A Global Green New Deal for Economic Recovery: Addressing the Financial, Climate, Food, Jobs and Development Crises Together? (The Allama Iqbal Lecture)

These immortal lines from Allama Iqbal make me very humble standing before you today to deliver the Allama Iqbal lecture. Mr Chairman, Mr President, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, friends all,. thank you very much for this honour and opportunity to speak to you on a very difficult subject. I would like to emphasise that, thanks to Professor Naqvi, this is not the first time I am appearing before the Pakistan Society of Development Economists, but it certainly is the first time, thanks to Dr Rashid Amjad, I have been invited to give this very distinguished lecture. Both men are very distinguished in their own right; they are people whom I have greatly respected over the years. Professor Naqvi’s contributions, particularly on ethics and economics, and the challenge of rethinking Islam reminds me of Allama Iqbal’s Reconstruction of Islamic Thought and the relevance of it for the challenges facing the world today, as highlighted by Professor Saith’s lecture yesterday. The lines from Iqbal that I began with are very relevant, of course, to the whole question of inequality. I met Dr Rashid Amjad about three decades ago in the context of his work at the ILO. Over the decades, he provided sterling leadership in very different and changing circumstances. In a sense, it is his absence from the ILO today that is particularly felt because we face a very unique situation in the world today where, unfortunately, various forces seem to have successfully conspired to prevent a strong economic recovery. This is the subject of the lecture I would like to deliver.