Ifri & KAS Program on Multilateralism: New York meeting
Between 28th June and 1st July, Ifri and the Paris Office of the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS) had the pleasure to be hosted by the team from the New York City Office of the KAS within the program on the future of multilateralism.
This is our third study visit after Geneva and Vienna where we already tried to explore multilateralism from different aspects and perspectives. During our New York visit, we were very happy to meet with inspiring interlocutors who gave us insights on their work and shared their expertise. We focused on 4 particular topics:
1. peacekeeping operations
2. implementing the sustainable development goals
3. the evolution of multilateralism in global governance
4. EU/UN partnership
Our journey started with a get-together with young professionals from Germany and France working in international institutions in New York – an ideal kick-off for the Newyorkese stage of the program. The next day we launched a session on the “EU-UN partnership in peace operations” where we had the honor to be given the points of view of Daniel Forti from the International Peace Institute’s Brian Urquhart Center for Peace Operations and Arthur Boutellis, non-resident Senior Adviser at the International Peace Institute.
We pursued our program with a session on the relevance of the UN Security Council in a multipolar world where Wadid Benaabou from the Permanent Mission of France to the UN and James Sutterlin, from the UN Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs provided us with fruitful insights.
We further had the pleasure to interact with the coordinator of the UN Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team, Edmund Fitton-Brown, along a working lunch on the impact and effectiveness of sanctions regimes in foreign policy.
The penultimate meeting of the day was consecrated to the topic “international cooperation in combatting crime and terrorism” where we enjoyed talking to Marcio Derenne from the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL), Matteo Pasquali from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and Tamara Anderson from United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT).
The first working day ended with a working dinner on the synergies of the Franco-German UN cooperation and the future of the Alliance of Multilateralism in the frame of which we enjoyed a fruitful discussion with Richard Decombe from the Permanent Mission of France to the UN and Michael Geisler from the Permanent Mission of Germany to the UN.
Our second day started with a discussion dedicated to the topic “Climate Change in times of energy crises: Can we keep our promises?” with Ligia Noronha from the UN Environment Program (UNEP), Joseph Curtin from the Rockefeller Foundation, Catherine Diam Valla from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and Christian Hannemann from the Permanent Mission of Germany to the UN.
We pursued our journey with an exchange with the Deputy Head of Delegation of the EU to the UN, Silvio Gonzato, who gave us insights on the EU’s role as an actor at the UN institutions in New York, before heading to our working lunch with Yu Ping Chan, from the Office of the UN Technology, where we discussed the topic “the UN Digital Compact and the Secretary General’s Agenda for Digital Cooperation”.
Our afternoon program encompassed a visit to the UN Headquarters where we were introduced to the main facts on the UN, its history and the main instances where decisions with wide-reaching international implications are taken. We further had the occasion to discuss the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) with Laurel Patterson and Babatunde Abidoye from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) on a more general note. This was followed by a debate on the financing of the SDGs with Raymond Landveld from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Shari Spiegel from the Sustainable Development Office of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs at the UN (UN-DESA) and Marcos Neto from the UNDP.
We further benefitted from a change of perspective when discussing the coverage of multilateralism for the public with media representatives. We had the occasion to interact with Dulcie Leimbach, the co-founder of PassBlue, and Benno Schwinghammer from the German Press Agency in New York. Our Thursday working dinner provided the opportunity for extensive exchange with Jean-Marie Guéhenno, Professor of Conflict Resolution at Columbia University and former UN Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations.
We wholeheartedly wish to thank the team from the KAS NYC for their warm welcome and the organization of this dense and rich program. We would like to express special thanks to Ms. Andrea Ostheimer and Mr. Sebastian Borchmeyer, We are now very much looking forward to our closing event in Paris at the end of the year to gather all insights we will have gotten throughout the past year and a half.