“We are in a world in which global challenges are more and more integrated, and the responses are more and more fragmented, and if this is not reversed, it’s a recipe for disaster.” These are the words of UN Secretary General António Guterres during his speech at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos on 24 January 2019.
Just over a year and a half later, listening to these words again as the Covid-19 pandemic sweeps the globe, they are more timely than ever, revealing clearly and categorically what has failed in the measures adopted by the governments of the countries hit by this emergency. Measures which align, but lack cohesion, and joint efforts to bring about unified, coordinated and structured action on a global scale. Measures in which, with the extraordinary political interventions being implemented, one plus one does not always equal two. In other words, what was lacking was a response capable of offering a truly multilateral approach for dealing with the emergency.
The Covid-19 pandemic has shone a light on all the gaps in a system that is gradually distancing itself from its original intent. And this in the year of a milestone anniversary: 2020 marks 100 years since the birth of the League of Nations (LoN), an organization established to create a multilateral system of guaranteeing peace, security, and international cooperation. From its intrinsic weakness and its brief experience (defined by most as a failure), the more robust architecture of the contemporary international system was born in 1945, founded on the bedrock of multilateralism and the role of the United Nations. Today, seventy-five years later, are we facing the need to reinforce and rethink the international framework?
The need to shore up the spirit of international cooperation is quite a hot-button issue on the world stage. Multilateralism is weaker than it has ever been before, and although there are several underlying causes, we can trace their origins back to three fundamental elements: the emergence of widespread mistrust in the seemingly unstoppable globalization process, the lack of a strong narrative supporting multilateralism that resonates deeply with people, and the inadequacy of pragmatic measures, rules, and standards to ensure the correct interpretation of the concept itself, to counter geopolitical and geostrategic power grabs masked by an initial desire for interdependence and collaboration.
The current health crisis will also have inevitable consequences on political, economic and social levels, weakening the international cooperation system even further. The responses that various governments have enacted so far are for the most part fragmented and confined within national borders — an approach that makes the limitations of single states even more glaringly apparent when tackling global phenomena.
The Covid-19 pandemic seems to generate certain imperatives for the member states of the United Nations: to focus on the individual health of their citizens, on the crises in the national health systems, and on the massive damage done to their economies. However, this short-sighted view risks jeopardizing all the efforts made in recent years to achieve common objectives such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) established in the 2030 Agenda. Specifically, since the beginning of March, the UN and the World Bank respectively estimate that more than 1.6 billion children have had no access to school, and up to 100 million people in the world have sunk into extreme poverty. These numbers substantiate what the Prime Minister of Ethiopia and Nobel Peace Prize winner Abiy Ahmed Ali has repeatedly stressed: we cannot fight an enemy that extends far beyond national borders with measures that are confined to single states.
Today we are being given a once-in-a-lifetime chance to turn our attention once again to revitalizing mechanisms that favour a multilateral response to crisis situations. Several solutions are on the table, from the “inclusive multilateralism” proposed by the UN Secretary General to a renewed role for the G20 as a broadly inclusive platform representing the public interest. Solutions that make clear the fact that individual governments cannot face these challenges alone. Solutions that presuppose recasting the role of new actors, new roles for society, global philanthropy, and the worlds of business, science and academia.
In light of the major reform efforts recently made, centring on results and simplification, in addition to the widespread efforts to combat the pandemic, a leading role in redesigning the multilateral system of the future will no doubt be taken by the UN, as an aggregator of competencies and catalyser of change. This key role is already confirmed in the “UN Framework,” a one-year aid plan that is refunnelling 18 billion dollars to countries that are dealing with the Covid-19 crisis.
Another essential role will be played by the International Financial Institutions (IFIs), not only as entities at the centre of the global financial security network that inject funds into the system (as is the case with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), but also as organizations providing technical cooperation and aid to the most fragile countries, and support for investors and lenders from the private sector (such as the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA).
Lastly, the European Union will hold a central position. Its member states have expressed a desire to move towards multilateral solutions that speak with a single, coordinated and coherent voice. As Stefano Manservisi, former Director General of the Department of International Cooperation and Development of the European Commission (DEVCO), points out, the system of international cooperation has been severely tested by Covid-19. But, despite this, we must continue in our efforts to reinforce the work of coordination among countries by implementing new rules, renewed governance practices, and increasing public spending to support development and promoting the principal, “leave no one behind.”
Recent events have called into question the role and effectiveness of international institutions. But these bodies will serve a critical function as platforms for cooperation, which, in addition to financial assistance, can provide the technical know-how needed to design and implement indispensable public policies.
In conclusion, today all the conditions are in place to help build a faithful narrative around a new concept of multilateralism that leverages its true potential to combat the ongoing crisis and to create a new kind of global solidarity — a solidarity that will lead us to stand a little taller to see a broader horizon.
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