Financing the UN Development System: Time to Meet the Moment

With the COVID-19 pandemic having reversed development gains across the world, Member States and United Nations entities have a mutual responsibility to demonstrate proactive and transformational leadership in ensuring an adequate multilateral response, while also looking ahead to strengthen global and regional risk reduction.
“Such leadership is about investing in more integrated approaches and in global public goods that go beyond what individual states or agencies can achieve,” states the seventh edition of the report Financing the United Nations Development System.
The Funding Compact, welcomed by both Member States and the UN in 2019, offers a potential framework for changing funding patterns. If utilized to its full potential and empowered by leadership, it can deliver the quality of funding – predictable, flexible and accountable – that enables UN country teams to scale up integrated programming and policy support across mandates, thereby accelerating progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals, according to the report.
Pooled funds, in particular, can catalyze integrated programming by establishing transformative criteria for joint planning and effective funds allocation based on priority needs and comparative advantages. To improve the quality of funding channeled through the UN development system, Member States and UN entities are encouraged to deepen strategic funding dialogues at global and country levels.
“In preparing for such dialogues at this critical juncture for multilateralism, we hope that the seventh edition of the Financing the United Nations Development System report can help enlighten decision-making for a stronger UN,” the authors state. The report, subtitled ‘Time to Meet the Moment’, not only offers a comprehensive and accessible overview of the current state of UN funding, but provides a marketplace of ideas from thought leaders across Member States, UN entities and research institutions.
For all stakeholders, it is time to ‘meet the moment’ through smart investments and financing for sustainable development, prevention and emergency preparedness, while at the same time managing the COVID-19 pandemic. On top of this, the larger challenge calls for investments addressing climate resilience; the deep inequalities and injustices laid bare by the pandemic; and – through investing in prevention, peacebuilding and sustaining peace – the root causes of conflict.
The seventh edition of the report arrives at a moment when the UN system is facing unprecedented challenges. Climate change, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, increasing inequality, and armed conflicts are placing inimitable demands on the multilateral system. For the international community, then, it is “Time to Meet the Moment” through quality financing of multilateral approaches to development. Only then can a shared aim of promoting prevention, mitigation, resilience building and emergency preparedness be met.
Mobilizing the quality, unearmarked multilateral finance needed to address these challenges calls for clarity and transparency. Towards this end, the financial data explored in Part One of this report aims to demystify the complex funding dynamics of the UN development system and how they feed into financing flows for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Building on this, in Parts Two and Three the report presents a comprehensive selection of contributions from experts – including UN professionals (present and former), and representatives of think tanks and Member States – reflecting on the emerging trends, risks and opportunities apparent in multilateral financing. In doing so, the report provides a point of departure for forward-looking conversations both on how the UN system ought to be funded and how it could leverage this finance towards meeting global needs and goods, all the while building forward better from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The annual report is the result of a longstanding partnership between the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation and the United Nations Multi-Partner Trust Fund Office.

How Africa and China May Shape UN Peacekeeping Beyond the Liberal International Order

A flagship activity of the liberal international order (LIO) in the post-Cold War era, characterized by globalization, liberal norms and western leadership, UN peacekeeping today finds itself at a crossroads.

While Western states’ diminished support for LIO UN peacekeeping has left it increasingly open to challenge, significant changes are only likely if a strong group of states coalesces around an alternative model of UN peacekeeping, according to  KATHARINA P. COLEMAN and BRIAN L. JOB.

Writing in the journal International Affairs, they highlight African actors and China as well positioned to play pivotal roles in such a coalition. African states, who host the preponderance of UN missions and furnish almost half of the UN’s uniformed peacekeepers, support globalized UN peacekeeping, show relatively weak support for the most liberal peacebuilding principles and assert the need for African-led solutions to continental crises.

China’s influence reflects its P5 status, financial and personnel contributions to UN peacekeeping and engagement with regional actors, notably in Africa. Aspiring to global leadership and a ‘new world order’, China endorses globalized UN peacekeeping but proposes a non-liberal (and non-western led) notion of ‘developmental peace’ to guide it.

“Chinese and African strategic goals are not identical, but there are important complementarities in their respective positions,” the authors state in their article titled ‘How Africa and China may shape UN peacekeeping beyond the liberal international order’.

China challenges liberal democratic peacebuilding, which has few committed champions in Africa. African actors embrace robust protection, stabilization and counterterrorism activities, which China is willing to support within a ‘developmental peace’ framework, as long as state sovereignty is respected—priorities many African actors share.

China and African actors share common interests in curtailing western dominance over UN peacekeeping decisions. African actors seek greater influence in peacekeeping decisions regarding Africa; China supports greater regional ownership as part of its own vision of an international order characterized by greater Chinese leadership within and beyond the UN.

The compatibility of Chinese and African objectives presages a significant challenge to LIO UN peacekeeping, especially given that other UN actors have also supported elements of their proposed reforms, including greater regional consultation (endorsed by the UN Secretariat) and a shift to stabilization (whose supporters include some western states).

Whether a post-LIO version of UN peacekeeping emerges will nonetheless depend on the coherence and skill of both the actors advocating it and those seeking instead to reconsolidate LIO UN peacekeeping. Strikingly, however, the globalization of UN peacekeeping is not at stake: China and African actors endorse globalized UN peace operations as essential complements to regional peacekeeping.

“The challenge they pose is thus not one of deglobalization, but one that contests the nature and leadership of globalized institutions.”

Katharina P Coleman, Brian L Job, How Africa and China may shape UN peacekeeping beyond the liberal international order, International Affairs, Volume 97, Issue 5, September 2021, Pages 1451–1468, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiab113

Power and Diplomacy in the UN Security Council: The Influence of Elected Members

There is well-known claim that due to the dominant position of the veto-wielding five permanent (P5) in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), the ten members elected to two-year terms (E10) are left with little space to be influential in that body. 
However, VAHID NICK PAY AND PRZEMYSŁAW POSTOLSKI argue that, in fact, there could be powerful channels for the E10 to exercise significant influence.
Writing in The International Spectator, the authors present the cases of Poland’s 2018-2019 and South Africa’s 2019-2020 terms as elected members UNSC to challenge the claim that due to a prevailing democratic, legitimacy or efficiency deficit(s) in the structure and/or working methods of the Council, there is no significant space for the E10 members to be influential.
“By examining these two representative cases, the E10’s capacity to exert such influence can indeed be detected on multiple levels, which highlights the numerous channels and practices available to the elected members to act as veritable norm entrepreneurs at this most prominent institution of global governance,” they write in the research article ‘Power and Diplomacy in the United Nations Security Council: The Influence of Elected Members’.
Regarding the dynamics of legitimacy, these case studies demonstrate that the position of elected members can be strengthened by building various coalitions with other members to extend their ability to influence the Council’s decision-making. In the cases of Poland and South Africa, the coalitions built with P5 and other E10 members paved the way for important accomplishments, such as the adoption of resolutions 2475 and 2493.
As far as diplomatic capacities are concerned, the example of South Africa appears to provide an interesting alternative for arrangements of resources for medium and small powers through keeping a considerable number of decision-making functions back in the capital, PAY and POSTOLSKI state. 
“Despite obvious procedural challenges, this seems to have provided significant advantages such as reduced costs, resource-sharing with other government sectors and, most importantly, opportunities for involving a broader number of actors, in particular the civil society.” Such potential for change in the working methods may contribute to strengthening the overall position of the E10 in the Council.
The study has also confirmed that even though the agency of an elected member, primarily manifested through its effectively deployed resources and diplomatic capacities, is important in determining its influence in the Council, no less important are conditions extending beyond the Council member’s direct control, the authors note. 
“In this light, Poland’s and South African’s voices were at times significantly amplified by the presence of other supportive members in the Council and other favorable conditions.”
In the case of South Africa, its concomitant presidency of the Council and of the African Union and numerous proactive diplomatic initiatives combined with unexpected support from other E10 members acted as enabling factors to simultaneously promote geopolitical questions of national interest and build and strengthen consensus in the Council. 
Therefore, when serving in the Council, one must factor in such elements as timing, political context and the composition of the Council in a given term. All these conditions can be either favorable or detrimental to the overall performance of an elected member.
Furthermore, the authors stress, the E10’s influence can be exercised through formal and informal mechanisms in the Council’s decision-making. In this vein, both cases clearly demonstrate that UNSC presidencies, Arria-formula meetings and high-level political engagement were especially useful, as highlighted for the aforementioned resolutions 2493 and 2475.
To be sure, the resolutions tabled by Poland and South Africa were hardly controversial as these were themes that most countries could agree upon. It must be borne in mind, however, that due to the political polarization of the Council highlighted above, even the P5 are increasingly incapable of reaching a consensus on difficult questions, as evidenced by the official Council data on the number of consensus resolutions. “This, in turn, could open up significant perspectives for influence for the elected members.”
Taking everything into account, it becomes evident that, despite the prevailing position of the P5, the elected members can play an important and sometimes even crucial role in the Council’s decision-making. 
One interesting conclusion from the above cases could be an appreciation of the fact that the E10’s capacity for playing such a fundamental role in the Council has been underpinned by their less pronounced national and geopolitical interests at the Council compared to the P5. 
This undoubtedly puts the E10 in a more flexible negotiating position, capable of going beyond ‘red lines’ and even acting as power brokers in the Council. This important attribute, which could be regarded as a foundational element of multilateralism, might be even more sorely needed in an increasingly polarized Council faced with the realities of a systemic shift towards a multipolar world. 
Accordingly, it could be argued that the presence of the E10 in the Council not only underpins its dynamics of legitimacy but also safeguards its very foundations of multilateralism, reposing on elements of devolution of power, pooling of sovereignty and compromise. 
In addition, the emerging trends towards the reform of the Council’s working methods and the inclusion of wider global actors and the civil society in debates have the potential to turn the E10 into veritable norm entrepreneurs of the Council’s developing working methods that could lead to future structural reforms. 
“Such drives to informal reforms appear to be even more crucial as the debates over the nature, the viability or even the desirability of structural reforms of the Council proves to be far from over for the foreseeable future.” 

Vahid Nick Pay and Przemysław Postolski (2021) Power and Diplomacy in the United Nations Security Council: The Influence of Elected Members, The International Spectator, DOI: 10.1080/03932729.2021.1966192