Attachments
Executive Summary
There are growing calls to transform the multilateral system, which is widely seen as being in crisis. Yet solving the crisis of multilateralism requires understanding what that crisis entails. What parts of the multilateral system are in crisis, and what parts are still functioning? Where is commitment to multilateralism flagging, and where does it remain strong? Where is multilateral action failing to translate into concrete results, and where is it delivering? Who is being left out of multilateral engagement, and who is being included? And what are the trends over time?
To help answer these questions, the International Peace Institute (IPI) and the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) developed the Multilateralism Index. This 2024 edition of the Index assesses changes in international cooperation between 2013 and 2023 across five domains: Peace and Security, Human Rights, Climate Action, Public Health, and Trade. Each domain is evaluated across three dimensions: Participation, Performance, and Inclusivity.
Looking at each of these dimensions provides several broad takeaways:
• Participation: The Index does not find a major drop-off in participation by states in the multilateral system. In fact, participation increased across all domains except trade. This signals that member states remain engaged in the system, even if the nature of this engagement has shifted from cooperation toward contestation. At the same time, due to limitations in the indicators available, these improvements in participation should not necessarily be interpreted as a broadbased increase in commitment to multilateral action.
• Performance: Performance is the one dimension where the multilateral system saw a clear decline across most of the domains. The biggest decline was in peace and security. Human rights and climate action also saw significant declines. These declines may indicate that some global crises are outstripping the multilateral system’s ability to respond. At the same time, these shortcomings are not solely failures of multilateralism, as performance in many areas also depends on domestic action by individual states. Moreover, despite these shortcomings, the gears of the multilateral system are continuing to turn.
• Inclusivity: Broad improvements in the Index’s inclusivity dimension point to two trends: the steady growth in the number of NGOs engaging with various parts of the UN system and the increase in women’s representation across many UN bodies. Limitations in the indicators available make it more difficult to assess progress in other areas, including geographic inclusivity and more substantive inclusivity of women beyond their formal representation at the UN.
Several takeaways also emerge from each of the five dimensions covered by the Multilateralism Index:
• Peace and Security: The Index paints a mixed picture of participation in multilateral peace and security institutions, with participation in peacekeeping slightly decreasing and participation in peacebuilding increasing. Performance deteriorated across almost all indicators, reflecting blockages at the Security Council and an upsurge in violent conflict. Both inclusivity indicators improved, though major barriers to inclusivity remain.
• Human Rights: The Index reveals that member states have maintained—and even increased—their participation in many aspects of the multilateral human rights system, reflecting an ongoing desire to engage in and influence that system even among states with poor human rights records. At the same time, performance on human rights has deteriorated. The indicators on the inclusion of civil society and women in the UN human rights system have improved.
• Climate Action: The climate indicators point to mixed trends in participation in and performance on multilateral climate action. However, even where trends are in the right direction, as on climate finance and renewable energy, progress has been far slower than what is required to address the climate crisis. The indicators on inclusivity show clearer improvements.
• Public Health: The Index registers an increase in participation in the global public health system over the past decade, in part reflecting increased engagement in response to the sharp rise in public health needs following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Performance has been more mixed, largely due to the ongoing impacts of COVID-19 on global public health. Progress on inclusivity has also been mixed, reflecting ongoing challenges related to the inclusion of non-state actors in the global governance of public health.
• Trade: Participation in the multilateral framework for trade has been stagnant—or in some cases deteriorated—since the latest round of multilateral trade talks effectively ended in 2015. Performance has been mixed and is difficult to assess due to the trade volatility caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and heightened geopolitical competition. While the inclusivity indicators have improved, it is difficult to assess geographic inclusivity, which is the biggest fault line in multilateral trade cooperation.