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The state of multilateralism: Shaky, fragile & stretched to capacity
Dr. Comfort Ero of the International Crisis Group has spent her career tackling the most difficult conflicts in the world, often exacerbated by severe environmental or social disasters. But as the climate crisis and war in Ukraine compound the forces pushing many fragile societies to the brink, she says multilateral institutions like the United Nations are not prepared to meet the challenge.
Faced with state collapse, food insecurity, and lack of governance, countries like Libya, Lebanon and Sri Lanka are not able to access the help they need to stabilize, build resilience and thrive.
“Countries are already facing difficult trend lines with a multilateral system that is shaky, that is fragile, that is already stretched to its capacity, not able to deal.” she said during a Global Stage livestream event at UN headquarters in New York on September 22, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
The discussion was moderated by Nicholas Thompson of The Atlantic and was held by GZERO Media in collaboration with the United Nations, the Complex Risk Analytics Fund, and the Early Warnings for All initiative.
Watch the full Global Stage conversation: Can data and AI save lives and make the world safer?
- UN chief: We must avoid the mistakes that led to World War I ›
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- Is there a path ahead for peace in Ukraine? ›
- Many knew Putin wasn't bluffing, but not how far he'd go, says International Crisis Group’s Comfort Ero ›
- What Africa has to say about climate change ›
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- UN Chief António Guterres on mounting global crises: "Hope never ... ›
- UN General Assembly day one: Not a Vanity Fair event ›
Ian Explains: Is the world better today thanks to human progress?
Human progress doesn’t have a finish line.
Our body clocks stop ticking at some point, but that’s not the same as reaching a destination, or achieving a goal. So how do we—as a community, as a country...as a world—define progress? What does “better” even look like?
In a word: laundry.
In 1920, the average American spent 11.5 hours a week doing laundry (and that average American was almost always a woman). By 2014, the number had dropped to 1.5 hours a week, thanks to what renowned public health scholar Hans Rosling has called QUOTE "greatest invention of the Industrial Revolution,”: the washing machine. By freeing people of washing laundry by hand, this new technology allowed parents to devote more time to educating their children, and it allowed women to cultivate a life beyond the washboard.
So, as I always say to myself whenever I’m stuck in traffic or on hold with customer service, there has never been a better time to be alive. And yet...And yet...And yet... War in Europe. Famine in Africa. Global pandemics. Fake news. Conspiracy theories. Democracy dying in the bright light of day. And that’s just your average Tuesday. So how much is technology making our lives better, and how much is a part of the problem?
Watch the GZERO World episode: Is life better than ever for the human race?
Catch GZERO World with Ian Bremmer every week at gzeromedia.com/gzeroworld and on US public television. Check local listings.
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- Staving off default: How unsustainable debt is threatening human progress ›
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Global Stage: Global issues at the intersection of technology, politics, and society
GZERO Media and Microsoft have joined forces to launch Global Stage, a partnership to present conversations about critical global issues at the intersection of technology, politics, and society.
On location from prestigious events including Davos, Munich, the UN General Assembly, COP, and more, Global Stage takes you to the frontlines of monumental global gatherings, where pivotal dialogues unravel at the crossroads of technology, politics, and society. Watch our live discussions tackling the world's most urgent challenges, featuring respected leaders and experts from both the public and private sectors who illuminate topics from cybersecurity, AI, and climate change to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Stay engaged throughout the year with thought-provoking livestreams, in-depth interviews, compelling podcasts, and more. Welcome to the Global Stage.
PUPPET REGIME: the Really Bad People song
Exciting update - GZERO has won the Gold Telly Award for this Puppet Regime episode in the category of “Craft-Use of Comedy.” Thanks to all of our viewers!
With everyone focusing on Russia's invasion of Ukraine, bad people in other parts of the world are having a moment, as Mohammad Bin Salman, Modi, Bolsonaro, and others are here to explain.
Did you miss the performances from the PUPPET REGIME's MBS? Well, he's back. Sing along, and add it to your playlist: you too can #BeBadPeople!!
Watch more PUPPET REGIME!
Subscribe to GZERO Media's YouTube channel to get notifications when new videos are published.
- MBS wants to know: Where is the line? - GZERO Media ›
- Putin signs up for MBS' Masterclass - GZERO Media ›
- Zelensky and Boris Johnson hit the beach - GZERO Media ›
- World High - GZERO Media ›
- Vladimir Putin sings one for his "friends" (90s video mix) - GZERO Media ›
- World leaders with rhythm: South Korea's President Yoon chimes in - GZERO Media ›
- What's Vladimir Putin reading these days? - GZERO Media ›
- Vladimir Putin, film critic: PUPPET REGIME - GZERO Media ›
- Who the hell was that world leader? - GZERO Media ›
- Kids, it's time to party with.. Jair Bolsonaro!! - GZERO Media ›
- Kim Jong Un drunk dialing - GZERO Media ›
- Trump reveals historic Putin chat in Musk interview - GZERO Media ›
- Rat King speaks out about NYC Mayor Eric Adams - GZERO Media ›
Populism vs. moderate politics
For Tony Blair three challenges will define geopolitics in the near future: the Western relationship with China, making democracy more effective, and harnessing the tech revolution.
How can we address them? The former British PM — who along with then-US President Bill Clinton led the centrist "Third Way" of politics in the 1990s — says that we need to return to the center to match challenges that'll be more practical than ideological.
Speaking to Ian Bremmer on GZERO World, Blair acknowledges that populism wins when voters believe that centrism can't solve their problems.
His solution? More politicians with experience beyond politics who can "understand the world, embrace it, and then change it."
The video above is an excerpt from the weekly show, GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, which airs weekly on US public television. Watch the episode on "upheaval in UK" here.
- Authoritarian alliances & the future of the free world ›
- The “authoritarian honeymoon” is over, says John Kerry - GZERO ... ›
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- Liz Truss' unenviable new gig - GZERO Media ›
- Upheaval in UK: the sobering challenges facing new PM Truss ... ›
- Podcast: "United" Kingdom? Tony Blair on Truss, Charles, Brexit ... ›
- Extremists vs. moderates: The real divide in US politics - GZERO Media ›
- Protecting science from rising populism is critical, says UNESCO's Gabriela Ramos - GZERO Media ›
António Guterres: Ukraine war united NATO, but further divided the world
Russia invaded Ukraine with impunity — and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres fears it may not be the last middle-sized power to pick a fight without consequence in the near future because global security governance is largely bankrupt.
"The capacity of deterrence that would exist if the whole powers, with the security council, will be able to say, 'This can't be done,' is not there," he tells Ian Bremmer on GZERO World.
Guterres worries that the war in Ukraine has shifted the trend in the balance of global power toward a divided world between the US and its allies vs. China and its friends.
Why? Because Moscow and Beijing don't have the same approach to fixing global problems.
Division is rising, he adds, no matter how much more united NATO is today than it was a year ago.
Watch the GZERO World episode: How a war-distracted world staves off irreversible damage
- Education's digital revolution: why UN Secretary-General António ... ›
- António Guterres: Let's deal with reality by engaging the Taliban ... ›
- "We are destroying our planet and we are not paying attention," says ... ›
- UN Chief António Guterres: nations no longer trust each other ... ›
- António Guterres exclusive interview | How a war-distracted world ... ›
- UN official: Security Council Is “dysfunctional” - but UN is not - GZERO Media ›
- UN Chief: Urgent global problems can't be fixed until Ukraine war ends - GZERO Media ›
- Podcast: UN Secretary-General António Guterres explains why peace in Ukraine is his top priority - GZERO Media ›
- UN chief: We must avoid the mistakes that led to World War I - GZERO Media ›
- UN Chief António Guterres on mounting global crises: "Hope never dies" - GZERO Media ›
"Crisis-rich" WEF 2022: on ending war in Ukraine & redistributing wealth
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hey everybody, Ian Bremmer here, and I'm in Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum. It is springtime. It's not the way it's supposed to work, but it is the first live forum in person since the pandemic hit. I'd say it's pretty well attended. About 80% of the folks you would normally expect to see here, almost all the CEOs, a lot of heads of state, government delegations, and of course, a lot of public intellectuals, but who you're not seeing, there's not one Russian in attendance. No corporates, no governments, no delegates. And that is because of the invasion into Ukraine three months ago. They were removed from the agenda. There's a lot being talked about right now.
This is certainly the most crisis rich environment that you've ever seen in a World Economic Forum. I think that's because you're in a geopolitical recession where the global institutions are increasingly misaligned with the power balance in the world, and that creates more crises. Everyone's worried about it. How are you going to respond to them? How do you respond to the Russian invasion in Ukraine? There's a lot of unity around the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Everyone here is on one side of it. Everyone thinks it's basically a war crime, they need to be stopped. There's no question there, but how do you end it? There's a lot of question of can the Ukrainians win? What does that mean? Is there need to be an off ramp for the Russians? What does that mean? No agreement on that whatsoever. I mean, I would say that the pessimistic view is the fighting continues. The more optimistic view is the fighting can stop, but it's still a very unstable equilibrium. I'm in the latter camp, but that still makes you feel like you're in a cold war. You're in a decoupled environment. It is not what this organization has been most committed to for 50 years, which is globalization. How can you talk about globalization when a G20 country has just been completely cut off from the G7 right in the middle of Europe?
Otherwise globalization conversations continue apace. It's still about data and goods and services and ideas and people moving faster and faster all over the world, except that over the course of the last couple of years, the big trend out there, leave aside all of these perfusion of crises, is that the global middle class, which had been growing for 50 years, is increasingly diminishing and it's splitting up. Part of that is the response to the pandemic and the fact that it hit the middle income the hardest. Emerging markets, developing states around the world didn't have the vaccines. They didn't have the economic capacity to respond very sharply. Same thing. So you didn't get the V-shaped recovery that you got in the United States, for example, you certainly got in China. On top of that, with a Russia-Ukraine war, who's taking it the hardest in terms of all of this inflation for commodities and especially food and fertilizer? Same thing, a global middle class.
So if the hope from 50 years of world economic forum is that you just weren't going to enrich multinational corporations and global elites, but that the global middle class was going to be fully on board, you're now seeing an unwind of that, and that's a very disturbing situation and backdrop for how you keep globalization going. Massive redistribution is going to be needed. If you had redistribution of labor from the wealthy countries to the middle income countries over the last 50 years, which balanced the world to a degree, and created a lot of discontent in the wealthy countries, it's now talking about a redistribution of capital. The only problem is nobody in the rich countries are really willing to do that to anybody but Ukraine these days. Anyway, that's a little bit of a take, a little flavor from what we're seeing in the World Economic Forum right now. Try to talk to you over the course of the week. Hope everyone's doing well.
For more of Ian Bremmer's weekly analyses, subscribe to his GZERO World newsletter at ianbremmer.bulletin.comA man wearing a mask walks on a bridge during a sandstorm in Baghdad.
Hard Numbers: Sands over Baghdad, pretty Russian graves, Europe’s neutral holdouts, global slogan of hate
8: Airports in Baghdad and other major Iraqi cities closed Monday as a massive sandstorm tore across the country. The frequency of these storms, which blanket everything in a reddish-brown haze of sand and dust, has been increasing: this is the eighth one in the past month alone. Scientists blame droughts, heat, and soil degradation linked to global warming.
20,000: A team from the Russian city of Omsk won the grand prize of 20,000 rubles ($311) in the country’s first-ever “grave decorating competition.”
4: If Sweden and Finland join NATO, which looks likely, there will be only 4 EU states left that describe themselves as neutral: Austria, Ireland, Cyprus, and Malta. Interestingly, NATO itself considers only the first two neutral.
14: The white supremacist gunman who killed 10 people and wounded 3 -— almost all of them Black — at a store in upstate New York this weekend explained his motivation by reciting the “14 words” — a phrase of that length that neo-Nazis around the world use to call for the preservation of the white race.