Gordon Brown - Seven Ways to Change the World: How To Fix The Most Pressing Problems We Face

Gordon Brown

Seven Ways to Change the World

How To Fix The Most Pressing Problems We Face

Some serious solutions to some very serious problems. Inspiring, readable and so great to feel that, in Gordon Brown, theres a proper, big-brained adult in the room.

David Schneider, actor and writer

Particularly important and shown in the pages of this book is Gordon Browns commitment to international cooperation and the role of international institutions.

Ban Ki-moon, Former Secretary-General of the United Nations

Gordon Brown draws on his unparalleled experience to show us how international cooperation is the only way to solve the challenges of our societies, economies and environment. Every chapter is brimming with ideas and insight and will leave you feeling inspired to change the world.

Baroness Minouche Shafik, Director of the London School of Economics and author of What We Owe Each Other: A New Social Contract

In the face of so many assaults on the truth that all countries depend on each other, it has never been more vital to fight back and assert the imperative of finding global answers to global problems. Gordon Brown does so with passion, clarity and an invigorating combination of urgency with thoughtfulness, of alarm about the threats with confidence that we can indeed meet them. This is a book that will galvanise and give heart to the struggle for a sustainable, just and peaceful future.

Fintan OToole, author

Gordon Brown highlights the global challenges our generation must meet and makes the case for the global cooperation we urgently need.

Graa Machel, Founder, Graa Machel Trust

Ive seen the great work Gordon Brown has done on financing education in the worlds poorest countries. Now that he turns his mind to other pressing global issues to find solutions that could bring genuine change to the world, Im going to pay attention. Im going to read. And hope.

Jo Nesb, author

Gordon Browns wisdom, integrity and passion make him an essential voice for us all to heed, and to give us hope, in these unchartered times.

David Tennant, actor

Gordon Brown is one of the last grown-up, truly committed politicians dedicated to public service, putting those he served needs before his own always. With this book he helps us envisage a brighter future towards which we can all make a contribution and as ever, Brown seeks to steer us towards a better world shaped by our better selves.

Arabella Weir, actor and comedian

First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2021

Copyright Gordon Brown, 2021

The right of Gordon Brown to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

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The author and publishers have made all reasonable efforts to contact copyright-holders for permission, and apologise for any omissions or errors in the form of credits given. Corrections may be made to future printings.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Hardback ISBN: 978-1-3985-0361-8

eBook ISBN: 978-1-3985-0362-5

To my brothers John and Andrew.

All Gordon Browns proceeds from this book will go to the Jennifer Brown Research Laboratory and Theirworld childrens charity.

Why have hundreds of thousands of lives been needlessly lost during the pandemic through a lack of equipment, medicine and vaccines?

Why does a sword of Damocles hang over the global economy, which is under constant threat of financial crises and suffering pitifully low growth?

Why, despite the genius of the worlds best scientists, are we struggling to halt climate change?

Why, in 2021, are there still 260 million school-age boys and girls who will not be in education even after the pandemic is finally over?

Why are our promises to end extreme poverty and avoidable infant and maternal mortality being betrayed?

Why cant we collect taxes from some of the worlds wealthiest people and companies, instead of standing by as they hide their fortunes in tax havens?

And why is there a new nuclear arms race under way, with half a dozen countries threatening to become nuclear-weapon powers?

None of these questions is easy to answer and to do so involves an intensive search for information and complex judgements but they all have one characteristic in common: they are global problems that need global solutions. None can be resolved by one country, organisation or leader on their own. None can be solved without a degree of cooperation between nations.

But for the most part, this does not happen, and when it does, it is insufficient. There is a mismatch between the global nature of the problems we face and our capacity or willingness to resolve them as a global community. Instead, we continue to work within a predominantly national framework.

The result is that families go hungry, children go uneducated, men and women go without work, taxes that could fund our public services are not paid, our environment deteriorates, people die of disease, and nuclear weapons with the power to destroy our entire planet grow in number, with proliferation and escalation an ever-present threat.

Nothing has brought this home to me more than the avoidable waste of human lives as a result of our collective failure to prevent, control and overcome the COVID-19 pandemic. We were ill-prepared for the onslaught of the virus not because we lacked expert doctors, scientists or academics, nor because there was no manufacturing capacity to produce the treatments and cures, but because over many years we have failed to get our act together: no early warning systems worth their name; no adequate exchange of information between countries; no proper monitoring; no obligations on states to take remedial action; no sufficiently large reserves of drugs or even protective equipment; and no agreement on how we share the burden of paying for what we desperately need from ventilators to vaccines. And so this book started with a set of questions that I felt that, after more than forty years in public life, I needed to investigate and try to answer. I wanted to understand why, in the face of such glaring need, national governments seemed so ineffective and international institutions seemed so powerless to act. And what, through practical measures, we could do about this state of affairs.

How we organise ourselves as an international community is not an abstract question to be dealt with only by diplomats and lawyers, it is of immediate and pressing relevance to all of us. Even as vaccination protects lives from the effects of the disease, we still face a common virus and a common recession. As I write, each country is having its own domestic debate on recovery and what we do next; unsurprisingly, there are common themes that emerge, and instead of debates in America that are America-centric, in Europe that are Euro-centric and in Asia that are Asia-centric it makes sense to consider whether problems common to us all call for similar responses and shared solutions. I want to bring leaders to an understanding that they need to think global.