Although the United Nations system and its diverse agencies can point to many successes in its close to 80-year history, the institution’s structure is based on both an inequitable and outdated model that can no longer meet the pressing needs of our time. In fact, the world is faced with catastrophic risks at multiple levels, including but not limited to an earth that is being pushed beyond planetary environmental boundaries, billions of people subsisting on less than $7/day, unsustainable debt burdens that threaten State capacity to provide for their citizens, and the growing dangers posed by increasingly militarized approaches to world affairs. On the security front, the UN system is all but frozen in its ability to keep the peace. Given its post WWII structure, the world’s largest and most powerful nation states can override international law at their discretion and/or acquire more and deadlier weapons of war that put our collective future at increasing risk.  Although political hindrances to reform are often cited, humanity is at a turning point where the future of present and future generations – and a fragile ecosystem – is at stake. This panel conversation will investigate what can be salvaged and what can be created vis-à-vis institutions of global governance and whether the forthcoming UN Summit of the Future can catalyze important reforms to our global governance architecture at a time of increasing geopolitical tensions posing risks to our future.

Moderator

Augusto Lopez-Claros, Executive Director, Global Governance Forum

Panelists:

Rachel Bayani, Director, Baha’i International Community, Brussels Office

Sandrine Dixson-Decleve, Co-President of the Club of Rome

Maria Fernanda Espinosa, Executive Director of GWL Voices for Change and Inclusion, former President of the 2018 UN General Assembly and former Foreign and Defense Minister of Ecuador

Silvana Koch-Mehrin, Founder and President, Women Political Leaders