Can the Development Agenda and Multilateralism be Saved?

Ashraf Patel

 A whirlwind amidst multiple maelstroms best sums up the UNGA @ 80.  The 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) opened this month under the theme “Better together: 80 years and more for peace, development and human rights.”

This year, UNGA’s 80th session (UNGA80) identified four core priorities for survival:

1. Pushing for peace in conflict zones
2. Ensuring sustainable financing to tackle the big issues like climate
3. Making AI safe and inclusive, and
4. Delivering on a new Pact for the Future.

When the UN Charter was signed in 1945, it included a promise: its rules could be reviewed. Yet in nearly 80 years, Article 109 - the built-in mechanism for reform – has never been used.

Small island states suffer immense marginalisation amidst the rising tide of climate emergencies, narrow nationalism, and a lack of green finances.

 Conflicts and Ceasefire - Whither the Peace Agenda?

Ceasefire Now!  is the clarion call by Global civil society today. From the Gaza Genocide to continuing civil wars in Sudan/South Sudan and the East DRC to Myanmar to the various conflicts in the Indian subcontinent and GenZ protests, the peace agenda is more urgent than ever.  These conflicts fester in the theatre of nationalism, ethnic fault lines, joblessness,  climate-induced migration, and new resource conflicts around critical minerals. 

The UN and its peacekeeping capacity have been found wanting as the superpower hierarchy in the world today determines war, even though they all have signed the UN Charter. A new Fit for Purpose UN with peacekeeping facilities is urgently required, and a new post-reconstruction model rooted in sustainability should drive a new ‘peace and development consensus’. 

Budget cuts and the need for a Fit for Purpose UN

At a time when development co-operation is most needed to live up to the Pact of the Future polycrisis, the North and G7 core are sucked into a vortex of deeper trade nationalism, green protectionism, military Keynesianism, and alarming cuts in Overseas Development Aid by the US, UK, and EU.  The US made drastic cuts to the ILO, UNESCO, and the UN Relief Agency.

It remains to be seen whether U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres’ UN80 Initiative, a partial reaction to the Trump budget cuts, focuses on efficiencies, including a 20% across-the-board Secretariat staffing reduction.

Trade Wars and AGOA

Trade and tariff wars have disrupted a standing consensus on open trade benefits. The WTO has been in the crosshairs of the Trump administration since 2026. A few ‘green shoots’ within the WTO's recent public forum are the commitment by most stakeholders to save the WTO's core mandate.

The WTO Fisheries treaty, signed in late September, is a win for the Global South. The formal and responsible decision by China to forgo its status as a ‘Developing country’ will go a long way in levelling the playing field in world trade. Will the EU and US step up and match this move in trade deals, AGOA, and the EU's CBAM programs?

Development Aid Cuts and US Defunding of the UN 

The OECD reports that its members will provide between 9 and 17 percent less in official development assistance (ODA) in 2025, representing a decline of up to USD 35 billion, compared to 2024. Leading donors, including the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Japan, have announced and implemented significant cuts to their development aid budgets and adjusted the focus of their remaining work, deprioritizing vital issues including women’s health, family planning, climate mitigation and adaptation, and education, and contributing less to humanitarian relief efforts. Declines in aid will make closing the USD 4 trillion funding gap for the Sustainable Development Goals increasingly challenging.

According to DevTransform, the Global South is caught in an Aid-Debt trap. Before the recent rollback of ODA, the effectiveness of development aid was hindered by challenges to both quality and quantity. Aid contributions consistently fall short of targets. Tied aid and the use of third-party development contractors undermine not only the quality and cost effectiveness of implementation but also the ownership and leadership of recipient governments. Low-income countries (LICs) are trapped in a cycle in which increasingly outsized debt servicing burdens divert domestic resources, necessitating assistance and aid from the very countries and institutions from which they have received loans. 

In an era of digital economy and platform dominance of politics, economics, and society, the ‘digital public sphere’ is deeply contested, with the AI Superpowers US and China presenting vastly different models. The UNGA’s historic 80th session is launching the Independent International Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Global Dialogue on AI Governance, opening a window of opportunity to strengthen both global AI governance and the role of multilateral institutions.

The Global Digital Compact and Paris AI 2025 summit envisions consistent, inclusive, and evidence-based assessment and policy-relevant recommendations. In this maelstrom, the Trump-Vance cultural wars assault on ‘free speech vis-à-vis Big Tech regulation’ counternarratives reflects the vast gulf between the ‘nationalist cyber-libertarians’ ( nationalist at home - neo liberal abroad) of Trump 2.0 and the broader Global UN consensus advocating a responsible AI for All tech regulation agenda. Here, the EU’s AI Act, BRICS AI Communique, and G77 are generally more aligned.

Africa’s G20 Leadership Summit

In this multiple-headed storm, South Africa and Africa face a huge mountain as the G20 leaders meet for the summit. The gamut of challenges that UNGA @ 80 is bound to keep the G20 agenda alive and hopefully agile. 

The US already accrues considerable unfair advantage with the Dollar being the global reserve currency. Through its 2025 developmental aid and UN funding cuts, this ‘twin blow’ moment, the US effectively abdicates its responsibility in co-providing global public goods. 

The G20 Finance agenda faces a unique and new present danger. This week’s US Shutdown,  rooted in its National Debt – now standing at $ 37 trillion and counting- means the US socializes its risk to the world.

There is a reason that President Trump’s only interest in the G20 is the Finance and Central Banks track. That’s because the US needs portfolio flows (savings from the globe) to flow into US markets and help balance its own current deficits. In this context, the SDG Development agenda of the G20, such as wealth tax, Cost of Capital commission, and minimum Multinational taxation - all essential planks for domestic resource mobilisation are set to be stalled, and diluted. 

Is another world possible? There must be an alternative!  

* Ashraf Patel is a Senior Research Associate at the Institute for Global Dialogue, UNISA.

** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL, Independent Media or The African.