UNGA79 - The United Nations must address the crisis of confidence in the multilateral system

Read the full paper here.

With world leaders set to gather in New York for the 79th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, does anyone still have any confidence left in the multilateral system?

This is the spectre that haunts proceedings at UNGA this year, as well as the Summit of the Future and its aim “forge a new global consensus”. With the UN set to enter its 9th decade, the world has seen a decline in global peacefulness, an increase in people displaced by conflict and disaster, while member states continue to spend trillions of dollars on arms.

Across the world, people continue to be failed by the multilateral system. Our policy paper developed for consideration at UNGA79 and Summit of the Future, explores the roots of the crisis facing the system.

Fundamentally, while world leaders line up to address the UN, a genocide is taking place. If the United Nations and its members can do nothing to stop this bloodshed, will the Summit of the Future make any difference whatsoever to the credibility of the institution?