It has become more polarized, both between countries and within countries. If present trends continue, the global economy will be gargantuan in its excesses and grotesque in its inequalities. Vast inequality would be the norm and instability and violence its accompaniment. A house divided against itself cannot stand. We cannot tolerate such a situation.
Equity needs to become a guiding principle for all our actions.
Equity combines the ideas of justice and of equal opportunity, of people coming out of poverty to share in the world's bounty, of becoming integral members of society. Equity demands jobs for all, it demands an end to mass poverty in our rich world, it demands economic growth for all and full choices for all. It is essential if our increasingly interdependent and interconnected world is to work. First, economic growth and equitable human development must move together in the long run. Human development cannot be sustained without growth, nor growth without human development.