UN75 Peace & Security Innovations Webinar

On Wednesday One Earth Future facilitated a webinar focused on ideas for innovation in United Nations (UN) structure and function to improve the UN’s peacebuilding focus. This webinar was part of an ongoing series of e-consultations, partnership discussions, and engagement with UN figures and experts around the world in preparation for the upcoming UN 75 Global Governance Forum.
OEF is part of a coalition of organizations including the Stimson Center, the Global Challenges Fund, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, and The Global Governance Philanthropy Network, organizing the UN 75 Global Governance Forum as an input to the upcoming recognition of the UN’s 75th anniversary. This Forum will bring together discussions about innovations in UN structure and function with examples of concrete new multi-stakeholder partnerships designed to help support “The Future We Want, The UN We Need.”
As one input into this Forum, OEF Senior Strategic Advisor Conor Seyle has been co-facilitating with Volker Lehmann of FES New York an ongoing discussion about potential innovations in the UN’s structure and function around peacebuilding issues. Speakers at the webinar included Richard Gowan of the International Crisis Group, Vesselin Popovski of OP Jindal Global University, Marina Kumskova of the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict, Cristina Petcu of the Stimson Center, and Daisaku Higashi of Sophia University. The discussion was wide-ranging, and covered discussions on the relative value of big-picture versus achievable reforms, the existing political interest among UN member states in reform, and questions of how crises like COVID-19 can lead to new innovations.
The results of this dialogue will be incorporated into the discussions planned for the UN 75 Global Governance Forum on September 16 & 17, 2020.