Global eyes were on New York once again this September, as the annual high-level opening week of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly (UNGA) saw many political big-hitters come to town.

Some 131 heads of state and government were present, along with numerous senior ministers, although there were some notable absences. Four of the five leaders of the UN Security Council’s permanent members weren’t there, with US President Joe Biden the sole exception; leaders who took part in the preceding BRICS and G20 summits evidently prioritised those forums above the UN.

Leader after leader lined up to give their speeches – and while some took the opportunity to talk about global problems such as the climate crisis and the need for improved cross-border cooperation, others indulged in diplomatic sniping and played squarely to domestic audiences. Many used the podium to talk up their achievements. Despite the UN Secretary-General’s appeal for a Code of Conduct on Integrity in Public Information, outlined in the 2021 Our Common Agenda report on the future of multilateralism, disinformation was rife.

El Salvador’s populist strong-arm leader Nayib Bukele used his speech to laud the success of his crackdown on gangs, even though fundamental rights have been suspended under a state of emergency and thousands of people have been swept up in a campaign of mass arrests and detentions. Raymond Ndong Sima, Prime Minister of Gabon, took the opportunity to defend the recent military coup in his country.

Russia’s notorious foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, offered a greatest-hits package, spreading lies about the Russia’s war on Ukraine, blaming the west for all the world’s ills and pushing Vladimir Putin’s particular vision of a multipolar world in which Russia and its repressive allies have greater power. Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi showed his support by somehow blaming the USA for Russia’s war on Ukraine.

China’s Vice President, Han Zheng, spoke hypocritically of the need to advance human rights through dialogue and cooperation – even though last year the state used every diplomatic lever at its disposal to win a UN Human Rights Council vote to block discussion of its systematic human rights abuses in Xinjiang region. Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare praised China’s support for his government, shortly before deciding to opt out of a summit for Pacific Islands leaders hosted by Biden.

The Security Council in the spotlight

Headlines were captured by Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, this time present in person. He urged global unity against Russia’s aggression, which he described as a threat to the international rules-based order for which the UN stands.

Zelenskyy addressed the UN Security Council, a body that has taken no action on the conflict, since Russia, a permanent member, has used its veto power to block any response. His speech called for Russia, as the aggressor, to lose its veto power, and for Council vetoes to be overturned if two thirds of UN members vote to do so at UNGA – in which every state has an equal vote. Zelenskyy suggested that without changes, the Council can’t possibly deliver on its mandate of resolving conflicts. Russia’s representative tried to prevent his address; Albania, as holder of the rotating Council presidency, responded that if Russia were to stop the war, Zelenskyy wouldn’t need to take the floor.

The Ukraine war is one of several recent conflicts the Security Council has failed to act on, alongside wars in Syria and Yemen, where vested interests blocked action, while military rule has become established in Myanmar and increasingly across the Sahel. Systematic human rights crimes continue in numerous contexts, including Afghanistan, Ethiopia and Palestine. The body clearly isn’t fit for purpose.

Civil society and some states have long advanced credible proposals for Security Council reform. There are signs that the current deadlock could provide a tipping point in recruiting greater support for change. Momentum is building to at least open the Council up by involving more permanent members – although that wouldn’t solve the problem of veto power. Unfortunately, much of the debate that followed Zelenskyy’s Security Council address was vague and inconclusive.

Now or never for the SDGs

Unprecedented attention fell on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with an SDGs summit held as part of the week to take stock of progress towards the goals.

Agreed by every UN member state in 2015, the SDGs are an ambitious, comprehensive and interconnected set of 17 goals and 169 targets aimed at making the world more equal, just, peaceful and sustainable. They’re supposed to be achieved by 2030 – but progress is way off course. The UN points out that only 15 per cent of targets are on track and almost a third have stalled or seen regression on the 2015 baseline. Current trends are that by 2030, 575 million people will still live in extreme poverty and 600 million people will suffer extreme hunger – around the same number as in 2015.

There are many reasons the SDGs are off track. One is the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced states to put vital resources into responding to the public health emergency and caused a sharp slowdown in economic activity. Russia’s war on Ukraine has also had global repercussions, not least by pushing up food and fuel prices, creating a cost of living crisis. Beyond that, a slew of recent climate disasters – including floods, wildfires and heatwaves – have both pointed to the tragic impacts of unchecked climate change and demanded resource-intensive emergency responses.

Another deep problem linked to these is the soaring debt of many global south states. Poorer countries have to borrow at rates up to eight times higher than richer countries, and interest rates are going up. Precious money is spent on debt service rather than on vital needs such as education and healthcare that would help meet the SDGs. Put all this together and, even before the pandemic, there simply hasn’t been the finance at the level needed to make the SDGs happen.

If the SDGs are to be realised, the global financial architecture surely needs to be reformed so that global south countries can get the financing they need. International financial institutions and development banks such as the World Bank have long been criticised for being dominated by global north interests in their decision making and for taking insufficient account of the dynamics of global south economies.

Significant financing still goes into fossil fuel exploitation, and global south states that have oil and gas reserves see no alternative other than to pursue economic growth through extraction. The financial incentives aren’t aligned with the commitments, enshrined in both the SDGs and the Paris Agreement, to cut greenhouse gas emissions and ensure adaption to climate change.

There’s a deep and long-term lack of climate financing – for emissions cuts, adaptation and, most controversially, in compensation for the loss and damage climate change disproportionately causes to global south states. Funding targets have consistently been missed and only last year, at the COP27 climate summit, did agreement come on the principle of establishing a loss and damage fund – although there’s much detail to be hammered out yet. Global south states are being asked to make changes to respond to climate change largely caused by global north states – but in effect they’re being told they’ll have to borrow even more to pay for them.

The UN Secretary-General put forward an SDG stimulus plan to provide US$500 billion in funding. There’s no shortage of civil society ideas on how to close the financing gap. These include radical reform of development banks to reorient them firmly around climate financing, debt forgiveness and swapping debt for climate and environmental initiatives, new global tax rules to challenge vast corporate tax avoidance and windfall and wealth taxes.

SDGs and civic space

All the money in the world won’t achieve the SDGs unless there are joined-up partnerships that enable civil society to play a full role. Development decisions can’t be left to states alone, particularly since the strong social justice and equality focus of the SDGs requires a redistribution of power. Without strong independent scrutiny, development spending can be channelled into corruption, patronage and favouritism. Without space for civil society, people – particularly people from excluded groups – can’t exert pressure for decisions to meet their needs.

But since the SDGs were agreed, conditions for civil society have worsened in most countries. The CIVICUS Monitor – our research partnership that tracks the state of civic space in 197 countries – points to a year-on-year deterioration: 117 countries, home to around 85 per cent of the world’s population, now have serious civic space restrictions.

The SDGs are explicit about the vital role of civil society. SDG16 on peaceful and inclusive societies and effective and accountable institutions includes targets on transparency and accountability and inclusive and participatory decision making. SDG17 recognises the need for partnerships with civil society. But many states that claim they want to achieve the SDGs have spent years attacking civil society. They seem to think they can cherry pick the goals, working for progress in some while opting to regress in others. But the SDGs are interlinked and can’t be achieved without open civic space enabling civil society to play its proper role.

The SDGs summit ended with a political declaration in which states recognised that progress has been too slow and some recent gains are being reversed, and committed to accelerate implementation. But they essentially restated existing commitments.

Additionally, there appeared to be disagreements between states over text on fundamental issues such as climate change and gender equality, as well as on financing to achieve the goals. No significant funding commitments were made and the proposed stimulus plan remains a paper exercise with limited follow-up.

The statement says nothing on civil society, save a single mention of the need to engage all relevant stakeholders. It’s silent on civic space – another missed opportunity, and another sign that civil society too often remains an afterthought in global processes.

Civil society on the sidelines

This neglect of civil society’s role was reflected in the fact that, once again, civil society was denied access to UNGA headquarters during the high-level week. This exclusion stops civil society engaging directly with delegations and denies what should be a key opportunity for influence. It points to a bigger problem of the global absence of space for civil society. This means voices are excluded that have so much to offer, from deep expertise to direct testimony of lived experience that should guide decisions on sustainable development, peace and security, and human rights.

Civil society continued to do what it could to keep up the pressure from outside. Tens of thousands marched in New York to call for the end of fossil fuel use, and the following day activists blocked the entrance to the Federal Reserve Bank to demand the end of fossil fuel financing.

A Global People’s Assembly was held close to UN headquarters, preceded by people’s assemblies in 35 countries, to urge governments to meet their SDG commitments. Civil society called for international financial system reform, accountability in any new SDG financing to ensure resources aren’t used to reinforce state repression, and a democracy and human rights-centred audit of UN institutions.

Civil society is campaigning to reverse its exclusion, with the backing of supportive states, including through the UNMute civil society initiative, calling for reforms to make the UN more inclusive of civil society. The campaign is advocating for the creation of a new role, a UN civil society envoy, to ensure civil society’s participation across the UN system.

The 2023 high-level week came at a time when the fundamentals of the UN system are under attack like never before. Repressive leaders are increasingly questioning international human rights law, working to evade global scrutiny and undermining the vital principles established in the UN’s Charter and Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The expansion of the BRICS group – by admitting a string of mostly authoritarian states – points to the emergence of alternate forms of global decision-making with even less civil society access than the UN and zero commitment to human rights. Many states are showing a preference for taking decisions in arenas such as the BRICS and G20 rather than at the UN.

Later this year, the UN will be marking 75 years of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and 25 years of the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders. These are anniversaries to be celebrated, but they should also prompt reflection. Although the UN Secretary-General was emphatic in his praise for civil society and human rights defenders at the opening of the SDGs summit, there has been little sign of action following the publication of his 2020 Call to Action on Human Rights and Guidance Note on Civic Space. An evaluation report and action are urgently needed for both to identify areas for improvement.

Ahead of its next big event, the Summit for the Future, to be held in a year’s time, it falls on the UN to prove its continuing relevance and demonstrate that it can offer the leadership the world needs on climate change, the SDGs and other pressing issues. When it does, it will find in civil society a committed ally.