(Spanish, French, and German below.)

On 10 September 2021, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres released the “Our Common Agenda” (OCA) report. This report was in response to a request from UN member states to “report back before the end of the seventy-fifth session of the General Assembly with recommendations to advance our common agenda and to respond to current and future challenges”. 

The Civil Society FfD Group is extremely concerned with the new global governance proposals proposed in the OCA report in relation to the global economic and financial architecture, the larger implications on democratic global governance, as well as the Financing for Development (FfD) agenda and its inter-related domains. Rather than reaffirm the role of universal and democratic intergovernmental processes, the proposals rely on new multi-stakeholder approaches, termed ‘networked multilateralism’ in the SG report, that bring to the decision-making table the global corporate monopolies and international financial actors that have concentrated wealth and power, subsumed regions into debt and austerity, eroded environmental integrity, exacerbated poverty and human rights violations, actively undermined equal and just access to vaccines, and profited from disasters. This modality of operation would only undermine the United Nation’s role in international decision-making and the related accountability and transparency that is central to its legitimacy. Further, it would embed the UN in extreme conflict of interests, with the risk of undermining its integrity and autonomy. 

The attached report provides a detailed response outlining our concerns.

You can also read this Opinion Piece: ‘Our Common Agenda’: Guterres’ Open Door to Corporate Capture of the UN

And listen to our member’s participation at the “Our Common Agenda” Thematic consultation 2 Accelerating the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through sustainable financing and building trust 15 February 2022, UN Headquarters New York (virtual modality).

Full Panel discussion:

https://media.un.org/en/asset/k1l/k1llgh6vdg

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