The immediate past year is marked by many notable good and undesired events in the world. It is marked by the start of new normal conditions after two years of the devastation of the pandemic and economic recovery from the damages caused by the pandemic. People across countries fully re-engaged with their educational and business and other occupational activities thanks to the withdrawal of the lockdown. The full resumption of economic activities helped to recover from the pandemic-caused economic loss across countries. The world also saw the Qatar world cup football in 2022. But the year 2022 is also marked by many untoward or undesirable events including the Russia-Ukraine war that put significant challenges to the world.
The Russia-Ukraine war is undeniably the most significant event in the world in the immediate past year. But there were some other notable geo-political, economic, political and other events, some of which are related to the Russia-Ukraine war. Several notable happenings were growing tension between Russia and the west with increased possibility of third world war and nuclear attacks, global economic trouble, rising living costs in many countries including western countries and deepening humanitarian crisis. Also, political turmoil in several countries including Pakistan, months-long protests in Iran, increased attacks by Israel in Palestine, intensified climate change impacts (wifdfires, floods, droughts, heatwaves and snowfalls), the spread of the Omicron variant of Coronavirus and a growing US-China tension were several other significant happenings in the world in the last year.
Notably, each year goes with many good and untoward happenings and every new year comes with new hopes and prospects. But all undesirable events are not surprising and their causes vary across events and years, though there are overlaps. In 2022, many institutional failure-based, geopolitical, geo-economic and other causes played important roles in the untoward events in the world. But all the causes are not immediate rather some are persistent for years. The Russia-Ukraine war reflects diplomatic failure. Neither the diplomatic mechanism of the United Nations nor the efforts of global and regional powers were effective to prevent the war. But there were long geo-political rivalries and other causes too. Increased attacks by Israel are also because of long indifference to the resolution of the Israel-Palestine crisis.
Conflicts were the major cause of displacement and humanitarian crisis. While the Russia-Ukraine crisis created an unprecedented humanitarian crisis in Europe especially after Second World War, the rising gang violence in Haiti and conflicts in several countries led to increased displacement and humanitarian crisis. Of course, a lack of effective and desirable global cooperation leads to the failure to deal with untoward economic and other happenings in the world. Additionally, persistent corruption, mismanagement and other causes made it difficult to prevent undesirable happenings in many countries. For example, the economic crisis in Sri Lanka that later led to the political crisis was created by persistent mismanagement and erroneous policies, despite the pandemic contributed significantly to its economic collapse.
But institutional, diplomatic, cooperation based and other efforts were also taken to reduce tensions and mitigate challenges. Even if negligible, several diplomatic efforts were carried out to stop the Ukraine war before its beginning and mitigate the problem of exporting grains from Ukraine to curb the shortage of foods. Importantly, the leaders of Russia, the United States and Ukraine intended to talk about ending the war. Moreover, global cooperation helped to deal with the challenges of the Omicron variant in several countries. The COP27 Summit reached an agreement to provide the ‘loss and damage funds’ to those countries that are being heavily affected by climate change, despite their low emissions, to adapt. Also, global support in response to displacement was immense.
Consequently, there are hopes and prospects for better days. But to reduce the chance of the occurrences of many untoward happenings and minimize their effects, their causes need to be addressed with effective measures. Notably, it is difficult to end the possibility of wars completely but their chance and effects can be reduced with effective diplomatic measures and bilateral and multilateral talks. Increased global cooperation and strengthened institutions may significantly help to address many of the causes of undesirable happenings in the world, reduce their impacts and generate better outcomes in many countries. The desired role of law enforcement may also help to reduce many undesired happenings including gang violence and their impacts in many countries.
