of living and widespread unemployment, especially among youth. The situation is made worse by a crippling new debt crisis – UNCTAD reports that more than 60 per cent of African countries are facing debt distress. With practically no social protection mechanisms in place, the conditions are dire for the most vulnerable and poor in society and create growing risks of social fragmentation and instability.

Amidst great uncertainty and deep crisis of the global socio-economic and political order, hope lies in the undying fighting spirit of progressive constituencies and activists who have continued to insist that alternative futures are possible, and relentlessly work to steer humanity towards a more just and sustainable society. History teaches us that moments of deep crisis as acute as the current global political moment are also moments that tear into pieces the existing global order and shatter long-held norms, and open up a contestation over the future of society – paving way for new thinking about vision, values, principles, systems, institutions and structures. Read more