Private funding and corporate influence in the United Nations
By Barbara Adams and Jens Martens
Overview: The changing landscape of global governance funding
The United Nations (UN) is embarking on a new era of selective multilateralism, shaped by intergovernmental policy impasses and a growing reliance on corporate-led solutions to global problems. As Member States set an agenda from 2016 until 2030 that is intended to make the UN “fit for purpose” it is time to ask, “whose purpose will it be fit for”? A continuation of the existing funding patterns without improved oversight and governance will draw the UN further from its original and ongoing purpose and further from democratic governance. As the UN confronts its future, its leadership and its Members (States) cannot avoid addressing the role of the private funding and corporate influence in international public matters and governance. Being “fit for purpose” should be driven by “purpose” first, then “fitness”. A “fit for purpose” objective must address inefficiencies, remove internal competition and duplication and establish a coherent approach to attracting private financing to UN causes. But this is not enough. The UN must reclaim and re-own the public space. The UN’s ‘niche’ is public service, not market fitness. Rather than how to be a more efficient competitor in a crowded value-free market place, the challenge it faces is how it can continue to uphold and strengthen the internationally agreed norms and standards as it is expected to fulfill an ever increasing number of mandates. It is time for the UN to think twice. If the trends and practices analysed in this study continue on their present track, they risk giving the UN stamp of approval and legitimacy to many initiatives not framed and shaped by UN values and standards of inclusiveness. These trends will not only continue to weaken global (economic) governance, they will endorse the replacement of a UN value-based framework for governance with a voluntary one, characterized by a hotchpotch of ad hoc deals that favour brand and image management over durable programmes that advance human rights and promote economic development founded on a true understanding of ecological sustainability.