Director’s Notebook #38
United Nations 78th General Assembly Wrap-Up: Not With A Bang But A Whimper
By Peter J. Hoffman, Director of GPIA
With so many global crises, this year’s general debate at the 78th annual United Nations General Assembly promised to showcase plenty of fireworks, but when it ended on September 26, what remained was a reminder of the sweeping consensus that there is an obvious need for cooperation, including reforming the organization, and, yet, widespread discord on what to do and how. The set-up seemed auspicious: After three years of COVID-19 restrictions, more people were slated to attend in person than had for some time—in fact, it drew 88 Heads of State, six vice presidents, 43 Heads of Government, four deputy prime ministers, 41 government ministers, seven chiefs of delegations, plus three high-level speakers from observers as well 10,800 delegates and 2,255 members of the media. Moreover, UN Secretary-General António Guterres had sharply diagnosed current circumstances in a September 19 speech, “It’s reform or rupture… The world needs statesmanship, not gamesmanship and gridlock.”
The agenda spanned reforging support for the Sustainable Development Goals after progress has lapsed in the past few years (the SDG Summit) to aligning financial flows to global goals (the High-Level Dialogue on Financing for Development), from infectious disease responses (High-Level Meeting on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness, and Response) to tackling climate change (both Climate Ambition Summit and Climate Week). There were also the usual sorts of international peace and security issues (Russia’s invasion of Ukraine) and routine calls for Security Council reform. If progress on this agenda were to be gauged through the drama of motorcades, meetings, speeches, and handshakes, the world would rest easy. But in terms of substance, it fizzled out. Structural inequalities were untouched, and no concrete commitments of resources were made. That which divides is stronger than what unites. Despite much verbiage, nothing was done to address wars that receive considerable international attention (e.g., Sudan, Ukraine) let alone low-profile ones (like Libya, Mali, and Syria) or coups (such as across the Sahel). The enduring debt problem was ignored—25 countries spend 20% of their revenue servicing debt, and 46 countries spend at least 10%. Mass human rights violations (in Afghanistan, Israel-Palestine, and experienced by the Rohingya displaced from Myanmar, etc.) were paid no heed. There was next to nothing but teeth-gnashing on artificial intelligence and the digital space. What did emerge was a statement, the SDG Summit Political Declaration, boilerplate pledges, and hopeful words—the global version of “thoughts and prayers” in the wake of preventable tragedies. The United Nations is the canary in the cage of global governance, and asphyxiation by great power rivalries and North-South tensions is killing cooperation, explaining much of the organization’s disappointing results.
The next such opportunity to take the pulse of the United Nations comes around in September 2024, when the Summit of the Future will be held. This year we will see what sorts of commitments, resources, and capacities are put into place and which are not. The subtext will also be about authority and the UN’s role in all of this. The big caveat about that, however, is what type of organization the UN will be. In the current era, multilateralism in a multipolar world means this is not your grandfather’s UN. The UN will be re-made, or it will be irrelevant. The recent whimper suggests what will not change—the rich and the powerful will pull the strings. While many look forward to the Summit of the Future, we cannot forget that the present is beholden to the nadirs of the past.