Nonprofits still swamp sidelines of diminished UN
NEW YORK—Even as it ponders a diminished future facing cutbacks and questions of relevance, the United Nations will still draw foundations and nonprofits to New York this week for a packed schedule of conferences, meetings, happy hours and dinners on the sidelines of its general assembly of world leaders.
But the uncertainty has already had an impact.
The Gates Foundation, which usually releases a report about progress toward global development goals before the UN General Assembly meets, has delayed this year’s report because it’s not yet clear how much foreign aid and global health funding countries will commit going forward.
Former United States President Bill Clinton said the Clinton Global Initiative, which started convening its annual meeting on the UN sidelines in 2005, will change its format this year to ask leaders from business, politics and philanthropy to develop new programs during the two-day conference.
The changes are among the signals the UN General Assembly—also known as UNGA Week among attendees—will be different this year.
The UN’s largest funder, the US, has frozen funding or sought to claw it back, prompting major layoffs and program reductions across UN agencies. Its most powerful body, the Security Council, has not acted to stop two major wars, despite its founding mandate after World War II “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.”
The world’s uncertainty has made this year’s UNGA Week even more important, say some ready to join in the gatherings.
“It is still the only place that the whole world gets together and that alone, in my view, is enough to justify its existence,” said Kevin Sheekey, senior adviser to billionaire and former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg.
Since 2017, Bloomberg’s organization has convened a forum on the UN sidelines, which Sheekey said is a unique opportunity to make connections between world leaders, businesses and philanthropies. This year, it will focus on global collaboration and investment opportunities in African countries, especially around sports.
The United Nations Foundation, founded by Ted Turner in 1989 to promote cooperation with the UN, compiles a list of public events that take place on the sidelines. This year, the foundation has tracked about the same number of events as in previous years, said George Hampton, one of the foundation’s executive directors. But he said there seems to be a greater emphasis on smaller roundtables, where conversations can be more frank and substantive.
