As world leaders prepare to head to New York for the United Nations General Assembly and Climate Week, Democracy Now! speaks with Amitabh Behar, executive director of Oxfam International. “We live in a very different world from 1945,” when the U.N. was formed, says Behar. “You cannot continue with the veto power.” And with António Guterres soon stepping down, Behar stresses that the United Nations’ next secretary-general must be a woman — “a fundamental shift we need to make.”
He also argues that while the world is “torn apart” by inequality, “there are real possibilities of change.” Behar cites the G20’s International Panel on Inequality and “movements across the world” aimed at “changing regimes,” including in Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh and India.