Nations Should Boldly Redefine Development Approach

[Gene Leon is Executive Director of the Development Bank for Resilient Prosperity and former director of the Caribbean Development Bank.

Sarah Saadoun is a senior economic development and rights researcher at Human Rights Watch.]

The G-20, a group of nations that account for 80 percent of global GDP and two-thirds of the world’s population, met in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in mid-November amid grave economic and environmental challenges. The world is blowing past limits on greenhouse gas emissions set by the Paris Agreement (as well as other planetary boundary thresholds on biodiversity and land use), and progress in reaching the Sustainable Development Goals, a global plan adopted by United Nations member countries in 2015 to improve global well-being and environmental protection, is badly faltering.

Recognizing the seriousness of these challenges, Brazil, as the current G-20 president, made sustainable development and a just transition to environmentally sustainable economies the focus of the summit. The Leaders’ Declaration that emerged offers some key achievements that South Africa can build on as the upcoming G-20 president to support global efforts for systemic economic reforms.

In unusually strong language, the G-20 declaration from the Brazil meeting recognizes that “inequality within and among countries is at the root of most global challenges that we face and is aggravated by them.” It also proposes avenues to address this. In particular, it recognizes the importance of progressive taxation, including efforts to tax ultra-high-net-worth individuals. Such taxes could generate hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue annually, to fund fulfillment of economic and social rights such as those to education, health care, and social security. 

The declaration also mentions just transition and promises to accelerate the reform of the international financial architecture.

These are steps in the right direction, but the emphasis on extreme inequality as a root cause of global challenges holds the potential for a more integrated approach that supports bold, systems-based reforms. What is needed is a paradigm shift in how we measure development and economic progress. Human rights should be at the heart of economic policymaking and the sustainability of our planet should be valued over outdated metrics of progress. Poverty and global inequalities, ecological collapse, and fractured global governance are not separate issues; they are symptoms of a system in crisis. 

The relentless rise of extreme inequality has helped pushed more and more people to the margins of economic systems and into poverty, where they are denied enjoyment not only of their economic and social rights but are more vulnerable to having all their rights violated. This happens not because there is not enough wealth or resources, but because at the same time as people are pushed into poverty, a larger percentage of growing wealth is concentrated in a small percentage of the global population. Recognition in the G-20 declaration of the harm this does can be understood as an implicit rebuke of a development model that has long focused on narrow economic measures such as a GDP growth, while neglecting to ensure that resources are being used equitably and for the realization of human rights and the protection of the environment.  

Human rights are more than ethical imperatives and legal obligations. From fairness and equity to security and well-being, human rights create the conditions for resilient and thriving societies. When people are free from discrimination, can access education and health care, and are shielded from exploitation, they are in a position to contribute to and benefit from economic systems.

But the stark data of how far short the world is falling in realizing these rights underscore the failure of a development model that prioritizes short-term growth over long-term resilience, that inadequately measures the total cost of economic activity, and that skews incentives toward financial return instead of contributions to the sustainability of the planet. 

The World Bank estimates that nearly 10 percent of the world’s population—700 million people—live on less than US$2.15 a day, and billions struggle with stagnant wages and rising costs. At the same time, the wealth of the richest 1 percent grows exponentially, capturing 63 percent of all new wealth created in the last two years, according to Oxfam.

G20 countries are responsible for roughly three-quarters of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. Overall emissions for the G20 (excluding the African Union for this calculation) rose 1.8 percent in 2023 over the previous year. While the G20 has affirmed its commitment to the 1.5°C temperature goal set by the Paris Agreement and urged all countries to align their national plans to that target, no G20 government has yet achieved this. 

The World Health Organization estimates that more than half of the world’s population was not fully covered by essential health services in 2021. This systemic failure to prioritize access to health care produced out-of-pocket costs that pushed 344 million people into extreme poverty and caused financial hardship for over a billion more in 2019. 

The piecemeal fixes often offered across the globe—rescue packages, restructuring loans—fail to reduce the high vulnerability and low resilience capacity of many countries’ economies, locking them into cycles of debt and despair. 

An alternative approach anchored in human rights, including the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment and the right to development, can break these cycles. This systemic view is being promoted not only by the movements for climate justice and human rights, but is also increasingly being adopted by development institutions such as the Development Bank for Resilient Prosperity (DBRP), a recently established financial institution dedicated to Small Island Developing States, which understands the Earth as a dynamic, interconnected system.

A systems approach provides a practical and philosophical foundation for integrating human rights into global development. This framework views global development as a dynamic structure in which interconnected economic, social, and ecological systems need to remain in balance to ensure stability. The system ensures that no single aspect of development is pursued at the expense of others.

For example, a systems approach advocates policies that allocate resources not just efficiently but equitably. It also insists that multilateral institutions should reflect fairness and equity, giving greater voice to lower-income countries in the IMF and World Bank aligns governance structures with the principles of participatory rights and justice.

One of the most significant barriers to change is the persistent use of GDP as the primary measure of development success. Yet GDP fails to account for the degradation of natural resources, inequality that may arise, or the social costs of development. From a systems perspective, the underestimate of total cost fosters incentives that lead to overexploitation of nature and eventual violation of stability-generating planetary boundaries. 

The United Nations “Pact for the Future,” adopted by UN member states, calls for alternative indicators that “complement or go beyond GDP” to capture broader dimensions of healthy economies. The G-20 should contribute to supporting and accelerating the adoption of new metrics, following the lead by the UN. This will provide a clearer picture of progress and guide policy toward sustainable outcomes.

At its core, this is not just a policy debate—it is a moral reckoning. Human rights and a healthy planet are not luxuries; they are prerequisites for a livable future. The failure to address global inequities and environmental degradation undermines the foundations of global prosperity, fueling conflict, and instability. The future of humanity depends on the decisions made today.

South Africa’s G-20 presidency, set to follow in November 2025, will offer an opportunity to continue exploring these areas. Coupled with Brazil’s leadership at COP30 in 2025, these platforms could be used to champion a just transition—one that ensures the costs of decarbonization or overall sustainability of the planet are aligned with the principles of justice and sustainability and not borne disproportionately by the world’s poorest.

The G-20 should rise to the opportunity to act boldly and decisively in a paradigm shift to align development with human rights and ecological sustainability. The stakes could not be higher. By embracing a systems approach, especially at institutions within the global financial architecture, the G-20 can support the world toward a new paradigm—one where development serves people and planet alike, one where resources are equitably shared, ecosystems are protected, and human rights prevail.