Reclaiming a multilateralism that works: Global co-operation for a more equal, peaceful and sustainable world

The world is now more interconnected than ever – including through flows of goods, finance and people; technologically; environmentally; and through conflict. Current megatrends are international in nature: the triple planetary crises, inequality, rapid technological change, militarisation and conflict, demographic shifts, disease, and migration. Global problems require global solutions. The need for multilateral actions and solutions is clear. Collective action is necessary to manage shared risks, establish common rules and provide global public goods.

Multilateralism also matters because countries differ enormously in their economic, military and political power, in their technological capabilities, in the extent to which they are affected by climate change, and in their resilience to crises. Functional multilateralism can mitigate the extent to which the strongest states and the most powerful multinational corporations disproportionately determine outcomes. Multilateralism can help constrain the exercise of power, protect sovereignty and rights, and create space for countries to pursue their own development priorities.

Yet international co-operation is not inherently progressive. Some international institutions may reproduce and reinforce existing inequalities, and international agreements can constrain some countries more than others and can limit national sovereignty and prospects for development and catching up. The relevant question is therefore not whether multilateralism is desirable in the abstract, but whether its rules, institutions and outcomes support a more equitable distribution of power, resources and opportunities. Multilateralism should be judged not by whether countries co-operate per se, but by whether that cooperation advances international human rights, national sovereignty, equality, peace, development, environmental sustainability, and democratic participation.

Multilateralism faces various challenges in the current period. One is a crisis of credibility. Some may question the practical value of multilateralism when at least 74,370 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip and another 175,371 injured in the last three years (excluding deaths through starvation and disease), with United Nations Secretary General António Guterres in his opening remarks at the recent eighty-first session of the General Assembly deploring the “scale of killing and destruction” in Gaza. Global warming has not been halted, let alone reversed – the chance of holding global warming to below 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels with no or limited overshoot is now gone – and developing countries still lack the financial and technological resources needed for both mitigation and adaptation. Only 36 per cent of the 139 assessable SDG targets are either on track or making moderate progress, with 15 per cent actually having gone into reverse. The power and reach of private capital is becoming more pervasive, with what the Secretary General has recently described as “an extraordinary transfer of power away from Governments to a handful of private corporations and individuals [whose] reach now extends across politics, economies, information flows, technological development and the civic space on which societies depend”. And the multilateral system itself continues to grapple with structural inequalities in nations’ representation, influence and power. Even where there are challenges to the current efficacy of multilateralism, these are not arguments against multilateralism. Indeed, they underscore the need for more – and different – multilateralism.

Multilateralism is not just co-operation. It is worth recognising that international co-operation is a political arena in which competing interests and visions of development must be confronted. Multilateralism requires institutions that are more representative and accountable to all their member states, rules that are more equitable, in which a ‘rules-based international order’ is closer to the reality, balanced dispute resolution systems, and that can deliver meaningful improvements in people's lives. It also entails a recognition that countries have common but differentiated responsibilities in protecting the global commons and in the provision of global public goods.

It is not enough to defend multilateralism because it has served us in the past. Nor is it enough to respond to scepticism with another declaration of principles. The strongest case for multilateralism is whether it can help countries and societies solve problems they cannot solve alone. That means the UN system itself has to keep changing, as recognised in the UN@80 Initiative: becoming better at joining up expertise, working across institutional boundaries, learning faster and translating knowledge into action. UNU-MERIT has a role to play in that.

This blog – being published on United Nations Day, 24 October – brings to a close UNU-MERIT’s UN Day “Multilateralism at Work” blog series. This series has highlighted some diverse examples of UNU-MERIT’s multilateral collaborations. In Afghanistan, our partnership with UNICEF around the Mother and Child Cash Transfer programme shows why co-operation becomes more important when needs grow and resources become tighter. Research, programme implementation and community engagement each bring something different; together they can help improve how scarce resources are used. Our UNESCO Chair on Science, Technology and Innovation for Sustainable Development in Latin America shows something else: partnership cannot be reduced to transferring expertise from one place to another. Over several years, the Chair has combined research, training, policy advice and regional network-building. Its experience reinforces a principle that should matter across the multilateral system: capabilities are built through exchange, adaptation and learning, not imported as finished products. Our work with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) demonstrates the value of institutional complementarity. ITU brings global data, policy relationships and deep expertise in connectivity. UNU-MERIT brings research on technological, social and institutional change and the ability to translate that research into professional learning. The point is not that either institution can do everything. It is that together they can do something neither could do as effectively alone. And through the Global Knowledge Index, our collaboration with UNDP shows that even measurement can be a form of multilateralism. Good indicators do more than rank countries. They can create a common language for comparing experience, identifying weaknesses and opening conversations about different development pathways.

These examples of partnerships highlighted through this ‘Multilateralism at Work’ blog series are only part of UNU-MERIT’s contributions. Through our MSc in Public Policy and Human Development, we educate people who will work on many of the challenges confronting the multilateral system: migration, social protection, inequality, innovation, global governance and technological change. Our co-operation with institutions such as the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) brings that system directly into education, while student research brings new questions and perspectives back into it.

Through our capacity development activities, we work with policymakers and practitioners to make research usable. That matters because knowledge has limited value if institutions do not have the capability to interpret it, challenge it and act on it. Our research contributes to a wide-ranging knowledge base for multilateral approaches to topics including technological change, science policy, social protection, structural transformation, innovation, the just transition, migration, and industrialisation.

Multilateral institutions have helped to establish global standards, co-ordinate humanitarian responses and create frameworks for development and environmental protection. But multilateralism will not be renewed by defending the status quo. The task is not merely to save multilateralism as it exists. It is to transform it so that international co-operation becomes a more credible instrument for building just societies, within countries and across the world. This requires a more ambitious vision of multilateralism, and one that is fit for the current era. The Pact for the Future provides a critical reference point for this. Practically, multilateralism will also be renewed by making co-operation more useful, more responsive and more capable of delivering. UNU-MERIT seeks to strengthen our own contribution to this through our research, education and capacity development.