Civil Society Still on Mute at UNGA

Photo: UN Photo/Rick Bajornas

For as long as we can remember, the parade of speeches at the UN General Assembly (UNGA) felt like world leaders just talking to the wall. With the impact of coronavirus, they now literally are.

It seems somehow fitting that global events have come to disrupt the UN’s plans to mark its big 75th anniversary. The UN’s record of dealing with events is hardly inspiring.

For anyone in one the many countries blighted by conflict, humanitarian crisis, instability, occupation, the effects of climate change, the UN’s diamond anniversary would have seemed distant, even if there were not also a global health crisis.

Now, the irrelevance is almost overwhelming.

The UN’s failure to maintain international peace and security is not entirely its own. If the member states - and in particular, the five permanent members of the Security Council - wanted an effective UN, it would not be beyond their powers to create it.

Instead, even dry discussions about increasing the number of permanent Security Council members, reforming the veto, or empowering the General Assembly remain entirely academic.

Rather than adapting to the 21st century, the institution seems intent on maintaining the workings of a system that doesn’t work.

The atrophy at the UN is in stark contrast to the work of global civil society during COVID-19, for whom the health, social, financial crises are truly existential.

The women’s groups in our network have had to find ways to continue providing essential services during physical distancing. With families ordered to stay at home, they have had to provide advice and support to the increasing number of women experiencing violence in the home. Where governments have not been able to reach people with advice on preventing the spread of COVID-19, civil society has had to ensure people have life-saving information.

Beyond the practical issues that we have all had to deal with - like learning the language of Zoom - the crisis has stirred up debate about the what and why of women’s movements. Discussions about whether organizations should value their rights-based work over others. How can they ensure that advances for women are not swept away under the cover of emergency response?

It is not at all clear that such fundamental debates have occurred at political or diplomatic levels worldwide - even while global institutions like the WHO face profound questions about their function. Faced with a crisis that hit New York so hard, the organisers at the UN have busied themselves with ensuring that the vacuous content of these two weeks can be unleashed on an uncaring world uninterrupted.

Format valued over function. The UN General Assembly fulfills its destiny to become the ultimate Zoom background.

In previous years, UNGA has been a vast political and diplomatic circus. World leaders and their entourages filling New York, providing one of the few regular opportunities for activists and NGOs to share platforms with global decision makers. But the benefits have always felt slightly illusory. While we have been present at these events, we have still struggled to be heard. Perhaps new ways of working during crisis explain it all. For years, women’s civil society has been on mute at the UN General Assembly.