UN chief’s advisory agency must midwife a new multilateral diplomacy

The world has just witnessed a headline-grabbing moment of royal transfer of power where Britain, one of the key architects of post-World War II multilateralism, has steered clear of a repeat interregnum – the period of uncertainty in English history between the execution of Charles I in 1649 and the restoration of Charles II in 1660.

The world is on the cusp of a global transfer of power. The economic centre of gravity shifted eastwards and southwards. New centres of power have emerged.

And the unipolar world that replaced the Cold War era has given way to a multipolar world. But the multilateral system is ‘gridlocked’, ‘unravelling,’ ‘unfit for purpose’ and in retreat.

It is trapped in the geopolitics of the interregnum where, in the apt words of Antonio Gramsci, ‘the old is dying, and the new cannot be born’.

Against this backdrop, UN Secretary-General António Guterres – convinced that strengthening multilateralism through forging stronger collaboration among countries is the only sustainable pathway to a peaceful, stable, prosperous world for all – established the High-Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism (HLAB) on March 18, 2022.

The board gives teeth to his report on Our Common Agenda (September 2021), which called for stronger governance of key issues of global concern and proposed a “Summit of the Future in 2023”.

The board’s recommendations will feed into the Summit, which is expected to advance ideas for an effective post-Covid multilateral diplomacy as a framework of delivering global public goods – including climate and sustainable development beyond 2030, the international financial architecture, peace, outer space, the digital space, major risks and the interests of future generations. 

But hewing a new effective post-hegemonic, multilayered, inclusive and legitimate multilateralism from the current malaise is a tall order. Part of the problem is that “the centre cannot hold”, to quote a line from a poem by the Irish poet William Butler Yeats.

A brutal populist surge in the West – epitomised by anti-globalisation trends such as nationalism, isolationism, protectionism and anti-migration policies – has forced multilateral diplomacy into retreat.

Populism fanned the embers of nationalism, weakening Trans-Atlantic ties on which post-War multilateralism has rested.

At the height of his “America first” agenda, President Donald Trump posted angry tweets against various multilateral institutions, pulled America out of the Paris Agreement, rubbished the WTO as “the single worst deal ever made” and fanned his supposedly “good-and-easy-to-win” trade wars with China.

America turned its back on its allies in Nato, setting Europe on a fragile path. The G8 has shrunk to the G7 and the use of UNSC vetoes increased as America swung like a roller-coaster between isolationism and blips of commitment to multilateralism.

Beacon of multilateralism

From a beacon of multilateralism and a unique model of regional cooperation for the rest of the world, populism has turned Europe into a beacon of disintegration where states take back sovereignty.

Brexit, and its “take-back-control” slogan, dealt a coup-de-grâce to the European Union and notions of multilateralism as a ‘European way of life”.

The EU has also suffered serious body blows from right-wing populist parties such as the Alternative for Germany (AfD). The West has retreated into bilateralism, club diplomacy and ‘coalitions of the willing’ to counter the rising global South.

As a result, if the second half of the 20th century was the age of integration, when nations came together and pooled sovereignty in pursuit of common goals, the 21st century is increasingly unfolding as an age of disintegration; when nations are everywhere taking back their sovereignty and drifting apart.

The developing world is also disenchanted with global multilateral diplomacy. Ineffectual and wanting, global multilateralism has not responded effectively to pandemics like Ebola and Covid-19, the economic and humanitarian impacts of wars in Ukraine and Ethiopia’s Tigray Region, climate change and the devastating drought in the Horn of Africa, the worst in over four decades.

In the 1980s, China joined key multilateral bodies such as the World Bank. However, the US and its allies have resisted its influence in these bodies, arguing that China is using the multilateral framework and rules to enhance its global leadership.

The US has opposed China’s bid to obtain greater voting power in the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF). Moreover, although China is the world’s second-largest economy, it is absent from the Group of 7 (G7).

During its 2021 summit, the G7 unveiled the Build Back Better World (B3W) as an initiative to counter China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). But the Partnership has not gained traction.

‘The Asian Davos’

In response, China has tapped into the ‘Bandung spirit’ to underwrite an alternative multilateral order. It founded the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and the Boao Forum for Asia (“the Asian Davos”).

Since 2010, China has spearheaded the formation of two financial institutions, including the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). 

In Africa, Beijing launched the Forum for China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), a premier policy forum for 55 African states and China.

The African Union (AU), the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and Regional Economic Communities (RECs) in sub-regions are part of an emerging multilateralism with China.

Effective multilateralism is at the heart of the ongoing global power transition. The HLAB has a historic mission to broker an inclusive dialogue of civilisations to realise a new non-hegemonic multilateralism capable of delivering global public goods in the post-Covid-19 global governance and safeguarding the welfare of future generations.

The “new multilateralism” should underpin a just, equitable, inclusive and prosperous world. 

Second, the search for sustainable multilateralism should integrate minilateral diplomacy as a defining feature of 21st Century multilateralism involving sub-regional, regional and inter-regional bodies such as the African Union, BRICS and Group of 20 (G20).

The long-overdue reform of the UN Security Council remains an unfinished, but urgent, agendum. Sufficient safeguards are necessary to prevent the misuse of the new multilateralism for geostrategic ends.

A post-hegemonic ‘new multilateralism’ should be as neutral vis-à-vis global geopolitics and as above suspicion as Caesar’s wife!

Prof Kagwanja is a former Government Adviser, Chief Executive of the Africa Police Institute (API) and Adjunct Scholar at the University of Nairobi and the National Defence University, Kenya. This article is an excerpt from a paper presented at the forum of the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Advisory Board (HLAB) on Effective Multilateralism held at the United Nations Office in Nairobi (UNON) on Monday, October 17, 2022.