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STORY: UN / GUTERRES END OF YEAR PRESSER
TRT: 03:07
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 16 DECEMBER 2021, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
RECENT – NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, exterior, United Nations Headquarters
16 DECEMBER 2021, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, press conference room, Secretary-General António Guterres on screen
3. SOUNDBITE (English) António Guterres, Secretary-General, United Nations:
“COVID-19 is not going away. It is becoming clear that vaccines alone will not eradicate the pandemic. Vaccines are averting hospitalization and death for the majority who get them and slowing the spread. But transmissions show no sign of letting up. This is driven by vaccine inequity, hesitancy and complacency.”
RECENT – NEW YORK CITY
4. Wide shot, exterior, United Nations Headquarters
16 DECEMBER 2021, NEW YORK CITY
5. SOUNDBITE (English) António Guterres, Secretary-General, United Nations:
“At current rates, Africa will not meet the 70 percent threshold until August 2024. Vaccine inequity is giving variants a free pass to run wild — ravaging the health of people and economies in every corner of the globe. We cannot defeat the pandemic in an uncoordinated way.”
RECENT – NEW YORK CITY
6. Wide shot, exterior, United Nations Headquarters
16 DECEMBER 2021, NEW YORK CITY
7. SOUNDBITE (English) António Guterres, Secretary-General, United Nations:
“Inflation here in the United States and in many other countries has risen to a 40-year high and we see it growing elsewhere. As the US Federal Reserve indicated just yesterday, interest rates will rise with it – and that will place even greater fiscal constraints on the countries that need help the most. Defaults will become inevitable for lower income countries that already bear much higher borrowing costs. The need to service an ever-mounting and more expensive debt will leave developing countries with little fiscal space for recovery, job creation, climate action, reimagining education and reskilling and training workers, and so much more.”
RECENT – NEW YORK CITY
8. Wide shot, exterior, United Nations Headquarters
16 DECEMBER 2021, NEW YORK CITY
9. SOUNDBITE (English) António Guterres, Secretary-General, United Nations:
“It is time to clearly assume the need for reform of the international financial system. Everything I have described today reveals two governance failures that are also two moral failures. We have a serious governance problem with respect to the prevention, detection, and response to pandemics. And we have a serious governance problem in relation to the international financial system.”
RECENT – NEW YORK CITY
10. Wide shot, exterior, United Nations Headquarters
16 DECEMBER 2021, NEW YORK CITY
11. SOUNDBITE (English) António Guterres, Secretary-General, United Nations:
“I think things are getting so bad; things are getting so nasty in relation to the pandemic, in relation to the dramatic injustice from the economic and financial side, and in relation to the climate situation that my hope is that people will finally understand that the only way to be an egoist intelligence is to be in solidarity; not to be in solidarity is a stupid form of egoism.”
12. Wide shot, press conference room
Secretary-General António Guterres today (16 Dec) said “COVID-19 is not going away," and stressed that the world “cannot defeat a pandemic in an uncoordinated way.”
The Secretary-General said “it is becoming clear that vaccines alone will not eradicate the pandemic. Vaccines are averting hospitalization and death for the majority who get them and slowing the spread. But transmissions show no sign of letting up. This is driven by vaccine inequity, hesitancy and complacency.”
Just days from the deadline, 98 countries have not been able to meet that end-of-year target established by the World Health Organization (WHO) to vaccinate 40 percent of the world’s population by the end of the year, and many will not reach the goal of vaccinating 70 percent of people by the middle of 2022.
Guterres said, “at current rates, Africa will not meet the 70 percent threshold until August 2024. Vaccine inequity is giving variants a free pass to run wild — ravaging the health of people and economies in every corner of the globe.”
The Secretary-General also denounced lopsided recovery efforts, that are accelerating inequalities and increasing stresses on economies and societies.
With inflation rising to a 40-year high in the United States “and growing elsewhere,” Guterres said he expects interest rates to rise, placing “even greater fiscal constraints on the countries that need help the most.”
He said, “defaults will become inevitable for lower income countries that already bear much higher borrowing costs.”
The need to service an ever mounting and more expensive debt, he warned, “will leave developing countries with little fiscal space for recovery, job creation, climate action, reimagining education and reskilling and training workers, and so much more.”
Because of that, he argued, “it is time to clearly assume the need for reform of the international financial system.”
Speaking about the response to the pandemic and the international financial system, the Secretary-General argued that they reveal governance failures that are also moral failures.
He said, “we have a serious governance problem with respect to the prevention, detection, and response to pandemics. And we have a serious governance problem in relation to the international financial system.”
Responding to a question from a reporter, Guterres said, “things are getting so bad; things are getting so nasty in relation to the pandemic, in relation to the dramatic injustice from the economic and financial side, and in relation to the climate situation that my hope is that people will finally understand that the only way to be an egoist intelligence is to be in solidarity; not to be in solidarity is a stupid form of egoism.”
The UN chief mentioned his last visit of the year, that will take him this Saturday to Lebanon.
