Recently this year, I had the honour of being the invited speaker at the Mayor’s UN Day dinner in Kansas City, Missouri, the oldest such event in the United States. What follows below is an adapted version of my remarks.
For the event, I was asked to respond to the question: “At 79, is the United Nations still fit for purpose?” For anyone expecting a yes or no answer, I fear that you will be disappointed. I approach the question by separating the concept of the United Nations from how the Organization fulfils the role envisaged in that concept today.
If we define multilateralism as adherence to a common political project based on respect for a shared system of norms, rules, values and founding principles, such as consultation, inclusion and solidarity, then the United Nations would be the ultimate home of multilateralism. With the widest membership of any intergovernmental organization and the sovereign equality of its Member States, the United Nations remains the most successful political creation in recent history. That idea will always be fit for purpose.
No country in the world can deal with global challenges alone. Countries large and small need a framework of cooperation to address such problems as the negative effects of climate change; threats caused by pandemics, transnational organized crime, terrorism and large displacements of people; and anxiety and uncertainty about new technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI).
At the time of its founding 79 years ago, the United Nations was made up of 51 Member States, and the world’s population stood at . Today, there are 193 Member States and two Observer States: the State of Palestine and the Holy See. The global population is now 8 billion.
By the end of this century, the United Nations projects that the world’s population will stabilize at around 10.4 billion, (38 per cent), up from 1.4 billion today (17.5 per cent). The populations of Europe and the Americas will, for the most part, remain as they are today, while several countries will experience shrinking populations with a higher proportion of older people.
Gender equality, sustainability and human rights were alien concepts at the end of the Second World War.
Decolonization, a process that was facilitated by the United Nations, allowed former colonies that were exploited under colonial rule to join the club of independent States, mostly in the 1950s and 1960s. But the development of such countries has been stifled by the legacy of colonialism and geopolitical tensions during and after the cold war. Many of these nations have been held back by interference in their internal affairs by former colonial powers, foreign control of the exploitation of resources, corruption, internal conflict, etc. Other factors include debt and interest payments that often far exceed what these countries can spend on health, education and infrastructure combined. The international financial system in its current form is unable to address this legacy.
In 1945, not a single artificial satellite orbited earth. The first satellite was launched in 1957, and the first human was not sent into space until 1961. According to the , there are currently more than 13,700 objects orbiting the Earth.
At the end of the Second World War, there was no Internet, no mobile phones, social media or AI. Today, most of us live a parallel life on digital platforms and rely on digital technologies for most of our communications, financial transactions, entertainment, news and more. Yet none of that is regulated in a way that safeguards our privacy, human rights, free speech distinct from hate speech, or mis- and disinformation. AI technologies have great potential, but there are no guardrails in place to guarantee that they do not become a threat to our very existence.
Gender equality, sustainability and human rights were alien concepts at the end of the Second World War. In most countries, women did not have the right to vote or to hold political office, and in some cases, they were not seen as equal members of society. Human rights were not recognized as a universal value. Across the world, literacy, life expectancy, maternal health and child mortality were much lower than they are today. But over the years, inequality has increased between States and within them. In a rapidly changing world, many have observed that global governance has not kept pace in adjusting to new realities.
In the (the UN75 Declaration), Member States recognized that the world has changed. In the Declaration, which was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 21 September 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Member States pledged to strengthen global governance for present and future generations. They requested the United Nations Secretary-General to report back with recommendations to respond to current and future challenges.
In September 2021, Secretary-General António Guterres responded with his report, Our Common Agenda, a wake-up call to speed up the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and advance the commitments contained in the UN75 Declaration. Our Common Agenda addressed the gaps that had emerged since 2015, the year the 17 SDGs were adopted. It called for inclusive, networked and more effective multilateralism to better deliver for people and planet, and to get us back on track to achieving the SDGs by 2030. In addition to setting out possible solutions, Our Common Agenda called for a Summit of the Future to forge a new global consensus on how humanity could ready itself for a future rife with risks that differed from those of previous decades, and how it could best tap into new opportunities created by technologies such as AI and more.
After almost two years of negotiations, Member States met at the Summit of the Future in New York on 22 and 23 September 2024 and adopted the Pact for the Future, which includes the Global Digital Compact and the Declaration on Future Generations. The Pact for the Future covers a broad range of themes, including peace and security, sustainable development, climate change, digital cooperation, human rights, gender, youth and future generations, and the transformation of global governance. Now comes the hard work of implementation and ensuring that leaders follow through on these commitments and pledges.
There is wide recognition among Member States that the United Nations needs to be nimbler and faster in responding to the world’s biggest problems, and that it needs to be more inclusive, meaningfully bringing in voices from civil society, the private sector and academia.
The true strength of the work we do is in how it positively impacts the lives of people around the world, not just the agreements and commitments made in New York. Changes that affect people’s lives and matter to them directly often happen at the local and community levels, so there is a need to empower, amplify and replicate ideas and solutions coming from regional and local governments.
The direction of the work of the United Nations in the coming months and years will focus on how our institution can better address peace and security, sustainable development and human rights for all, including future generations. These were the three main pillars of the work of the United Nations at its founding in 1945 and remain the core of its mission today.
I’ll address each of these three areas briefly.
It is fair to say that the United Nations has effectively helped avoid a third world war, but other armed conflicts have erupted over the years and continue to be of grave concern to the international community. In February 2022, the Russian Federation, one of the five permanent, veto-holding members of the Security Council, invaded neighbouring Ukraine; the ensuing war continues unabated, with massive suffering for civilians. The impacts of the war in Ukraine are felt not only in Europe but throughout the world, which is experiencing rising energy and food prices.
A year and a half ago, civil war broke out in the Sudan, resulting in the displacement of over from their homes and causing what several observers have called the world’s largest hunger crisis.
A year ago last month, conflict flared up in the Middle East following the attack by Hamas on Israel on 7 October 2023, in which some 1,200 people were killed and around 250 hostages were taken; the Secretary-General has demanded the release of all hostages whenever he speaks about this issue. The physical reoccupation of Gaza by Israel and the continuing bombardment has led to the , a majority of whom are women and children. It has also resulted in the displacement of over 90 per cent of the population, and according to some estimates, Despite multiple calls for a ceasefire by the Secretary-General and others, there seems to be no end in sight for this nightmare, which has now expanded to regional proportions.
With a view to enabling the Security Council to better address and resolve these and other conflicts, the Pact for the Future includes the most progressive and concrete commitment to Security Council reform since the 1960s. It sets out plans to improve the effectiveness and representation of the Council, including by redressing the historical underrepresentation of Africa as a priority. The Pact contains the first multilateral recommitment to nuclear disarmament in more than a decade, with the clear goal of totally eliminating nuclear weapons. It also includes an agreement to strengthen international frameworks that govern the use of outer space, setting out a commitment to prevent an arms race in space and taking into account the need to ensure that all countries can benefit from the safe and sustainable use of outer space. Finally, the Pact for the Future outlines steps for avoiding the weaponization and misuse of new technologies, such as lethal autonomous weapons, and affirms that the laws of war should apply to the use of any new technologies.
The Declaration on Future Generations outlines concrete steps for taking future generations into account in our decision-making.
We also need to do better on the sustainable development agenda, and the Pact addresses this issue, as well. It is aimed at turbocharging the implementation of the SDGs and contains the first-ever agreement at the United Nations on the need to reform the international financial architecture so that it better represents and serves developing countries. On climate change, the Pact reconfirms the need to hold global temperature rise at 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, and to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems, with the goal of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.
The Pact for the Future includes pledges to strengthen our work on human rights, gender equality and the empowerment of women, and a clear call for action to protect human rights defenders. Importantly, the Pact contains strong signals on the importance of engagement of other stakeholders in global governance, including local and regional governments, civil society, the private sector, academia and others.
The Global Digital Compact, also part of the Pact for the Future, represents the first comprehensive global framework for digital cooperation and AI governance. It contains a commitment to design, use and govern technology for the benefit of all.
Finally, the Declaration on Future Generations outlines concrete steps for taking future generations into account in our decision-making. It contains a commitment to provide more meaningful opportunities for young people to participate in decisions that shape their lives.
While the Pact for the Future sets out provisions for follow-up actions to ensure that the agreed commitments are implemented, history tells us that those in power will always need to be reminded of their obligations and held accountable to ensure implementation.
You are now “in the know", so you too are now accountable to advocate for the implementation of the Pact for the Future.
Working to fulfil the ambition of a world in which everyone thrives in peace, dignity, equality and justice on a healthy planet is not only the responsibility of the United Nations. It is yours, too.
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