On 10 September 2021, the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres presented Our Common Agenda report at the paidUnited Nations Headquarters in New York. Setting out his vision for the future, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres emphasized the importance of “multilateralism with teeth” to deal with the crises that the world is facing today.
Drawing from the UN’s 75th anniversary (UN75) digital consultations, the UNSG presented a series of key proposals focused on four broad headings; strengthening global governance, focusing on the future, renewing the social contract, and ensuring a United Nations that is fit to respond to current and future global challenges. Goals and solutions to address these issues included Summit of the future which will contain the New Peace Agenda, Global Compact, Futures Lab and bi-annual meetings on the global economy.
Igarape Institute a knowledge partner of the United Nations together with a network of partners from around the world, including ACCORD (South Africa), Southern Voice (a network of 50 think tanks from Africa, Asia, and Latin America) and the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy of the National University of Singapore,generated proposals and recommendations which were shared with the executive office of the Secretary-General towards influencing Our Common Agenda. ACCORD’ contribution was through a recommendation paper looking at Leveraging Networked Multilateralism for Effective Peace Support Operations in Africa. Written by ACCORD’s research team, Dr Andrea Prah, Katharine Bebington, Keenan Govender, this paper laid out recommendations to strengthen multilateral cooperation on the African peace and security landscape, and equal representation from global institutions within the network which entails a UN Security Council (UNSC) reform that includes permanent African representation.
Our Common Agenda report has set out big goals for the global future, delivering on those goals will require countries to work together to solve global problems. ACCORD is looking forward to supporting Our Common Agenda.
