Below the jump, Alex and my talk at last weekend’s Progressive Governance summit – it’s a four minute summary of our paper on multilateralism and global risks.
As we’ve heard throughout this morning’s sessions, the next few years look set to be a bumpy ride. For one thing, rising population, affluence and expectations are increasingly going to run into limits and scarcity – of land, water, energy, food, atmospheric space for emissions. Meanwhile, the complex global systems we rely on are increasingly vulnerable to disruption, whether through intention or accident – look at the financial markets.
These are collective issues – but the multilateralism we have today is badly set up to manage these risks; or build resilience to their impacts. It’s too short termist, too fragmented, too prone to being knocked off course by the unexpected.
But here’s the good news. Crisis is fertile ground for multilateral renewal – if you have a plan ready for when the window of opportunity opens, suddenly and briefly.
The UN didn’t just happen at Dumbarton Oaks, after all, nor the IMF at Bretton Woods – painstaking planning and mobilisation for the moment of opportunity was underway many months in advance.
The key precept for reform, we argue, is to start from function – with what we want the system to do – rather than form. So what are these functions? We identify three.
The destination is to build shared operating systems, thus providing a stable, efficient, and fair framework for managing a set of risks. Multilateralism works best when we don’t notice it: think of air traffic control.
So first you need shared awareness. A deep consensus on the issue – a common understanding around which a coalition can coalesce. Take the IPCC – it’s role has been to act as a hub for the global climate conversation.
But you can’t hope to get to a shared operating system in a single leap.
With enough shared awareness, we can move to shared platforms – bold campaigns for change, that energise the coalition and provide the foundation on which a new operating system can be built.
Why do we recommend this approach?
A focus on shared awareness forces us to be serious about monitoring and responding to risk. At present, unfortunately, many catastrophes unfold over a number of years, like a slow-motion car crash, while we fail to take collective action. Look at the AIDS pandemic as one example – we now seem to be going the same way with food.
Building shared platforms, meanwhile, forces us to reach out beyond governments and international organisations. Global deals on issues such as climate change will be like chess in reverse: the closer we get to the endgame, the more pieces flood on the board as groups wake up to the debate and mobilize to protect their interests. So governments have to think in a more disciplined way about influence. How do they make change happen in a world where they are losing the power to insist?
Finally, by attempting to construct shared operating systems, we are forced to be bold. The problems that we face are unprecedented. Just shuffling our existing pack of organisations won’t suffice. Some of the responses we’ll need would have been inconceivable to the designers of post-war multilateralism.
As Gordon Brown has pointed out, without innovation it is inevitable we will fail in our task.
So that’s the basic road map as we see it. What do you need to do?
First, remember the sequence. Start with shared awareness. Use that to imagine shared operating systems. Then work back to thinking about the shared platforms you need to get to them.
Second, you need to invest in shared resources, like the Stern Review on climate change, and campaigns, like the Landmines Convention.
Third, act in a systematic way to increase inter-operability between your governments and like-minded actors in the international system – be they states, international agencies or non-state actors.
And above all, lead debates boldly from the front. Make unilateral commitments. Use crisis creatively. Set out really compelling narratives to animate coalitions, and drive us towards shared operating systems.
If those narratives are truly to resonate, you’ll need to zero in on the very hardest questions – and perhaps most of all on the ones about equity in a context of scarcity. This is the arena for progressive politics in the 21st century.
