Multilateral Systems in Urgent Need of Reform, Says UN Secretary General

By Naureen Hossain
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 19 2024 – As the United Nations gears up to host the international community for the high-level meeting week, the UN chief appeals to world leaders to commit to universal agreements to work towards solutions.

On Wednesday, Secretary-General António Guterres spoke to reporters ahead of the upcoming 79^th high-level session of the UN General Assembly and the Summit of the Future. This year’s General Debate and the upcoming Summit will strive to seek solutions towards institutional reforms and resolving wide-ranging and interconnected issues, including climate, forced displacement, and conflict.

“Crises are interacting and feeding off each other—for example, as digital technologies spread climate disinformation that deepens distrust and fuels polarization,” Guterres said. “Global institutions and frameworks are today totally inadequate to deal with these complex and even existential challenges.”

For Guterres and the UN, the upcoming Summit of the Future will set out to address the deeper issue of reforming the multilateral systems that have been in place from the organization’s inception.  “So many of the challenges that we face today were not on the radar 80 years ago when our multilateral institutions were born,” he said. “Our founders understood that times would change. They understood that the values that underpin our global institutions are timeless—but the institutions themselves cannot be frozen in time.”

What will differentiate the Summit of the Future from previous high-level meetings, such as the SDG Summit of 2016, is its focus on the proposed solutions that need to be taken towards the greater issues affecting the world and its institutions today. According to Guterres, this is supposed to contrast with the Sustainable Development Goals and their focus on the specific issues that need to be addressed.

“One of the very important aspects that is in the Summit of the Future is the recognition that our institutions need to be reformed,” said Guterres. “The Summit of the Future takes into account the fact that to be able to implement the SDGs… all the extraordinary declarations, we need to reform institutions.”

One of the most significant calls to reform has been for the Security Council. This includes the demand to improve representation of the member states from Asia, Latin America, and Africa.

Guterres remarked that the Council’s formation was in a post-war world, during a period where many nations, such as those in Africa, were still under colonial rule. In the case of Africa, they have been underrepresented with reduced influence.

“In no place is this inequality more obvious and more, I would say, unacceptable than in the Security Council of United Nations, where you have, for instance, three European permanent members and no African permanent member, which, of course, doesn’t correspond at all to the present situation of the world,” he said.

Guterres did not indicate if there was a timeline for reform implementation, noting that the member states must first adopt the Pact for the Future, one of the key documents currently in the works, in order to move forward. He suggested that there would be agreement on improving transparency and procedure within the council, but also expressed skepticism that certain aspects, such as the veto, would be outright abolished.

As world leaders and stakeholders across the international community convene in New York for the High-Level Meeting week, the spirit of cooperation and shared solidarity is more crucial than ever. Guterres stressed the need for the member states to finalize the conditions in the outcome documents in time for the first day of the Summit.

The UN and its partners seek to strengthen multilateral systems during a time of increasing hostility and conflicts breaking out around the world, including the most recent news of explosions across Lebanon. When asked if it seemed like the world was heading towards a global conflict like a third world war, Guterres said: “I think we are perfectly on time to avoid the move into World War III.”

He added: “What we are witnessing is a multiplication of conflicts and the sense of impunity… It’s a sense of impunity everywhere. I mean, any country or any military entity, militias… feel that they can do whatever they want because nothing will happen to them… And the fact that nobody takes even seriously the capacity of the [global] powers to solve problems on the ground makes the level of impunity an enormous level.”

“I’m much more worried with the dramatic impact in the life of civilians, women, children, and elderly people, everywhere. From Sudan, from Myanmar, from Gaza, than of the risk of the second World War… the third World War, that I still believe we have all the conditions to avoid.”