The world faces a range of serious threats — from exclusionary nationalism to great-power competition to growing inequality — that are preventing the international community from working together to solve other complex challenges, such as the distribution of Covid-19 vaccines and the accelerating pace of climate change. But global crises require global solutions, and with his highly anticipated report, Our Common Agenda, UN Secretary-General António Guterres has outlined a new vision for multilateral cooperation.
Written in response to the commitments endorsed at last year’s 75th UN General Assembly, Our Common Agenda is a clarion call for better and more inclusive global governance — the kind needed to build a greener, more equitable, and more secure future. Unusual in length, substance, and scope for a UN report, it offers a set of promising ideas for a bold, yet pragmatic, strategy for transformation.
Guterres’s recommendations place a premium on accelerating the implementation of existing international agreements, beginning with the 2015 Paris climate agreement and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Beyond these important initiatives to protect our global commons, establishing a new forum for managing them has become a moral and practical imperative. Guterres breaks new ground here by calling for the all-but-defunct UN Trusteeship Council to be repurposed to oversee the governance of the ocean, atmosphere, and outer space. This revitalised body also would be responsible for improving the delivery of public goods and responding to global threats.
Moreover, Guterres has endorsed Club de Madrid’s proposal for a World Social Summit in 2025 to examine the causes of rising poverty, take stock of the developments that have contributed to income disparity, and encourage policies needed to ensure a more equitable society. The discussions at the summit should build momentum for the full implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals and ensure that post-Covid economic development is broad-based and green.
A new global social contract to address poverty, growing inequality, and the worsening climate crisis will require the involvement of civil society, and Guterres is right to emphasise its role in achieving greater international solidarity. He also notes the need to support the growing contribution of citizens to collective action within and across borders. It is encouraging that Our Common Agenda proposes dedicated civil-society focal points within all UN entities.
But more is needed. Two recent civil-society initiatives — We The Peoples Call for Inclusive Global Governance and Together First — proposed a senior-level UN Civil Society Envoy, reporting directly to Guterres. Such a position would ensure harmonisation, high-level reporting, and even greater system-wide access for civil-society organisations in UN decision-making and programming.
Realising Guterres’s ambitious agenda for more inclusive, networked, and effective multilateralism requires an orchestrated strategy. The goal must be to rebuild and enhance citizens’ confidence in their common institutions, so that the global system can act more effectively on the major issues confronting the international community. Guterres’s initiative to convene a Summit of the Future at the start of the 78th General Assembly in September 2023 is a good start towards upgrading the global-governance architecture.
As part of the preparations for the summit, we support the secretary-general’s call for a high-level advisory board led by former heads of state or government.
Copy right: Project Syndicate 2021
