Multilateralism and Global Challenges: Making the UN Relevant for All – Lecture At The New School

– As delivered –

Statement by H.E. Mrs. María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés, President of the 73^rd Session of the UN General Assembly

2 May 2019

David E. Van Zandt, President of The New School,

Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, Professor of International Affairs and Director of the Julien J Studley Graduate Programs in International Affairs,

Michael A. Cohen, Professor of International Affairs and Co-Director of the Observatory on Latin America,

Ladies and gentlemen,

It is such a pleasure to be back at The New School. I’m so grateful to David, Michael and Sakiko for this invitation – and to the team at The New School, including David Koeppel, for all your excellent support.

I last spoke at The New School about a decade ago, and I remember well the lively – and at times provocative – debate we had on the future of Latin America, in the context of the bicentenary of its countries’ independence.

And that, of course, is why people come to The New School: to be challenged, to be inspired, to look at problems from different vantage points. You pioneered multidimensional approaches to education. You launched the first course in this country devoted to women’s history. You provided an intellectual home for German scholars fleeing fascist persecution – I reflect on this today in particular, as we mark Yom HaShoah.

Few institutions – if any – can match the diversity and prestige of New Schoolers, from Hannah Arendt to Camilo Egas, as you mentioned, David. His powerful mural, which is called “Ecuadorian Festival”, hangs in the lobby of another New School building, and I remember discovering it with pleasure when I came here in 2009. Egas was one of the founders of the Indigenismo movement, and that he taught here is another reason why I think fondly so of The New School.

As you can see, I’ve been doing my research on you! And one thing that struck me is how much The New School is part of the same movement and spirit that produced the League of Nations – anchored in a desire to create a more just, more beautiful and better-designed world.

You have, of course, fared much better than the League. You are celebrating your centenary this year. The League, meanwhile, is no more. And the United Nations – our second great experiment in global governance – is contending with an increasingly challenging environment, and an increasingly expanding “to-do” list. And that is what I want to speak to you about today.

Since its founding in 1945, the UN – and through it the international community – has delivered substantial gains for people across the world. It has presided over significant advances in international law. It has developed mechanisms for conflict resolution, peacekeeping and peacebuilding.

It has built programmes for poverty alleviation, health, education and women’s empowerment. It has supported millions of people during humanitarian emergencies. And it has facilitated the peaceful transition to independence of dozens of former colonies – dramatically changing the make-up of today’s world.

Indeed, the whole concept of an “international community” would be meaningless without the United Nations – and, in particular, the General Assembly – where all Member States – every of 193 states that make up the UN – have one seat and one vote.

But the gains of the past seven decades are now under threat, as multiple crises – climate, environmental, political, economic, social – fuel conflict and instability across the world. Globalization has added to this vulnerability, reducing the capacity of governments to weather shocks and tackle problems such as debt and unemployment.

And if I can give you one statistic to remember, it is that, if you look at the Sustainable Development Goals we have adopted, which include targets on decent work, then we know that one of the biggest challenges we face is the need to create 600 million jobs by 2030.

As a result, many leaders are turning inwards, with damaging knock-on effects for regional and international cooperation.  There is a disconnect between the knowledge we have, the technology, and with the pressing challenges we have to address.

Many people, meanwhile, have lost faith in the ability of governments and institutions to keep them safe and improve their lives. Horizons are narrowing, populism is on the rise.

I want to focus my remarks today these challenges. And – in keeping with The New School’s philosophy – I want to look at them through the prism of the design.

The structure of a system is, of course, only one factor that shapes its effectiveness. Often, debates on improving the UN focus too narrowly on structural and procedural changes, and not enough on the politics.

I am sure that if we sat down today – with help from eminent New Schoolers such as Professors Cohen and Fukuda-Parr – we could come up with a better design for the system. But even the most perfect design would not be able to overcome the realpolitik nature of what is, in essence, an inter-governmental system.

And yet, we all know that design is a response to these realities. It can reflect them, it can enhance or minimize them, or it can counter them.

The design of the UN, for instance, owes a great deal to the failure of its predecessor. There are many reasons why the League of Nations failed, but one was that did not provide sufficient incentive for the big powers of the day to work through it. This is addressed, to some extent, within the UN through their permanent membership of the Security Council and veto powers in that body – and we have to acknowledge that.

The decentralized nature of the UN’s agencies, meanwhile, stems in part from a desire to avoid the fate of the League and ensure that international co-operation on technical matters can continue in the face of impasses in the political machinery.

Today, both “designs” attract their fair share of criticism:  the Security Council for not being representative of today’s power distribution; and the decentralized web of UN funds, programmes and agencies for its lack of coordination and coherence. Both issues have been the subject of discussion for decades.

But there are two other design challenges that I believe merit greater attention than they have received to date. The first is global economic governance. And the second, the growing number of multilateral actors.

As I outlined earlier, our international system has delivered gains for poorer and smaller countries. Indeed, it is only in fora such as the General Assembly, that they can sit, on an equal footing, alongside larger, more powerful states. But it is undeniable that the system still favors the powerful – in structure and approach.

For example, I am only the fourth woman – and the first Latin American women – to be elected to serve as President of the General Assembly. I am very proud of that but it shows that, clearly, we still need to make progress.

This is particularly true of economic governance. Early designs for international financial institutions were very different from what we have today.

New Schooler John Maynard Keynes initially suggested an “international clearing union” – a global bank that would issue its own currency and use this to measure trade deficits or surpluses. Countries would have an account and overdraft facility at the bank, and – crucially – interest would not just be levied on deficits. Instead, countries with a credit of over half their overdraft would also be charged, encouraging them to export capital or increase imports. After a year, their surplus would be confiscated, helping to clear the deficit of others. Just imagine how different the world would be today under that system.

What was eventually agreed at Bretton Woods was a far cry from that. And indeed, a far cry from what happens in practice today.

Initially, it was agreed that the UN would be responsible for macroeconomic policy coordination, development planning and aid – with the UN’s Economic and Social Council overseeing these functions. The International Monetary Fund would manage exchange rates and provide funds to countries facing a short-term balance of payments crisis. And the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (what we know as the World Bank) was to lend to developing countries at favorable rates.

But ECOSOC, unfortunately, was never really able to fulfil the big economic functions assigned to it. Major economic powers, who are not accorded special status or powers in that Council, generally favored the weighted structures of the IMF and World Bank. And I don’t have to remind this audience of global affairs and Latin America students of the impact their policies had in the 1980s and 1990s.

There have, of course, been changes since then – particularly after the 2008 financial crisis, when it seemed as though groupings such as the G20 were more central to the global economy. But structural changes have been modest.  It is time to reinvigorate these efforts.

In 2015, the international community came together to adopt the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It is, in many ways, a “Green New Deal” for the world, or, as I like to call it, our survival kit, with targets on issues such as extreme poverty and inequality, but also environmental degradation, poor governance and corruption, as well as gender equality.

Many of the factors fueling dissatisfaction with the global system would be substantially mitigated through delivery of the 2030 Agenda and its 17 goals. Doing so would have far more impact than any rousing speech on multilateralism.

But one crucial element is missing from the Agenda – a vision and clear plan for reshaping global economic governance. Fora like the G20, for example, are useful. But they are not universal. They do not provide for meaningful input by smaller and poorer countries. They cannot produce outcomes with legal force or global buy-in. They cannot implement decisions without the IMF, the World Bank and UN bodies themselves.

And this relates to the second area in need of better design: how our international system interacts with the multitude of actors that now make up the international community – regional organizations, ad hoc groupings, the private sector, civil society, trade unions, cities, local governments, universities and many, many more. States, of course, remain the primary actors in our multilateral system but these stakeholders play increasingly important roles.

Often, they have more direct impact on people’s daily lives. Often, they are better placed to deliver positive outcomes. For instance, there is a plethora of global challenges – urban planning, environmental design, sustainable product design – where institutions like The New School could and should play a much greater role.

But we have still not found adequate ways to integrate stakeholders into global decision-making and delivery. Nor have we found adequate ways to increase their accountability to the people whose lives they affect.

Addressing these issues would involve big structural design changes to the international system. And this is a challenging time to make progress.

I am not someone who believes multilateralism is terminally ill, as some say. In my capacity as President of the General Assembly, I see multilateralism in action every day, in the negotiation processes I support; in the meetings I preside over; and in the outcomes we are able to achieve – from rallying support for universal health coverage to moving closer to ending the use of single-use plastics.

But this is certainly not the easiest environment for ambitious reforms. For one, there is already a broad reform agenda underway at the UN – with significant changes to the Organization’s peace and security architecture, management system and development system, which will make a difference to our ability to deliver. And we are witnessing a growing backlash – and this is really worrying – in areas such as human rights and women’s rights.

In this context, it is difficult to pursue the changes that so many within civil society – and indeed within the UN – want to see. Every reform process, every discussion that touches on principles agreed a long time ago, brings with it a serious risk of backsliding.

So my strategy as President of the General Assembly has been to focus on the most achievable and transformative changes – I have identified seven priority areas, such as  more women in leadership roles, for example, which is the closest thing we have to a silver bullet for a better world.

And the overarching theme for this session of the General Assembly has been making the UN relevant for all. So I have looked outside the corridors of the UN – to universities, communities, civil society groups and especially young people.

If we are to achieve the big changes we need, then the impetus must come from you – your ideas and your advocacy with your local and national leaders.

We have a golden opportunity coming up in the form of the UN’s 75^th anniversary next year. States are beginning to make plans for it and it is important that young people,  universities and institutions are involved. This is a crucial opportunity to reaffirm our commitment to multilateralism and to the principles of the UN Charter.

We, at the UN, can support you, and give you a voice. For instance, I have ensured that every event I hold features young people, not as the “token” youth perspective, but as an integral part of our discussions. To be truly effective, our international system must be relevant, responsible and responsive to the people it serves.

Ladies and gentlemen,

The mission of The New School is to prepare engaged and reflective global citizens to find ways to build a more just, more beautiful and better-designed world. Please see me as your partner in that venture, and the United Nations as a vehicle for your aims. We need you. Thank you.