The Struggle for Renewal at the UN

Posted on October 3, 2025 by Alan Alexandroff

Well, okay, one final note as we view the UN80 anniversary, the General Assembly High-level Week, a Climate Summit, all in the rearview mirror.

I guess I start with the thought, not happily, that other than the gridlock in the streets of Manhattan and us ‘fussy’ observers and such, there is little optimism in the actions taken and not much positive to report on the recently concluded UN meetings. As Colum Lynch reported in Devex from these events:

“But the question lingering in United Nations corridors remains the same as it was when the U.N.’s 80th anniversary summit began: What does the future hold for the United Nations, particularly its development, humanitarian, and human rights operations? And what will it look like without the financial support of the American taxpayer?”

Now it’s not that there weren’t numerous announcements. In a new UN Newsletter on the UN Pact for the Future, here a small sample:

“In this issue you’ll find:

New platforms on artificial intelligence mandated by the Pact

Highlights from the first Biennial Summit on financing for development

Findings from the UN report on military expenditure and the SDGs

A snapshot of Pact-related events during UNGA80”

So efforts continue but the crisis is upon the institution. I start with the current crisis and in the immediate circumstances, a liquidity crisis. As Lynch writes:

“But the U.N.’s current financial crisis has little to do with its own bureaucratic shortcomings. The U.N. is straining under a massive liquidity crisis, brought on by $1.5 billion in unpaid U.S. dues to the world body. Complicating matters, the U.N.’s two largest contributors, China and the United States, pay their dues late in the year, squeezing the U.N.’s cash reserves.”

““The cash shortage that the secretariat is facing right now [is primarily] the result of two member states, the top two financial contributors, the United States and China, who collectively provide 42% of the regular budget,” said Eugene Chen, a former U.N. official and senior fellow at the U.N. University Centre for Policy Research, who fears the cuts will further undermine U.N. ability to fulfill its mission. “If the problem you’re facing is that you are missing 42% of whatever your budget is, shrinking the overall budget is actually not the solution,” Chen said in a discussion at the Devex Impact House.”

Which isn’t to say that there is not an organizational crisis. As explained by Norway’s minister of foreign affairs, Barth Eide:

“[the] Guterres’ plan, which calls for hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts, “points in the right direction. But we could do much more.”

“You need to instill a sense that it’s a real crisis,” he said.

“Our resources are not at all aligned with the number of mandates. So you need to deal with the mandates, which is either to scrap them, to consolidate them, to merge them. … I would say I’m sure you could do with cutting one third of the organization in principle.”

“This is not a magical number, but it’s just like [an] order of magnitude,” he said”.

So a serious ‘reorg’ is required – what should the UN and its agencies be doing and what can be foregone? However, agreement on what should be this effort and agreeing on the elimination or consolidation of current mandates needs to be attacked and not just talked about.

Serious reform of the mandate process and what the UN should and can be addressing in this geopolitical multilateral environment hangs over the organization no matter what some optimistically describe. Still, there are innovations, serious proposals, that are being suggested that warrant attention at this moment. Let me start with my CWD principal, Huiyao (Henry) Wang. Henry is the founder and president of the Center for China and Globalization, a think tank in China and he joins us asa principal at CWD. Just recently Henry tackled a festering issue, the failure of the UN Security Council (UNSC) to be able to act particularly with respect to peace and security issues – today, most notably, Gaza and Ukraine. Now calls for reform of the UNSC go back for many years. But I was caught by the insight Henry recently addressed though Henry sourced it from Xi Jinping. The proposal in FP:

“At the 80th United Nations General Assembly high-level debates last week, a host of global leaders called for a more effective and representative Security Council. In the words of Finnish President Alexander Stubb: “If countries from the global south, from Latin America, from Africa, from Asia, do not get agency in the system, they will turn their backs against the United Nations.””

“But despite the Security Council’s flaws, there is no real substitute for it. If it drifts into irrelevance, this would simply remove the last vestiges of effective global coordination. The challenge, then, is not whether to reform the council, but how to do so.”

The proposal:

“It is against this backdrop that Chinese President Xi Jinping launched a new Global Governance Initiative. Xi is calling for a fairer and more inclusive multilateral system, one without double standards that places the United Nations at its core.”

“To that end, all current G-21 (formerly G-20) members should be given a seat on an expanded Security Council. This would eliminate the 10 existing rotating seats and create 16 new permanent associate seats. These new states would not have an individual veto, but together with the other four permanent members, they could override the use of the unilateral veto.”

“Previous reform efforts have stumbled over the question of how to allot new seats in the council. Here, the G-21 offers an elegant solution. It is comprised of an even mix of developed and developing countries. Using it as the basis for reform addresses some of the underrepresentation of the global south while still recognizing the enduring power of incumbents. Today, the G-21’s members comprise over 85 percent of global GDP, and has already helped coordinate multilateral responses to some of the world’s most pressing economic challenges. Under this new model the expanded U.N. Security Council would consist of Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States, along with the African Union and the European Union, which would each have one collective vote.”

“But a more substantial fix is required. To solve the problems created by the unilateral veto, we must weaken it by instituting a supermajority override. Under this proposal, if over two-thirds of the expanded Security Council, that is to say 15 of its members, and two-thirds of the General Assembly voted to override the veto of a single P5 member, the resolution in question would pass.”

“After all, if two-thirds of both bodies can agree to override a single P5 member veto, it clearly represents a broad international consensus. A singular P5 member should not be able to block a UNSC resolution passed by all other permanent members, two-thirds of the other 16 permanent associate members, and two-thirds of the 193 members in the General Assembly.”

The value of the proposal is in its easy solution to representation. The members of the G20 is so valuable – key developed and developing states, especially Global South states. And it is a way to move beyond a single veto at least as currently exists at the UNSC.

It is a very useful insight(s). Will it gain traction – given the current multilateral politics – not likely. But the insights are very helpful. And who knows, maybe not far into the future and in a healthier multilateral environment, Hmmmm.

Image Credit: Modern Diplomacy

First posted at Alan’s Newsletter – https://globalsummitryproject.substack.com/p/the-struggle-for-renewal-at-the-un

UN at 80

Posted on September 26, 2025 by Alan Alexandroff

This week it was all about the multilateral institutions – namely the UN – but it was also about the key multilateral proponent, or at least it was – the United States. Both seem hopelessly at odds with multilateral progress at the time of UN80. It’s a very busy week in New York as both the 80th Session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA80) High-level Week and Climate Week NYC have been launched.

As Elliot Waldman, now the editor-in-chief of World Politics Review, WPR, gloomily expressed:

“Somewhere in a parallel universe, the United Nations’ 80th birthday is a tempered but joyous occasion: A time to toast accomplishments and take stock of the long road ahead. To celebrate milestones reached and learn from opportunities missed. Above all, to recommit to a collective push to overcome global challenges.”

“Instead, on planet Earth in the year 2025, the mood is bleak—uniformly so.”

“If the U.N. isn’t “in free fall,” it’s suffering “a crisis of irrelevance.” Perhaps it’s “no longer fit for purpose.” The organization’s top humanitarian aid official, Tom Fletcher, [Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator at the UN] summed it up best: The U.N.-led international system is facing a “perfect storm: underfunded, overstretched, and under attack.””

The near despair was underlined at the UN NYU Newsletter:

“This year, at the start of the 80th UNGA, the pendulum has swung all the way to deep despair. In addition to the ongoing conflicts noted above, 2025 witnessed conflagrations between India and Pakistan; Iran, Israel and the United States; and, more recently, Cambodia and Thailand. Worse, the discernible rise in the use of the veto means that the UN Security Council (UNSC) is being rendered ineffective in dealing with critical peace and security matters. Indeed, in the past year while Moscow exercised its veto six times, Washington used it five times — the latest on 18 September — on the question of Palestine. This takes the total number of vetoes cast by the permanent members in 80 years to 318.”

And in terms of US actions. Well, Waldman targets the current Trump administration actions:

“A decade later, the world has instead learned just how much it can no longer count on the United States. Not only has President Donald Trump dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development and pulled funding from the United Nations, his administration has also denounced the [Sustainable Development Goals] SDGs as a “globalist endeavor,” beset by “‘gender’ and climate ideology” and “inconsistent with U.S. sovereignty.” Indeed, much of the current handwringing over the state of the U.N. has to do with whether it can survive Trump’s second term. … the cracks in the foundational assumptions of the SDGs—not to mention the Western-led international order that backed them—go far beyond Trump, even if he was the wrecking ball that brought it all crashing down.”

The dreary perspective for the UN, the Sustainable Development Goals and even more from the Trump administration did not commence with the UN High Level Week but Trump’s pointed distaste for the UN and multilateralism was on dramatic display on Day 2 of the UN gathering with Trump’s speech before the General Assembly.

As Colum Lynch at Devex, quoted and described the Trump speech which was placed on Day 2 as the convening country:

“U.S. President Donald Trump delivered an often disparaging, grievance-filled address to the 80th United Nations General Assembly, blaming the U.N. for facilitating uncontrolled migration, denouncing the Europeans’ energy policies, calling climate change a hoax, and outlining a long list of the greatest things in history he claims he has achieved for America and the world.”

““Everyone says I should get the Nobel Peace Prize,” he said in a nearly one-hour speech to the 193-member U.N. General Assembly yesterday, claiming to have personally ended seven wars in his first seven months in office, a claim questioned by many.”

“Trump provided few details on his specific plans for the U.N.’s role in the world, and offered little clarity on whether the U.S. intends to press ahead with further draconian budget cuts. But he underscored the need for other countries to follow his lead and crack down on migration.”

“Uncontrolled migration, he warned in his first address to the U.N. since his reelection, is “the number one political issue of our time,” he said. “Your countries, they’re being destroyed.””

““It’s time to end the failed experiment of open borders. You have to end it now,” he said. “Your countries are going to hell.” The President also made it clear earlier in his term that the US would cut funding to the World Health Organization, the U.N. Population Fund, UNESCO, and withdraw American participation in the U.N. Human Rights Council.”

This upfront attack on the UN by President Trump is the ‘icing on the cake’ to a now unleashed financial crisis at the UN impart, of course, created by the United States. As described by J. Alex Tarquinio, who reports on the UN, at the FP:

“Many thorny issues could be discussed when Trump sits down for a bilateral meeting with U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres on Tuesday. The United States is the largest financial contributor to the United Nations, but Trump has withheld even mandatory contributions to the U.N. budget—a decision that has plunged the organization into a fiscal crisis with existential implications.”

“The one thing that might please the U.S. delegation is talk of deep reductions in the U.N. budget. The last-minute preparations for this high-level week took place amid a frantic belt-tightening process. The United States usually pays 22 percent of the regular U.N. budget and around 26 percent of the peacekeeping budget, thus Trump’s decision not to provide even obligatory contributions this year has left a big hole.”

“Ahead of the high-level week, Guterres sent a revised U.N. budget to member states and an advisory committee. Preliminary figures released last week reveal that more than 18 percent of the U.N.’s staff positions are slated for elimination. Years of hiring restrictions mean that some of those posts are vacant. Furthermore, another 262 positions are being proposed for relocation. A senior U.N. official said that they were no longer talking about doing more with less but rather “doing less with less.””

“As the plan for downsizing, euphemistically dubbed UN80, drags on, many diplomats in New York seem to be experiencing a loss of purpose. “I think a lot of diplomats are frustrated that the current UN80 process has not involved much discussion of what the U.N.’s main goals should be, rather than how many jobs to cut,” said Richard Gowan, the U.N. director at the International Crisis Group.”

As for Climate Week, even the Europeans, and many others, found it possible to disappoint. As Anna Gawel at Devex described:

“Usually, NDCs [National Determined Commitments] are submitted long before UNGA, but this year, only 36 out of 197 countries have published their NDCs, writes my colleague Jesse Chase-Lubitz, who will be at Climate Week. Still missing from the list are some of the world’s biggest emitters, including India, Saudi Arabia, the European Union, and Indonesia.”

Now the rationalization for yet to be announced NDCs and described by Marcos Neto from the UN Development Programme, as quoted Anna Gawel was to accept that it would be better to be late but significant:

““This is an important moment,” Marcos Neto, assistant administrator at the U.N. Development Programme, tells Jesse.”

“He’s not especially worried about the number of NDCs still to be submitted — pointing out that there has been a consensus throughout the U.N. that “quality and ambition is more important than doing it in a hurry” and that so far the NDCs submitted are “fundamentally a better set of NDCs.””

Yes, maybe, but national politics remains a big worry. As Suzanne Nossel urged in her piece, “It’s Not Too Late to Fix the U.N.”at FP, she expressed what many were hoping for that might yet turn the current UN crisis around:

“Rather than muddling through the current crisis in its present form, the U.N. must use this momentum to remake itself as a body fit for purpose in the second quarter of the 21st century.”

But as she herself argued in an earlier piece in FP that was titled, “The Great Dismantling”:

“Even as ongoing court challenges could salvage some vestiges of the internationalist system, foreign-policy idealists must begin to envision new futures. It is time to collectively reckon with Trump’s great dismantling of the liberal internationalist project and the internal weaknesses that made it possible. Only then can the liberal beliefs that underwrote the old order find new life.”

“The United States has not ratified a human rights treaty since 2002. Russia and China have grown increasingly opportunistic, seeking to remake international institutions by installing their personnel and agendas across United Nations bodies. The U.N. Security Council’s outdated composition and deadlock over sensitive issues have made it an afterthought in major conflicts such as those in Ukraine and Gaza.”

“Such tensions have made it nearly impossible to confront new challenges, including climate change and COVID-19. The U.N.’s 2024 Summit of the Future, heralded as a “once-in-a-generation opportunity to reimagine the multilateral system,” ended with a whimper as stalemated negotiations culminated in a watered-down pact that garnered scant global attention.”

There is no hiding from it, multilateralism and its key institutions are in deep crisis. Multilateralism can be renewed but not with the current national leaders, especially Donald Trump.

Are there people of good will determined to reform the UN system? Of course there are. Does Trump speak for the majority of Americans, I don’t think so. But without concerted collective national efforts to reform and enhance the multilateral institutions we remain “whistling in the dark”. There are reform minded folk. As Ravi Agrawal of the FP noted in his time in New York:

“The less obvious take—the bit that has made my U.N. week polarized in a personal sense—is that I came across a surprising number of hopeful doers and thinkers.”

Hopeful, yes, but much more is required for success.

Image Credit: CFR

Glancing Back; But Also Looking Forward

Posted on September 19, 2025 by Alan Alexandroff

So, we are rolling into an important time for multilateral and regionally strategic action, though realistically it always is an important time. On the multilateral front, notably there is the annual high-level week of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). Here a sort description as expressed by John Haltiwanger and Rishi Iyengar at FP:

“World leaders and diplomats will flood into New York City in the coming days for the annual high-level week of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), which kicks off on Monday. This year marks the 80th session of UNGA—and it comes at a challenging moment for the world and the U.N. itself.”

I suspect it will give us a ‘temperature reading’ on the UN as it enters UN80.

On the regional front there was the meeting this week between Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum and Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney. Closer trade and economic relations were the agenda as both advance to renegotiate USMCA – the United States-Mexico-Canada free trade arrangement – and yes with Donald Trump. Past bilateral agreements make stronger Canada-Mexico ties slightly fraught.

But in setting this discussion up, let me take the temperature on the effectiveness of the Informals – that is the G7, the BRICS and most importantly, the G20. This year’s G20 gathering is hosted by South Africa in November and there has been more than enough friction between Trump and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. It currently appears as though President Trump will not attend the summit, but the US will be represented by his Vice President J.D. Vance. There is real tension, especially as the United States is scheduled to take hosting of the G20 for 2026.

Thinking about the role and impact of the Informals, most notably the G20, I turned to good colleagues, Colin Bradford and Johannes Linn both from Brookings and elsewhere. Both have long been observers of the Informals but especially the G20. Indeed both were early advocates, along with Canada’s former Finance Minister and then Prime Minister of Canada Paul Martin for a G20 and then a G20 leaders-led multilateral institution. To reflect on the Informals and particularly the G20, I reviewed several pieces from Bradford and Linn but most particularly the piece these colleagues wrote after the first of several summits ending with the Cannes Summit in 2011 – “A History of G20 Summits: The Evolving: Dynamic of Global Leadership”. Journal of Globalization and Development (2):2. The piece enabled my colleagues to reflect on what had been accomplished with the early G20 summits and what the challenges ahead were.

The two, Bradford and Linn were, as the piece reveals, keen observers and strong advocates for a leaders-led multilateral collaborative institution. As they initiated this piece they wrote:

“The G20 summit of key world leaders emerged as a significant institutional component of the global governance architecture from its first surprise gathering in Washington, D.C. in November 2008 to the most recent summit meeting in Cannes in November 2011.”

And the purpose as they saw it of the creation of the Informals starting with the G7:

“Over nearly 40 years the annual G6/7/8 summits dealt with a wide array of issues, ranging from short term financial, economic and political crises, to longer term economic, social, environmental and security issues.”

But the challenges were evident from the commencement of the Informals:

“However, less progress was made in the area of macroeconomic management and coordination, including effective surveillance, resolution of balance of payments and exchange rate imbalances among major economies, and progress on trade liberalization.”

Though the US expressed little interest in moving the G20 to the leader level, the 2008 global financial crisis (GFC), and the threat it posed to global finance, changed minds:

“Just prior to the US election ending the presidential term of George W. Bush, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, as president of the European Union, and Jose Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, visited Camp David, a presidential retreat in Maryland, at the invitation of US President George W. Bush. On Saturday afternoon, October 18th, they announced their intention to call a summit involving nations from around the world to reflect the world-wide nature of the financial crisis but they did not indicate which configuration they would choose.” …

“The first G20 Summit was held in Washington, DC, on November 15, 2008, at the National Building Museum, with ministers of finance joining the leaders for each G20 nation, plus the Netherlands and Spain, which President Sarkozy had pushed to include, in addition to the heads of various international institutions. This made for a huge summit table, exacerbating the problem of size of an enlarged summit grouping. But the purpose and the outcome of the summit was to discuss “principles of reform” – coordinated stimulus to prevent a deep recession and reform of the global financial system to prevent a recurrence of the crisis –, rather than to reach specific agreements, and to set in motion processes among G20 ministers of finance, which would develop a more specific and ambitious agenda.”

And something like a conclusion went like this:

“The good news is that the G20 embraces a much broader group of countries, cultures and economies than the G8. The G20, for all its flaws, is a realistic and broadly representative meeting of the world as it is and will increasingly be, not the world that was. In addition, the G20 has a strong foundation in the ten-year history of the G20 ministerial meetings, developing a strong network among officials of communication, consultation and concertation. The strength of this network of senior officials is the foundation of G20 Summits and provides the means of moving the global agenda forward continuously from one presidency to the next.”

“The bad news is that the G20 summits appear to the public around the world to be more conflictive than cooperative, and hence less effective. But if the idea of G20 Summits is also to connect leaders to their publics in providing global leadership on issues that are simultaneously domestic and international, then the embodiment of the domestic political conflicts in the global treatment of those issues makes summits more real and less rarified.”

“The G8 Summits were exercises in diplomacy and international cooperation. The G20 Summits thus far into their history are more complex exercises embodying contradictory forces arising from domestic political struggles to deal with the new inter-connectedness of challenges and the new nexus of the global and domestic dimensions of economic problems affecting the ordinary citizen.”

The challenges were, and are, real. In a sneak peak over the impact and influence of the Informals, let me identify a small snippet of a very large edited volume by by Andreas Freytag and Peter Draper, as editors for, The Elgar Companion to the G7, being published by Edward Elgar Publishing, in the near future. I was fortunate enough to participate with a chapter entitled, “The rise and decline of the First Informal: the changing character of the G7 summit”. Notwithstanding the lead the chapter examines all the key Informals. From my perspective the Informals are close to unique for the fact that they are leader-led:

“Much has been made by observers and experts of the informal nature of these bodies in contrast to conventional formal institutions. And indeed this was a quite different institutional construction, as early observers like Nicholas Bayne and other diplomats were quick to point out. But even these early observers of the Informals did not make enough of the fact that these Informals were annual summits, yes, but also, and pointedly, that these particular forums, the G7, G8 and G20 were, and are, leader-led.”

“Beyond the question of representation, however, there is the continuing, crucial question about the effectiveness of all these Informals. What impact have these Informals had in fashioning policy and, most critically, in advancing collaboration and global governance policymaking?” …

“Without giving the “story” away at this point in the narrative and analysis of the Informals, it is evident in reviewing the life of the Informals that international relations forces have had a dramatic impact on all the Informals and their capacity to advance collaborative global governance policymaking. And examination of their structures and processes shows that they have not led to the desired policy leadership that was hoped for by early political leaders. This, then, is not just a story of the rise of the Informals, but equally, it would seem, their “fall”.”

Multilateral collective action remains a promise unfulfilled in the global order. Global leadership continues to fall short in the maelstrom of geopolitical tensions of the leading states.

And it is then not surprising that I turn to bilateral and regional actions in the midst of all this geopolitical rivalry, especially in the context of Trump 2.0. I was, therefore, attracted to the consequences of the meeting of the leaders of Mexico and Canada. As described in the Daily Review of WPR:

“Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum hosted Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney this week for a summit in Mexico City that likely would not have happened if not for the ongoing challenge posed by Donald Trump’s return to the White House.”

“Trump has imposed tariffs of 35 percent on Canada and 25 percent on Mexico, ostensibly as punishment for failing to address cross-border drug trafficking and illegal migration, though many goods are exempt due to the U.S.-Mexico-Canda Agreement, the free trade deal that the three countries signed during Trump’s first term as a replacement for NAFTA.”

But the future of USMCA is unclear. Again from WPR a view of the future:

“With the USMCA coming up for a mandatory review next year, Trump is expected to use that occasion to seek further concessions from Canada and Mexico—perhaps not only on trade but also on other issues like migration and security cooperation. Sheinbaum and Carney know that they will have more leverage in those negotiations if they forge a united front, but first they have some repair work to do in their own bilateral relationship.”

In the first negotiation severe tensions were created by a bilateral dael between Mexico and the US:

“Canadian officials were taken aback when, during negotiations over the USMCA in 2018, Mexico struck a preliminary bilateral trade deal with the U.S. that threatened to leave Canada out in the cold.”

So, this brings us to now: “As part of their bid to mend ties, Carney and Sheinbaum signed a new “comprehensive strategic partnership,” which they said would “complement” the USMCA. They also agreed to strengthen direct commercial links between the two countries, including through maritime trade that doesn’t rely on crossing U.S. territory.”

“At next year’s review, the three countries will need to agree on whether to renew it—potentially with updated provisions. Failing to do so will trigger a series of annual reviews beginning in 2027 for ten years, before its scheduled expiration in 2036.”

“Given Trump’s penchant for unpredictability and chaos, nothing can be ruled out. For Canada and Mexico, steering the talks to a mutually beneficial outcome will mean first overcoming the mistrust between them.”

So there we are: ‘glancing back; but looking slightly askew at the immediate future.

Image Credit: Observer Research Foundation

The Fate of the SDGs and indeed Global Development

Posted on September 12, 2025 by Alan Alexandroff

So as you will read a slightly truncated Alan’s Newsletter Substack Post, but there is a good reason.

So this week’s Post will be a wee bit truncated. Why you ask? Well, I am with many other political science and international relations colleagues in Vancouver for the APSA (American Political Science Association) Annual gathering. How many, I am not yet sure but I suspect fewer than had originally been planned for by the Convention. I had organized a Roundtable on Middle Powers and several of my colleagues were unable to actually join us because their institutions had cut all travel grants for faculty and colleagues. Rather sad.

But I couldn’t sign off for this week before commenting on a very good piece published by Adam Tooze from Columbia University and Director of the European Institute and nonresident scholar at Carnegie Europe. Tooze does a Substack named Chartbook. He is quite prolific and insightful. And because he was commenting on the SDGs I couldn’t resist examining his analysis. The fact is we have the UN80th gathering and the High-Level week for the UNGA is just about upon us from September 22-30th. And the SDGs are an important feature. As described by the UN:

“The 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly – under the theme Better together: 80 years and more for peace, development and human rights – comes at a pivotal moment to renew global commitment to multilateralism, solidarity and shared action for people and planet. This year’s high-level week highlights the urgency of delivering on the promise of the Sustainable Development Goals and reinvigorating global cooperation. Two key platforms will spotlight action and solutions: the flagship SDG Media Zone produced by the UN Department of Global Communications with dynamic interviews and panel discussions on SDG solutions held from 22–26 September; and the Goals Lounge, convened by the UN Deputy Secretary-General and hosted by the UN Office for Partnerships from 20-26 September, featuring unscripted dialogues, deep dives into vital issues and interactive experiences. All events are live streamed on UN WebTV.”

And while there is determination by many associated with the UN, or committed to UN multilateral reform to spur renewal the UN finds itself at its 80th anniversary deep in crisis as I noted in previous Posts.

And here is where Adam Tooze comes in with his recent FP article, “The End of Development”. Not surprisingly Tooze focuses on the Trump administration and its reaction to the SDGs. As described by Tooze:

“In the letter, the U.S. government categorically rejected the entirety of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs. This wasn’t simply a withdrawal, as from the climate commitments of the Paris Agreement; it was an unambiguous denunciation of the collective ambition to improve the material condition of humanity. American voters, the letter claimed, had delivered a clear mandate in the last election: Their government must put America first, caring first and foremost for its own.”

“Yet the justification did not stop at nationalism. It expanded into a broader geopolitical critique.The letter argued that the resolution’s language—specifically, its reference to “peaceful coexistence”—could be read as an endorsement of China’s Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence.Similarly, the United States objected to the resolution’s phrase “dialogue among civilizations,”interpreting it as a nod to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Global Civilization Initiative.”

“While the rest of the world proceeded with the vote, the Trump administration’s intervention laid bare the fact that the apparent consensus around the SDGs—touted since 2015 as a universal blueprint for development—had collapsed.”

While Tooze focuses on this depressing, though not surprising, Trump administration take on the SDGs and more broadly on development, he identifies a goal that was always a very far reach. As Tooze notes:

“The broader vision of the SDGs was always a gamble at long odds, and in practice, it has delivered so little that it raises the question of whether it was ever anything more than a self-serving exercise on the part of global elites. For the sake of their own collective vanity, they needed to convince themselves and the world that they had a comprehensive and bold vision. But it’s something else to mobilize and sustain an effort to realize the SDGs.”

“And this, in turn, reflects a refusal to admit what development actually means or to anticipate how the status quo powers will react once it happens. With hindsight, the SDGs, for all their capaciousness and generosity of spirit, seem like an effort to craft a world organized around a spreadsheet of universal values rather than politics and around a happy blend of public and private economic interests.”

And as Tooze then suggests:

“In retrospect, the SDGs now look less like a new dawn than the final gasp of a unipolar, end-of-history fantasy. Rather than billions leveraging trillions, the track record of blended finance is dismal. It is rare to see more than cents on the dollar mobilized in private money. In key areas of innovation such as green energy and artificial intelligence, the developing world, far from catching up, is left even further behind.”

“Whatever happens to the individual components of the SDGs—worthy objectives such as reducing child mortality and digital inclusion—one thing is for sure: The age of a politically neutral, universally endorsed development agenda is over.”

“The passing of the SDGs should be a cause for real regret. Theirs was an extraordinary and comprehensive vision. Along with the Paris Agreement, they marked a high-water mark of a certain kind of universalism.”

Tooze turns approvingly to what he sees as the successful national effort of China:

“China is the world’s greatest development success. On that basis, it has emerged as a lender and as a development power. At its high point in 2016-17, lending under the Belt and Road Initiative for a while matched that by the World Bank. Though Belt and Road subsequently slowed, China’s strategic direction remains clear. The CCP believes that material transformation is the key to legitimacy and peace. The phrase often repeated by the Chinese leadership, quoting from Xi, is that development is the “master key.””

“Xi’s Global Development Initiative was China’s answer to the SDGs. It was not an overall rejection, let alone a point-blank denunciation, but a rewriting so as to focus on just eight key areas, including poverty alleviation, food security, pandemic response and vaccines, development financing, climate change and green development, industrialization, the digital economy, and connectivity in the digital age, all under the sign of “results-oriented actions.””

And Tooze then concludes that there is a way forward but far distinct from this universal approach of the SDGs as set out by the UN and with lessons learned from the success of China development:

“The bland box-ticking vision of 2015 is no longer our world. But in its rejection of the shared U.N. agenda in the name of strident sovereignty, the United States is indulging in a politics of denunciation more becoming of a downtrodden developing country than a former unipolar hegemon. By contrast, China’s blend of realpolitik with ideology and national interest cannot help but seem rational and balanced as well as being backed up by an unparalleled national record of development and huge resources.”

The outstanding question is where does the UN effort go and in turn at some point the US likely post Trump.

Image Credit: APSA

This Post originally appeared as a Substack Post at Alan’s Newsletter – https://substack.com/home/post/p-173380329

Faltering Multilateralism Continues

Posted on August 29, 2025 by Alan Alexandroff

Well, it is kinda the end of the summer – now that we have the Labor Day weekend upon us. Wow!

It seemed reasonable to try to assess where we are on a number of issues that we have been following recently. These examinations all target the state of health of multilateralism. First the state of the Plastics Treaty, or not. I have looked at this before in a Post. The negotiation and the failure to move toward a Treaty underscores the diplomatic difficulty in achieving multilateral success in the current global relations context.

Then, there is the state of the UN – the central multilateral institution. Here too, I have looked at it previously in an earlier Post. What is at the heart of the failure of the UN; and is it fixable. We are examining the UN of course in the toxic context of Trump policymaking but the problems are real, with or without Trump. Now I was going to extend today’s Post to view the impact of Trump diplomacy on the international environment but I think I’ll save that for a later Post.

The Plastics Treaty

Well bluntly the Treaty, for the moment, is nowhere. As described by Joshua Lincoln at WPR:

“Negotiations on a treaty to limit global plastic waste ended last week not with a bang, but with a whimper. In the early hours of Aug. 15, after two compromise draft texts were rejected by various groupings within the 183 negotiating countries, the chair of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee simply adjourned the talks.”

“Beyond these substantive problems, there were thorny implementation and design issues: the voting threshold, scientific input, and other features needed to make the treaty’s implementation mechanisms effective, and the financing mechanism.” …

“But when China—the world’s largest producer of plastics—as well as India and Brazil put their thumbs on the scale in favor of a text with no global obligations and subject to a rigid consensus requirement at every future step, any remaining room for agreement evaporated.”

So, is it dead! Maybe not but new diplomatic paths need to be taken. This will take some daring by states but its time to consider different diplomatic strategies. As Lincoln suggests:

“When it comes to a plastics treaty, the divisions among states are now likely too wide to bridge via consensus, but other pathways may be available. A majority of states could seek a new negotiating mandate through a vote at the U.N. General Assembly, as was done for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in 2016-2017. Or the same group could go outside the U.N. entirely, which has precedent in the 1997 Ottawa Convention on land mines. In both of those cases, a coalition of states forged ahead on their own, trusting that more countries would sign on over time, as they eventually did.”

Like-minded states need to suck it up and attack these global problems starting with ‘coalitions of the willing’.

UN at 80

At the upcoming 80th General Assembly session which will be held from September 22-30th, the UN will, according to the UN, devote itself to:

“The 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly – under the theme ‘Better together: 80 years and more for peace, development and human rights’ – comes at a pivotal moment to renew global commitment to multilateralism, solidarity and shared action for people and planet. This year’s high-level week highlights the urgency of delivering on the promise of the Sustainable Development Goals and reinvigorating global cooperation.”

But reality is about to intrude, I hope. The UN needs to ‘face the music’ when it comes to its future. As Helen Murphy describes at Devex, here is the world the UN faces:

“Under pressure from U.S. funding cuts, Secretary-General António Guterres is rolling out sweeping reforms through the UN80 Initiative. China, now the organization’s second-largest financial contributor, is pressing for more jobs and influence as Washington retreats.”

“The United Nations is bracing for sweeping change. Facing massive U.S. funding cuts, it has floated slashing 20% of its secretariat’s 33,000-strong workforce. And China — now the U.N.’s second-largest contributor — isn’t shy about seizing the opening. Chinese diplomats have pressed for more jobs for their nationals and even argued American staff should bear the brunt of any layoffs.”

Well the Chinese actions may be annoying but that is hardly the heart of the UN problem. Murphy goes on to describe the real future facing the UN:

“Launched in March by Guterres and led by U.N. Undersecretary-General for Policy Guy Ryder, UN80 boils down to three main prongs: belt-tightening in the secretariat, reviewing the 40,000 mandates handed down since 1945, and possible mergers across U.N. agencies with overlapping roles.”

“Behind it all is a brutal money crunch, writes Colum. Washington owes the U.N. more than $1.7 billion, mostly in unpaid peacekeeping dues. But “this is not simply a cost-cutting, downsizing effort,” Ryder insists. “The objective is to make the U.N. better.”

“Critics aren’t buying it. “Basically, [the current funding crisis is] because the U.S. stopped paying,” says Ian Richards, head of the U.N. staff union in Geneva. Meanwhile, Stewart Patrick of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace calls it “a slash-and-burn approach,” adding, “they are basically unwittingly replicating a DOGE experiment at the United Nations.””

Yes, the fiscal crisis is real and needs to be addressed but it may require reducing the size of the UN as noted above. But that isn’t the end of it. As pointed out by Suzanne Nossel in a recent article in FP:

“The emergence of alternative multilateral bodies, great-power deadlocks, and global reductions in development assistance all threaten the U.N. in its current incarnation.”

But also there is more to it than just US ‘financial pressure’ and its determination to undermine multilateral organizations as well as all the problems identified by Nossel above. The UN has to face up to its dramatic inefficiency:

“This wavering support comes as the U.N. faces considerable organizational challenges. In recent decades, the U.N. has taken on a dizzying array of tasks and projects, many of which are out-of-date, overlap, or fail to achieve much.”

“Although the U.N. does irreplaceable and lifesaving work, it is saddled with ever-proliferating mandates that distract and detract from those essential endeavors. As part of a strategic review for the institution’s 80th birthday, Guterres commissioned an analysis of U.N. mandates, which was released in August. The study lays bare the organization’s inefficiency and mission creep, making the case for radical streamlining.”

“The new Report of the Mandate Implementation Review revealed an organization run amok. The U.N. has 22 distinct intergovernmental bodies; just the General Assembly, Security Council, Economic and Social Council, and Human Rights Council alone issue a total of more than 600 mandates.” per year, adding to a groaning total of more than 40,000 still-active mandates.”

“Mandates—which refer to U.N. bodies’ decisions, requests, and directives for action, such as creating a committee, conducting a study, or preparing a report—define the organization’s work. They can do everything from authorizing the deployment of thousands of peacekeepers, to requiring the preparation of a report on discrimination, to directing the work of a four-person accounting office, to adding to the existing list of more than 200 U.N. commemorative days (such as the International Day of Yoga). Regardless of its scope, each mandate demands effort from the U.N. Secretariat staff, who must carry out the mandate and report back to the entity that authorized it.”

“While the report did not appraise the value of individual mandates, it pulled no punches in exposing inefficiencies and waste. In fulfillment of these mandates, in 2024 alone, the U.N. held 27,000 meetings, incurring more than $360 million in direct costs associated with conference services and reports. Because there is no central registry of mandates, new ones are created without awareness of what is already being done. Since 1990, around 20 subjects have appeared every year in both General Assembly resolutions and ones adopted by either the Human Rights Council or the Economic and Social Council.”

So all these problems have accumulated over many years and it would appear that it is time, past time probably where the organization and its members have to tackle these critical problems. As Nossel concludes:

“The organization must seize the current cash crunch as a historic opportunity. Indeed, there are already sweeping proposals to remake the global body—including a leaked internal document that lays out an array of ideas to merge, eliminate, and relocate major U.N. functions.””

Really tough problems for multilateralism and its institutions with no guarantee that the organizations and its national members and staff and leadership have the will to tackle these very difficult problems.

This Post first appeared as a Substack Post at Alan’s Newsletter https://substack.com/home/post/p-172213259

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Category Archives: UN

The Struggle for Renewal at the UN

UN at 80

Glancing Back; But Also Looking Forward

The Fate of the SDGs and indeed Global Development

Faltering Multilateralism Continues