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Global Public Goods One might side with Adam Smith in focusing the state, as the provider of public goods, on a few areas: maintaining the money supply,
enforcing property rights, promoting competitive markets, providing national defence and administering justice. Or one might assert that people-centred societies call for a wide range of publicly supplied goods, from
social security, health services and student aid to public transportation, national parks and food stamps. But whatever position one takes in the debate, it is widely understood that national public goods and services
are fundamental to people's well-being and that governments and markets must work together to provide them. This book takes the concept of public goods across the national frontier. In doing so, it
transforms the dimensions of the debate and elevates the concept to a new and urgent plane of importance. The authors start with the observation that, in many areas of public policy, what were once considered to be
purely national issues now spill across borders and are global in reach and impact. They suggest that a globalizing world requires a theory of global public goods to achieve crucial goals such as financial stability,
human security or the reduction of environmental pollution. Indeed, they point out that many of today's international crises have their roots in a serious undersupply of global public goods. Consider,
for example, the case of global human security. Early in this emerging discussion, the 1994 Human Development Report analysed threats to world peace in terms of a series of transborder challenges: unchecked population
growth, disparities in economic opportunities, environmental degradation, excessive international migration, narcotics production and trafficking and international terrorism. The report argued that the world needs a new
framework for international cooperation to deal with global threats of this kind. That argument remains sharply relevant today, as we reflect on how best to address a range of international public policy issues-from
human rights and health to labour and the environment. A theory of global public goods would be an essential part of such a new framework, providing a new motivation for a different type of development assistance. After all, society has always been willing to spend money on national public goods. We should be equally willing to pay for global goods that serve our common interest, be they shared systems of
environmental controls, the destruction of nuclear weapons, the control of transmittable diseases such as malaria and HIV/AIDS, the prevention of ethnic conflicts or the reduction of refugee flows. And we should be
prepared to finance such goods through innovative mechanisms based on the principles of reciprocity and collective responsibility, principles that go beyond the concept of official development assistance (ODA). Of course, we still need ODA, reformed and redirected. Its chief purpose should be to help eradicate extreme poverty through sustainable human development. In fact, with the wealthiest 20% of humanity now
as much as 135 times richer than the poorest 20%, and with poverty spreading in all societies, but especially in developing countries, there is an urgent need to increase the level of ODA. But poverty
cannot be stopped if we do not have peace or financial stability or environmental security. Sustainable human development cannot be achieved if we do not prevent conflicts, manage markets wisely or reverse the depletion
of soils, energy, fresh water and clean air. Equity within and between generations is not feasible without an international system for identifying and apportioning environmental costs, for dealing with the destabilizing
effects of weak financial architecture or for helping people everywhere to benefit from the accumulated stock of global knowledge. The responsibility for and the origins and effects of such challenges transcend national
borders. Beyond ODA, we therefore need a new form of international cooperation that embraces trade, debt, investment, financial flows and technology, and that includes payments and incentives to countries to ensure an
adequate supply of global public goods. Some ideas on how such a system might be built and financed can be found in this volume. I expect this book to lend fresh momentum to the debate on the future of
international cooperation in the new millennium. It is a book that deserves to be read closely and discussed vigorously by all who have a stake in that future. In a globalizing, increasingly interdependent world, this
implies a wide readership indeed. We all stand to benefit enormously from a world that places people at its centre and delivers equity, sustainability and peace for generations to come.
James Gustave Speth
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