United Nations & Multilateralism - Archive

By Bodo Ellmers

From 26 to 28 February 2025, the first key events of the South African G20 presidency took place as Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors held their inaugural meeting in Cape Town, the country’s coastal metropolis. The fifth edition of the Finance in Common Summit, the world’s major gathering of public development banks, took place at the same time, attracting around 2,000 delegates. South Africa is trying to pursue several important streams of financial architecture reforms during [...]

The international community has made significant strides on the road to the 4th International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4). On 17 January 2025, the UN released the draft outcome document for the upcoming Sevilla Conference. The set of multilateral agreements included in the document will become the main global policy framework for development finance, complementing earlier agreements such as the Addis Ababa Action Agenda and the Monterrey Consensus. So what does the zero draft include? 

Debt takes centre [...]

Preparations for Second World Summit for Social Development

GPUNW No.11 explores how the question of Palestine has been taken up by Member States across a range of UNHQ processes. The selection from recent deliberations is presented in two parts.

GPUNW No.11 explores how the question of Palestine has been taken up by Member States across a range of UNHQ processes. The selection from recent deliberations is presented in two parts.

For further details

This GPW Factsheet on the 79th UN General Assembly outlines the meeting schedule, links and throughlines for action on the deliberations of Committees 2 and 3. Key issues highlighted in this briefing include macroeconomics, sustainable development, debt, food security, unilateral coercive measures (UCMs), information and communications technology (ICT), and social justice and human rights issues. 

Special Edition: Summit of the Future

The Global People's Assembly 2024 will take place in person from 22-24 September at the UN Church Center in New York. In the PROGRAMME you will find event descriptions for everything happening over the three days. Because of technical challenges people will be able to follow online only the first day of the assembly.

Please click here to register to attend in New York in person

Please click here to register to attend the first day online

The Pact for the Future (PFTF), the proposed outcome of the Summit of the Future, addresses Security Council reform in Chapter 5 on global governance. The Pact’s annotated draft and process have had a placeholder for input from the Intergovernmental Negotiations (IGN).

The GPF team has been monitoring the IGN process and negotiations. This table (see pdf file below) includes the final version of the IGN contribution to Chapter 5, which was circulated by the IGN co-facilitators, Kuwait and Austria [...]

The “Unpacking the Pact for the Future” series analyses the changes in language made between Rev.1 and Rev.2 to assess the state of the Pact as it is now and what should be done in Rev. 3 to raise the ambition of the Pact, thus working to ensure that Member States capitalize on this once in a generation moment at the Summit of the Future. 

Tax dodging and harmful tax competition remain major challenges to mobilising sufficient resources for development and public services. A landmark agreement reached in New York on 16 August 2024 could finally provide the international community with an effective tool to tackle these problems. After three weeks of intense negotiations, an ad hoc committee of the UN General Assembly agreed on the Terms of Reference (ToR) for the new UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation. The adopted ToR outline [...]

The second World Summit for Social Development (WSSD2) will take place in November 2025 in Qatar tasked with advancing social development and justice, and the implementation of and successor to the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development. This Summit together with the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) are central in the follow-up of the Summit of the Future (SOTF) in September 2024.

Divergent views on the Ministerial Declaration for the High-Level Political Forum for Sustainable Development 2024

Topics covered in this issue: 

2024 HLPF, SOTF, UNSC, Human Rights,  78 PGA, LLDC3, Debt, UCM, Beyond GDP, Inequalities

By Bodo Ellmers

From 22 to 26 June 2024, the international community gathered in Addis Ababa for the first session of the Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) for the UN's Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4). The well-attended meeting took place against the backdrop that time is running out to close the financing gap for the SDGs. At the same time, high debt levels in many developing countries are making it increasingly difficult to find suitable financing instruments. 

Wrapping up [...]

By Marina Lent and Saniya Mittal

The Pact for the Future, the proposed outcome of the Summit of the Future, will address Security Council reform in Chapter 5, on global governance. The Pact’s draft and process have a placeholder for input from the Intergovernmental Negotiations (IGN), which is due by the end of June 2024. 

The linkage of on-going and decades-long Security Council reform with the September 2024 deadline for adopting the Pact for the Future has contributed to the [...]

Topics covered in this issue: 

SOTF, UNSC, Human Rights, Debt, C5, UN Funding, QCPR, RC System, EMRTD, INFF

Topics covered in this issue:

SOTF, FfD Forum, LLDC3, SIDS4, UNSC, WSSD

Topics in this issue: 

DFG, GDC, SOTF, UN Liquidity Crisis

Topics in this issue:

SOTF, PFTF, UNSG, GDC, DFG, Nairobi Civil Society Conference

Topics in this issue:

SOTF, DFG, GDC, UN

Topics in this issue:

UNSG, UNSC, SIDS4, LLDC3, CSocD, SOTF, UN Statistical Commission, UN Funding

Member States have started negotiations on the Summit of the Future (SotF) outcome document: the Pact for the Future. The process kicked off on 29 January 2024 with the co-facilitators’ presentation of the Zero Draft of the Pact and Member States’ reactions to the Zero Draft.

This Global Policy Watch Factsheet #5 on the Zero Draft of the Pact for the Future walks through a summary of the co-facilitators’ presentation on how they approached the Zero Draft, Member State reactions [...]

By Bodo Ellmers

International financial architecture (IFA) reform has been a hot topic lately. Numerous expert groups have made policy recommendations, and the developing countries among the UN member states in particular are calling for faster and more fundamental reforms. In the run-up to the Summit of the Future, scheduled for September this year, civil society organisations have been campaigning for a wide range of changes. The latest Spotlight on Global Multilateralism highlighted campaigns for more inclusive global tax [...]

Two high-level conferences for countries in special situations are scheduled for 2024 and Preparatory Committees have begun their discussions at the UNHQ.

This Round Up focuses on central themes explored by the UNGA78 Second Committee (Economic and Financial)’s session on Groups of Countries in Special Situations, including debt distress and vulnerability, concessional funding and climate financing.

Deliberations addressed the follow-up to LDC5 and the lead-up to the 2024 conferences, SIDS4 and LLDC3.