UN Activity

Talk around the UN General Assembly in September, and the ongoing selection process for the new Secretary General concluding with the renewal on 1 January 2027, has been largely about multilateralism in crisis. Change is needed if the central institutions associated with multilateralism are to remain relevant. The question is what such changes might be. Identifying multilateral relevance requires a deeper understanding of where the problems appear to lie. One focus necessarily is on the UN system. For all the evident problems, it remains a primary expression of contemporary multilateralism.

It is now common sense among states and experts that the UN is trying to reorganize itself as it reflects upon its ability to meet the global challenges of today. The question for the next few months of 2026 is: who will coordinate the next phase of the UN’s development. On January 1, 2027, a new Secretary-General will lead the UN, ending current Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres’s ten year term in office. The new Secretary-General will be responsible for advancing the UN80 initiative to reform the UN and launch the negotiations for a post-2030 sustainable development agenda. A very significant agenda that will shape the actions of states, institutions, corporations, and civil society.

The HLPF is the main platform for the review of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The aim of the HLPF is to facilitate a system-wide coordination of sustainable development policies. The HLPF is held annually to review progress on select SDGs, and country-level progress on the SDGs by a number of countries, known as Voluntary National Reviews. The aim of the Voluntary National Reviews is to share experiences with accelerating and implementing the 2030 Agenda. A negotiated Ministerial Declaration is produced at the end of the HLPF Summit.

2025 sees the UN celebrating its 80th anniversary. The UN was established to promote cooperation between the world’s nations to advance peace and cooperation. The UN80 initiative was launched in March 2025. It is part of a series of efforts that the UN has launched in recent years to adapt to the changing world and make multilateralism more responsive, resilient, and efficient.

The 2025 High-Level Week was a collective call for cooperation and change in the multilateral system. This was led by the theme of the General Debate for the year, and the growing scepticism for multilateralism in the recent years.

The UN High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) – A review mechanism for the SDGs: The HLPF was established under the outcome document of the 2012 UN Conference…