Although the United Nations system remains the foundation of global governance, its capacity to drive domestic implementation of urgently needed reforms and regulations is stretched thin. Fortunately, narrower “plurilateral” arrangements can help, provided that they are explicitly designed to strengthen democracy.
AUCKLAND—When leaders from around the world meet in New York for the United Nations’ 81st General Assembly this month, it will be no ordinary gathering. Member states will be close to choosing the next secretary-general, who will immediately be confronted not only by many global crises, but also by the UN’s diminished finances. With some member states not fully meeting their financial obligations to the organization, the UN has already had to slash its 2026 budget by 9% and eliminate around one-fifth of its workforce, leading outgoing Secretary-General António Guterres to warn that “the current trajectory is untenable.”
Yet the UN remains essential. It was created to help us maintain peace, prevent wars, protect human rights, support sustainable development, set global norms, and uphold international law. No other international organization can claim the same degree of universal legitimacy. But universal membership and legitimacy come with tradeoffs. Reaching a consensus takes time, and negotiations can produce compromises that do not adequately address the problems they were supposed to solve. Given these limitations, the UN system needs partners that can complement its work.
That is why governments and their citizens have long turned to smaller “coalitions of the willing”—under the banner of “plurilateralism”—in cases where consensus is not possible. Plurilateral organizations have emerged to address everything from climate-related issues and extractive industries to human rights and trade. Because the members of such coalitions share values, goals, or interests, they can agree, innovate, and act together more quickly. Such pragmatic arrangements were what Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney had in mind in his landmark “middle powers” speech in Davos in January.
Of course, not all plurilateral organizations are the same. Some are mere talking shops, but others have emerged as effective platforms for experimentation and coordinated policymaking. Some provide concrete standards for how countries should act, while others let members choose their own commitments. Some open the conversation to the public, while others remain behind closed doors. And some hold their members accountable for delivering on their promises, while others do not.
But often absent from discussions about our new “variable geometry,” as Carney calls it, is the question of whether plurilateral institutions strengthen or weaken democracy. Having witnessed firsthand the importance of strong plurilateral arrangements during my time as chair of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) and as an administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, I can attest that this is no academic question.
Consider the critical minerals that will power the next generation of clean energy. Because the issue touches on everything from climate, trade, and energy to security and human rights, no fewer than eight plurilateral initiatives are in the works to secure future supplies. Some have clear standards—like bans on child slavery or mining in war-torn areas—and requirements for independent audits, civil-society participation, and parliamentary oversight. But others are just exclusive trade deals—the lowest common denominator of critical-minerals governance.
Many governments and much of the private sector, of course, want their clean energy to come with minimal environmental costs and no human exploitation. But hoping for these standards to be upheld is not enough. If their payments are ultimately pocketed by warlords, or if human-rights standards are not consistently monitored and enforced, we will repeat some of the worst mistakes of the fossil-fuel era.
Throughout the developing world, dependence on fossil-fuel extraction has been a strong predictor of poverty, corruption, authoritarianism, and conflict. To prevent our inevitable critical-minerals dependency from reproducing the same outcomes, we must establish clear, strong safeguards from the outset.
What’s true for critical minerals is also true for many other areas of global governance. Instead of leaving more positive outcomes to chance, we need to insist that plurilateral arrangements focus on three things: promoting concrete actions (such as coordinated environmental and labor regulations); encouraging participation by a wide variety of stakeholders; and establishing independent monitoring mechanisms. In each case, the core objective should be to enhance democracy. If these values are upheld, plurilateral arrangements can support the UN’s mission, rather than unwittingly undermining or substituting for it.
I say this as someone who has helped lead plurilateral initiatives that did strengthen democracy. For example, the Open Government Partnership (OGP), where I serve as an ambassador, has had a greater impact precisely because it embraces a democratic approach. Across its 73 member countries, governments and civil-society groups draft reform commitments together, thereby building domestic support, legitimacy, and buy-in for the final result. In this way, the OGP has made public procurement more transparent and budgets easier to review, as well as helping to identify the anonymous companies used to launder ill-gotten gains from lower-income countries.
Similarly, plurilateral organizations like the EITI require transparency across the oil, gas, and mining sectors, and the Financial Action Task Force helps countries update their anti-corruption and counterterrorism systems to meet international standards. What the OGP, the EITI, and the FATF share are the three foundational principles I listed above: they promote concrete, coordinated action, include many different stakeholders, and provide for independent monitoring.
The UN-centered multilateral system remains the foundation of global governance. But in an era of deepening polarization, reduced funding, and attacks on democracy, its capacity to drive domestic implementation of urgently needed reforms and regulations is stretched thin. Plurilateralism can help, but only if it is explicitly designed to strengthen democracy.
We don’t have to make a choice between multilateralism and plurilateralism. But we do need to complement multilateralism, as embodied by the UN, with the right kind.
