Mandeep Tiwana, chief officer for evidence and engagement at CIVICUS and Lysa John, Secretary General of CIVICUS
Let’s not beat around the bush: this year’s United Nations General Assembly was a letdown. The annual September gathering produced very little to solve spreading wars, authoritarianism, nationalist populism, economic inequality, or worsening climate change. Nor did it accelerate progress on the Sustainable Development Goals.
From our view the problem is simple. UNGA doesn’t create enough space for civil society who work on behalf of the world’s underserved people. Instead, UNGA seems to heavily privilege state representation by government officials — many of whom cause the very crises the U.N. must solve and often treat UNGA merely as a platform for propaganda.
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