Holy See advocates ‘novel forms of social accounting’ at UN

Oct 18, 2018

By Sr Bernadette Mary Reis, fsp
“Novel forms of social accounting” are needed so as not to replace old problems with new ones. These were some of the words Archbishop Bernardito Auza, the Holy See’s Permanent Observer to the UN, addressed on Wednesday to the 14th meeting of the Economic and Financial Committee during the UN’s 73rd General Assembly.

Holy See watches hopefully
The Holy See watches hopefully as governments work to implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development characterized by Pope Francis as “an important sign of hope”, Archbishop Auza said. He continued saying that uniting the economic, social and environmental dimensions of development is not easy since they have so often been considered separately.

Paradigm shift
The new paradigm proposed by the UN’s Sustainable Development agenda needs “a stronger bond” to overturn the old paradigm driven by commerce, the Archbishop said. To be fully human and integral, sustainable development needs to be constructed on the inherent dignity of the person.

Novel forms of social accounting
This paradigm needs what the Archbishop calls “novel forms of social accounting” so that new problems do not replace old ones, and so that goals are not reduced to statistics.--Vatican News