The Global People’s Assembly 2023 will be on 17 (Sunday) and 18 September (Monday) in New York – at the UN SDG Summit and the UN General Assembly.
The Global People’s Assembly (GPA) brings people’s representatives together and creates a strong voice at the SDG Summit for the midpoint of Agenda 2030. The assembly will be in-person in the Church Centre of the UN (opposite the UN), with 300 participants expected. Participants can also join online — [...]
This GPW Round Up – 5th UN Conference on Least Developed Countries (LDC5): Highlights from High-Level Roundtable discussions at LDC5 – features a selection of perspectives from different groups of participants at the LDC5 Conference held in March 2023.
This GPW Round Up #4, UN 2023 Water Conference: Highlights from the conference in UN year for Water Action and Focus, features a selection of perspectives from different groups of participants at the UN Water Conference held in March 2023.
19 May, 2023
Geneva, Switzerland
At an online event held yesterday ahead of World Health Assembly’s 76th session, civil society experts raised concerns about the influence of private and philanthropic foundations during the COVID19 pandemic and the ongoing pandemic treaty negotiations at WHO and overall policy development on various human rights.
Experts highlighted that there is hardly any oversight and it can be often difficult to estimate scale of the influence of these unaccountable private foundations, including the likes [...]
This new report Spotlight on Global Multilateralism offers critical analyses and presents recommendations for strengthening democratic multilateral structures and policies. Its contributors cover key areas such as peace and common security, reforms of the global financial architecture, calls for a New Social Contract, an inclusive digital future, the rights of future generations and the transformation of education systems. The report also identifies built-in deficiencies and weaknesses of current multilateral structures and approaches. This applies, inter alia, to concepts of corporate-influenced [...]
Further information on the report & download files
The world is in permanent crisis mode. Intensified international cooperation is urgently needed. The UN Secretary-General called for new ways to work together and proposed a Summit of the Future to respond to the multiple crises affecting people’s lives. UN Member States agreed that the Summit will take place in September 2024.
The preparatory process for this Summit provides an opportunity not only for governments and the UN but also for civil [...]
By Alexa Sabatini, Julie Kim, Barbara Adams, and Karen Judd
The UN established the category of least developed countries (LDCs) in 1971, as many developing countries were navigating a path to development in the post-colonial period. The classification identified specific development challenges faced by these countries. As the UN ECOSOC Committee for Development Planning (renamed in 1998 Committee for Development Policy – CDP) acknowledged in 1971:
“[w]hile developing countries as a group face more or less the same general problems [...]
This GPW Round Up #3 highlights different perspectives on CSO engagement in UN processes.
By the GPW Team
In September 2022, heads of state and government spoke at the UN Headquarters on the theme “A watershed moment: transformative solutions to interlocking challenges”.
Secretary-General António Guterres’s message was clear: “Our world is in peril and paralyzed". He launched the High-level General Debate bluntly: “Our world is in big trouble. Divides are growing deeper. Inequalities are growing wider. Challenges are spreading farther.” He urged, “We need action across the board.”
“Let’s have no illusions. We are [...]
By Marina Durano
Recovery with care
The pandemic lockdowns and limits to mobility taught painful lessons about the importance of care. First, the pandemic forced us to recognize the value of care workers as essential and that we are dependent on a broad spectrum of essential workers. Second, a significant share of deaths occurred in long-term care homes, exposing the vulnerabilities of a long-neglected sector. Third, parents with school-age children felt the stresses of holding down a job while working [...]
By Antje Hipkins and Elena Marmo
Crucial to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda is SDG 17, “Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development”. Increasingly, discussions now take the form of multistakeholder partnerships and engagement with the business sector as a tool to mobilize finance for the SDGs or generate needed capacity - often to develop a pipeline of bankable projects. This partnership orientation has become a regular [...]
By Antje Hipkins
Since the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), the United Nations has annually convened the High-level Political Forum (HLPF) under the auspices of the UN Economic and Social Council annually and at Summit level under the auspices of the General Assembly every four years. The HLPF is the main mechanism through which UN Member States assess global progress on meeting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Member States [...]
This GPW Round Up #2, Ensuring Social Protection for All, highlights the critical importance of universal social protection not only in recovering from the pandemic, but also its vital role to address pre-existing deep-seated inequalities between and within countries. It details gaps in social protection coverage and financing, especially in poor countries, and failures of the targeted, or means-tested approach, often promoted by IMF and World Bank.
The Round Up features comments and debates by Member [...]
This GPW Round Up #1, entitled “The Debt Crisis and Illicit Financial Flows” looks at the UN Secretary-General’s proposals in his report Our Common Agenda to address this crisis, starting with a Biennial Summit between the G20, ECOSOC and IFIs, and asks “Does Our Common Agenda provide solutions?”
At a time when Africa has lost US$ 1 trillion over 50 years to IFFs, more than it has received in development assistance, the Round Up features Member State statements [...]
By Bodo Ellmers
The implementation of the 2030 Agenda has fallen massively behind. Insufficient development finance is a major reason for this, as the slowly subsiding COVID-19 crisis had led to a simultaneous collapse of all sources of finance. This year's UN High Level Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) should have been dedicated to building back better after the crisis. The title did retain the "building back better." De facto, however, the HLPF was overshadowed by a new wave of [...]
By Gabriele Koehler
“Feminism needs tectonic plates to shift, not a trendy make-over” (Bernardine Evaristo)
In recent years, a number of countries have re-labelled their foreign policy as ‘feminist’. Sweden introduced the concept 8 years ago. Spain, Canada, France, Luxemburg, Mexico, Chile, and Libya, and others have issued feminist foreign policy statements. Germany has a commitment to feminist foreign policy in its governmental coalition agreement and is extending the term to development cooperation also; there is also [...]
On 11 March 2022 at United Nations (UN) Headquarters in New York City, Secretary-General António Guterres addressed an audience of Member States, UN staff and other stakeholders at the final consultation meeting on his proposed Our Common Agenda. He urged Member States: “The process surrounding Our Common Agenda is an opportunity to recommit to our fundamental enduring principles while overhauling the practices of multilateralism for a new age.” The report details this new multilateralism to be “an inclusive, networked [...]
More than 600 organizations worldwide are calling for the IPCC WGIII Co-Chairs and Focal Points to fulfill their responsibility to ensure that the IPCC Report on mitigation measures clearly conveys to the global community the urgency of the crisis and the central role of fossil fuels.
By Barbara Adams and Julie Kim
One of the global processes falling prey to the Omicron variant of the Covid virus was the fifth UN Conference on the Least Developed countries, originally scheduled for the end of January in Doha, Qatar. It has been replaced with a meeting in New York on 17 March 2022 for the adoption of the Doha Programme of Action (DPoA); a full meeting will be held in March 2023, where governments will gather with stakeholders [...]
By Elena Marmo
Following the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) embarked on an effort to harmonize UN Development System (UNDS) activities with the 2030 Agenda and its SDGs as well as system-wide pressure for greater country ownership of in-country activities. This briefing examines how the UNDS is addressing its current funding challenges with a focus on the UN Fund for Children (UNICEF), the UN Development Programme (UNDP), UN Women [...]
By Elena Marmo
The COVID-19 crisis continues to have profound consequences across all sectors of society. Following the initial worldwide shutdown and resulting economic crisis, governments were forced to respond quickly to the virus, while also addressing the profound socioeconomic impacts—widespread job loss, inadequate social protection systems, and industries on the brink of collapse.
Now, with the Omicron variant on the rise globally, urgent action is needed to bring businesses and industries on board, holding them accountable as employers, taxpayers [...]
Against the backdrop of COVID-19’s ongoing impact on economies and societies worldwide, the United Nations is bringing the lens of COVID-19 recovery to its High level meetings. September saw the launch of the UN Secretary-General’s ‘Our Common Agenda on 12 September’, the opening of the UN General Debate on 14 September and a series of High-level meetings ranging from sustainable development to nuclear disarmament.
By Timo Dziggel
From October 24 to 26 health experts from around the globe gathered in Berlin for this year’s World Health Summit. Approximately 6000 participants – both virtually and on-site – discussed current trends and challenges in global health. Obviously, the main theme was the ongoing pandemic health crisis. While there was a lot of talk in a lessons learned fashion, the pandemic is far from over. As many attendants including WHO Director-General Tedros underscored, the number one global [...]
By Elena Marmo
The UN General Assembly (UNGA) began its 76th session in September 2021 with a series of High-level meetings—in both hybrid and in-person formats—under the theme of 'Building Resilience through hope to recover from COVID-19, rebuild sustainably, respond to the needs of the planet, respect the rights of people, and revitalize the United Nations'. As the UN Decade of Action progresses, efforts to secure human, economic, and environmental health are vital. During the UNGA High-level week and throughout the [...]
The coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis has ignited eagerness in some circles for new binding instruments in the global health arena. This is an unexpected development, in many ways: health policy arrangements are mostly grounded on soft norms, and the World Health Organization (WHO) has adopted binding agreements only twice in its 76 years of history. Nicoletta Dentico describes in her paper the background of the proposal for a Pandemic Treaty currently discussed in the WHO and discloses the actors and their [...]
