What can 2025 bring?

The 1920s, at least before the Wall Street Crash of 1929, are often known as the ‘Roaring Twenties’. The 2020s risk being remembered as the ‘Warring Twenties’, as conflict spreads and virtually circumvents the globe in its reach.

Many of the wars currently being fought are rooted in historic religious and nationalist divisions or can be attributed to bitter struggles over land and resources. All of this is compounded by the sharp effects of climate change and weak global leadership.  Looking ahead over the coming year it is hard to be optimistic; the United Nations is weak; the Secretary-General’s notorious cautiousness compounded by a divided Security Council. The wars in Ukraine and Sudan grind on remorselessly, while in Gaza, there is a consensus now that Israel is engaged in a genocide. The Palestinians, an occupied people since the Naqba, are being pulverized out of existence and no country is coming to their assistance. In fact, quite the reverse. In total, the United States spent $17.9 billion on military aid to Israel from October 2023 to October 2024, a record for a single year, as estimated by the Costs of War Project at Brown University. US taxpayers’ money is not only fuelling the arms industry it is levelling the very means for human existence in Gaza in front of our eyes.

Compounding these wars and conflicts is the failure of the post Second World War legal frameworks to halt the most egregious breaches of international law, human rights and the Geneva Conventions. Increasingly State actors don’t feel constrained and seem not to fear any real consequences. Each breach in the wall provides yet further precedents for others to follow. The levels of destruction and depravity in for instance Gaza, Sudan and eastern Congo has shocked even some of the most seasoned of humanitarian workers. And this is not forgetting that humanitarian workers have frequently become targets themselves.

The Sahel region continues to be plagued by instability and conflict, much of this indirectly arising from water shortages, desertification and de-forestation and often exploited by outside powers. And yet the gloom is not uniformly spread; most of the World is not at war, countries continue to develop and prosper. Progress continues, albeit sometimes haltingly towards a carbon free future. Increasingly those countries with strong civil societies and institutions and which focus on the well-being of their people, while avoiding being drawn into ruinous arms races and wars, are those that others often aspire to becoming. In this regard, Morocco, despite having many of the shared problems of all developing nations, is one such of these countries. And the stronger the institutions of civil society and democracy, the fairer the spread of power and wealth, the stronger and more influential countries such as these may become. 

*Mark Seddon is a former Speechwriter to UN Secretary-General Ban ki moon & former Adviser to the Office of the President of the UN General Assembly