Reimagining multilateralism and UN reform

For many years, there has been an acknowledgment that the development sector operates in silos. Now more than ever, amid unprecedented funding cuts and rapidly shifting geopolitics, there is an impetus to dismantle the siloes and transform the United Nations so that it serves today’s needs.

“It’s a system that you will need as long as humanity exists. You will need to convene, you will need to negotiate, you will need to find solutions. The other option is war and conflict. … So no matter in what form it exists, our purposes are timeless, our structures are not,” said Navid Hanif, assistant secretary-general for economic development at the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, setting the tone for an evening of high-energy discussion among 80 leaders in New York’s Bryant Park.

Julie Linn Teigland, EY Global vice chair of alliance and ecosystems, described the mood in the room as that of an 80th birthday party, with the U.N. as the guest of honor: celebratory, prideful, but bittersweet as the end of a chapter nears. “Yes to looking back, to being celebratory, to being prideful about what’s been accomplished,” she said. “But we're here to design the next 80 years, and the next 80 after that.”

With that in mind, the event — organized and co-hosted by Devex and EY’s Geneva-based International Development Team — focused on what it will take to build a faster and more inclusive international cooperation system. These are the key messages that emerged from the evening’s panel, breakout sessions, and side conversations.

The UN needs a new operating system

Invoking a report released on Sept. 18 by U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres in which he called for an “operating-system reboot” rather than a mere “new app,” Hanif explained what was needed to reform the U.N.: a streamlining of country teams, a pooling of resources among agencies, and country-level impact measurement. Others also called for more flexibility, transparency, and accountability.

Calling Rotary International a “mini U.N.” – it has 1.2 million members in over 200 countries – John Hewko, its general secretary and CEO, said it only works because there’s trust and shared values and goals. He suggested that the U.N. could learn from Rotary’s clarity of purpose and goal alignment across its network, supported by clear performance measures of programming and activities, to do more for less and reduce duplication across agencies. “If those principles were to be further strengthened and inculcated in whatever the U.N. structure 2.0 looks like, we’d have a much better chance of taking that structure to the next level,” he told the room.

Multilateralism must be more focused

Throughout the event, attendees talked about the need for a more outcomes-based approach to multilateral efforts. Heba Aguib, member of the board at BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt, suggested that to rethink multilateralism, we should start with the problem that needs solving and make it the central focus of the discussion as “’a starting point for action.” Then, she explained, we should identify the global leaders needed to help solve the problem, considering “the stakeholders and the beneficiaries that need to be on board”, and work together toward a shared, goal-oriented outcome.

Having “interim benchmarks that are achievable and that stretch as you continue meeting them” can make progress more visible, added Hewko. The global eradication of polio is an example to learn from, he said, as people could clearly see progress when country after country was able to declare itself free from the disease.

Such an outcomes-based approach helps organizations and countries better communicate their work in multilateral cooperation, its relevance, and its impact on the general public. As it stands, cooperation is often “dismissed as empty rhetoric,” said Alexander de Croo, former Belgian Prime Minister and member of parliament, rather than being “recognized as the engine of security and prosperity for everyone.”

Local ownership is key to future success

Member state leadership and country ownership, said Hanif, must be at the center of ‘multilateralism 2.0’. “We should have a model, which is designed for [each] country's needs, not by what we have to offer — not a supply side model,” said Hanif. This is backed by Guterres’ report, which calls for ambitious and bold ideas from member states, putting them in the driver’s seat.

“It is up to all of us to take real action on the great challenges of our time, and to open the system to every voice that deserves to be heard,” said de Croo.

This is where soft power comes in, said Penny Abeywardena, founder and CEO of Soft Power Strategies, who defines it as “talking to people where they’re at, for them to understand where they can have power.” When she was NYC’s commissioner for international affairs, her agency created a program to connect young people with the U.N. and the Sustainable Development Goals, asking teenagers in the South Bronx area of New York City what they considered the biggest issues in their area. The need to clean up the Bronx River was highlighted as a priority. “All of a sudden, you had advocates for ‘boring’ SDG 14,” Abeywardena explained, referring to the global goal on conserving and sustainably using marine resources. “It’s those kinds of activations, I think, that are fundamentally soft power. … Everybody needs to be brought along in a different way.”

Reporting back after the breakout session, one attendee stressed that, with seven out of 10 people predicted to live in cities by 2050, there is increasing importance for city-level leadership to drive multilateral cooperation. Hewko pointed out the need for bipartisan, cross-sectoral involvement. “I can’t give you the magic bullet, but I can say it’s going to require more than just the governmental level. It’s going to require the engagement of organizations such as Rotary if we’re really going to come up with the new ‘multilateralism 2.0’ that works.”

Amid calls to reshape multilateralism and with it the U.N., Nudhara Yusuf, co-chair of the Coalition for the UN We Need, offered a pointed reminder. In response to the question, ‘What does the U.N. bring to the table?’ she answered simply: “It brings the table.”

Technology is a key enabler

As with any conversation about the future, technology was a focus. The evening emphasized technology’s potential as a critical enabler in delivering multilateral solutions and breaking down siloes. When applied thoughtfully, it can help unlock much-needed efficiencies and transparency.

But attendees also highlighted its capacity to exacerbate divides if not implemented intentionally. “How do we make sure our solutions are trustworthy? How do we make sure that the data and the insights that we have as part of our partnerships belong with the creator? And how do we make sure that AI is being used to augment human intelligence and not to replace it?” asked Justina Nixon-Saintil, chief impact officer at IBM. She underscored the need for “responsible technology” to maintain trust, referencing IBM’s use of AI systems in partnership with the United Nations Development Program to create clean energy forecasts.

The importance of trust in the system was a recurring theme of the conversation, along with technology’s potential to erode it. Even if it is an enabler, though, technology is not a magic wand: One attendee warned against implementing technology for its own sake, suggesting instead listening to what communities need and then deploying a solution to respond.

Building trust, participants stressed, requires transparency, inclusiveness, and making global issues personal to citizens who increasingly interact through cities and social platforms rather than nation-states. Having opened the evening with reference to the U.N.’s birthday, Teigland offered the critical reminder that “If there is no trust in the system, we can sugarcoat it with icing, but it’s not going to work.”

The evening closed on a cautiously optimistic note. Devex’s President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar reminded attendees that the “story of multilateralism has not been written yet.” Multilateralism has always evolved; the question now is whether it can evolve quickly enough to keep the pace of change today and tomorrow. Whether the U.N. and its partners can deliver the operating system reboot the world needs will depend on whether promises of trust, technology, and people-centered governance translate into real-world impact.

EY’s International Development Hub is a team of Geneva-based professionals advising U.N. agencies and international organizations on strategy and transformation, such as designing future-proof operating models, securing sustainable funding, optimizing back-end operations, and leveraging new technologies to improve adaptability. Backed by EY’s global network of 400,000 professionals across the globe, the hub is committed to helping build a more resilient and sustainable future with confidence. Dominique Perron, Lea Sophie Gill, Amanda von Trapp, and Bertrand Ginet drive U.N. engagement at EY and were involved in the creation and delivery of this strategic workshop.

The views reflected in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the global EY organization or its member firms.