Here I want to zero-in on the challenges we in social movements (have) chronically face(d) in relation to so unsuccessfully having tackled and continue to tackle global governance issues. The story of our lives has so often become a string of disappointments making us sometimes wonder: Are we made a laughing stock? Are we fooling ourselves that ‘things are going to be alright’? or Do we need to work in a totally different way given that the private sector has pushed our backs totally against the wall in rooms where governance issues are decided? Are smart young people going to pick up the challenges as we, old people, are going to phase out pretty soon?

Bringing relevant issues to mind (needed elements for a cool-headed analysis)

As a member of public interest civil society organizations (PICSOs) and social movements, I can say that we forever seek meaningful participation in global fora --beyond voice-- in an effort to influence and strengthen the decisions that can lead to lasting legally binding changes. How many times, at what is left of true multilateral venues, do we find ourselves defending already earlier agreed language when we are ultimately most often ignored, for instance, at discussions in UN agencies? But, we keep trying, and?: “I participate. You participate; He/she participates. We participate but… they decide” (chalkboard in Bolivia.)

So, we have to ask ourselves: When is PICSOs participation in these venues an instrument to manipulate us? I believe some opportunities-still-open are given us simply to give the illusion of genuine consultation/inclusivity - or depicting this as a true ‘dialogue.’ They forget to tell us that the same opportunities are given to business-linked NGOs who, from a position of much greater power, have learned how to word and position their interventions to serve their and their sponsors stockholders’ narrow interests. The language they use is now so deceptive that too few are able to tell that it is all a smokescreen. (Keep in mind here: new opportunities to better participate is not what we are ultimately striving for; we are striving for on-the-ground results).

For that, therefore, are we truly challenging the dominant narratives by truly bringing people’s experiences, evidence and apprehensions into the global negotiation space? I would say no; we are rather banging our heads against multiple walls --one after the other… Are we thus wasting our time? How many more boils and bruises can we take? The sad truth is that, if we are not there yet, the omnipresent global controlling forces can shamelessly go right ahead with no worries... There is much here to dispassionately rethink so as to profoundly review the way we operate.

Because we have historically failed on the politicization front, corporations and allied governments are, again and again, going to easily outmaneuver us. We are literally decades behind. It is our well-founded disappointment that has to lead us into possible new approaches. My point of departure is the fact that money talks. The drivers of global governance have access to enormous and growing resources—and wealth concentration continues to accelerate upwards dramatically—so that those rendered rich will find more and more ways to reduce regulations that hamper their booming businesses. Do I see any promising way forward to make up for this? Being a pessimist-optimist, yes, I do.

More often than not, the above reasons have historically relegated PICSOs’ and social movements’ positions and demands to the dustbin, i.e., member states’ consensus resolutions ignore PICSOs’ well-reasoned inputs so that, at the end, these inputs end up making little or no difference: a pre-desired consensus with softened language is hammered out at the wee hours of the night only to see that, then, the resolutions are not applied at the national level where political powers keep things under (their) control. As a response, we may as well demand voting so that minority positions be accepted and tabled! We probably could count on a small number of member states going along with us on this. Make no mistake: what we are talking about here is about the need to demand the overruling of anachronic procedures and rules so as to genuinely democratize UN agencies.

But it is not just about the procedures and rules in UN fora. Probably, an entire new UN reshape is needed. Discussions do exist about this. But they are so far dominated by academics, think tanks, international NGOs, and former UN officials. Grassroots social movements have hardly taken up this question; there is no good reason for it. Basically, it is not about coming up with brilliant new ideas. It is about building up political forces from the ground pushing for the democratization of this absolutely indispensable international body. At this moment, we do not have the right governments, parties, or UN officials to bring about and materialize such a vision; much work is ahead here. Moreover, democratizing the UN has to go hand in hand with addressing power imbalances among countries and with reclaiming democracy from below. Otherwise, it will lead to just more tinkering with pat solutions.

Additionally, at the base of our frustrations is the fact that time has allowed corporations to creep in to advance their positions through public-private partnerships, within and outside the UN, allowing them to act with impunity so that the power of special interests ends up being far greater than that of the member states and of public interest civil society.

Yes, multilateralism is under attack by corporate capture. Despite our significant and well-reasoned contestations and our resistance to these developments over the past decades, these accumulated trends have culminated in a privatized multistakeholder space we need to forcefully denounce and dispute, simply because financial and transnational corporations are dominating the agenda, laying out a joint UN-corporate roadmap (not only cherry-picking areas of involvement, i.e., those most profitable to them, but also involving ‘socializing’ risks and privatizing profits). They have learned to use hypocrisy…

What, of course, comes to mind here are developments at the World Economic Forum (take their ‘Great Reset’ Initiative and the travesty we observed in the 2021 UN Food System’s Summit with its disregard for the fundamental changes needed for the right to food, for food sovereignty, and for agroecology to be respected, among others. Also, Codex Alimentarius boasts about its care for malnourished children and the importance of a fair global trade, yet the PICSOs involved in it have a real struggle to get effective safeguards into the texts under discussion—industry dominates the field.

When discussing human rights issues in so many relevant UN and other international fora, country delegations from the Global South are poorly informed and poorly staffed so that they often ‘flow with the Joneses’ as if they do not realize or care when things, the way they are going, clearly go against their national interest. PICSOs are much better informed and prepared than, I would say, 2/3 of the member states’ delegations. But we cannot forget that most PICSOs and individual activists:

  • Have pitifully scarce financial and human resources and, unless sufficiently coordinated, achieve only limited synergy—in reality, many are still fragmented and siloed (and thus weak), on top of being vulnerable to problematic offers of funding for technical interventions (some of them good and important, admittedly). But this is at the root of why they fail to see the bigger picture and realize how they are being used to usher in public-private partnerships (PPPs) that make them lose their independence.

  • Are facing shrinking operational spaces and perhaps a reduced ambition to stand up for human rights in a commensurate way.

Furthermore, consider these four arguments

  • To keep calling for convergence, coordination, and coherence is but a pipe dream. It is like, as we so often have done before, calling for ‘more multidisciplinarity.’. (There is nothing terribly wrong with this concept, but it just gratuitously assumes that looking at the problem behind these issues from a ‘wider’ multi-professional perspective is going to automatically lead us to the better, more rational, and egalitarian solutions).

  • The core issue we are dealing with is a push and/or a pull question. Nothing much will come from (UN) reforms being pushed from above. Only active, organized claim holders unrelentingly ‘pulling’ for needed changes will move the process ahead. History is clear about this. [Where to ‘pull’? Michael Fakhri (the UN’s Special Rapporteur) reminded us that ‘PICSOs coming to the table to discuss better, global solutions’ is not as simple as it sounds, especially if the table is already set, the seating plan non-negotiable, and the menu highly limited. … And what if the real conversation is actually happening at a different table?

  • Looking at and ensuring the progressive realization of human rights is an activity terribly neglected. (Is it perhaps because human rights are not understandable or too abstract to the average claim holders?). Add to this the poorly functioning accountability mechanisms being applied by PICSOs acting as watchdogs. (Again, do claim holders really understand what human rights accountability means?).

  • And then there is all this signing of letters of complaint and this writing of declarations and the reading of statements at UN meetings we all so (too) often engage in. Yes, they may make us feel better, but how much do they help? Do we follow up on them? To make a difference, we need to get where it really hurts—and not all PICSOs are happy to go this far; they may make nice gestures but then hold back. ‘Well done is better than well said,’ Benjamin Franklin told us.

What I think needs, among other things, to be done

Actions suggested here to address the deplorable current situation are brief to the point of caricatures; they are presented in no particular order of priority, and, let it be said, I am not pretentious enough to think I have the package of actions to follow—they are rather terribly prescriptive and normative at that.

Accept no more promises without concrete measures that can be legally enforced and monitored. Accept no more discrepancy between principles and practice.

Not only are (more) political analyses needed, but also (more) political action. Action is actually needed on a scale that is mainly only contemplated and voiced by those not sitting at the various decision-making tables.

If we want to achieve something more, redouble our organization, further strengthen our structures, and mentor more able spokespersons, especially young activists.

Having well-hammered-out goals and objectives is not enough. In the end, they are only aspirations. Without commensurate and matching policies that lead to legally enforceable measures, they are of no interest to the fulfillment of human rights; only policies that set plausible pathways point to credible destinations.

Increase PICSOs mobilization around the structural determinants. Only this will build the needed ground resistance to change things sustainably. For this, claim holders must get inside traditionally closed or uninvited spaces…

We say we have to convince more member state delegates at UN venues (often diplomat-bureaucrats). But decisions are taken in capitals—mostly in foreign affairs ministries. So, capitals are where our pressure ought to be exerted.

Sympathetic champions within the UN and other international agencies are key assets: seek, nurture, and encourage them.

Actively work with sympathetic governments willing to be vocal in international fora, partnering with PICSOs in our demands (these demands ultimately clearly benefiting them).

Critically question and, as needed, oppose the processes and governance guidelines and procedures of the UN (other than the General Assembly’s one-country-one-vote) proposing new, more democratic ones.

A procedural change must be kept as a preferred option to move away from passing resolutions by consensus, i.e., allowing for member states’ voting and eventually for minority reports in the several and fragmented UN governance spaces. (This said, I do not underestimate the need for an overall new direction of where the UN should go.)

Add to these a) contesting the deceiving language in use: no more stakeholders, no more loosely defined partnerships (among unequals), no more non-state actors, no more international community, no more mutual accountability, and b) be careful not to compromise when, so often—in a mockery of democratic decision-making—we are asked for comments on ‘zero’ or advanced drafts of UN documents.

Connect and exchange analyses and tactics with other constituencies and civil society platforms so as to broaden civil society mobilization around the globe, from local to global levels. The broader the base of organized claim holders we reach to exercise this power, the more sustainable the outcome will be. Political parties are not off-limits. (This is what, in a way, convergence should mean and be.) A caveat here is to watch out for business-linked NGOs that pretend to be on our side but are hiding who their financial sponsors are.

Our communications capacity has to significantly increase and become more punchy. Since the traditional media are controlled by the forces of the status quo, social media are our best chance.

Many small struggles are to coalesce. Among other things, this means engaging with academics, trade unions, and youth and women’s organizations—emulating the climate movement and their effective denunciation, e.g., the Fridays For Future movement and Greta’s Blah! Blah! Blah!, and last but not least broaden our alliances and engagement with the different UN mandate holders (including rapporteurs) and with the South Center in Geneva.

Bottom line

Can we work towards building a people’s governance grounded in multilateralism and human rights? For this, the answer may or may not be a new, more radical way of engagement with, for example, the Committee on Food Security (CFS) at FAO, where PICSOs and social movements still have a nominal presence. If this fails, PICSOs and social and indigenous people’s movements in the CFS must ponder the alternative to leave the CFS, moving their demands to other stages with a greater potential to influence governance decisions that break away from the neoliberal chokehold.

I recognize we are not there yet. Grassroots social movements are not giving priority to this question yet. So, for now, we should stay in places like the CFS to do precisely this: become biting watchdogs and continue demanding conditions we want to see in place. In that sense, it is more about resisting, about ‘throwing sticks to the wheels.’

I acknowledge the generous inputs of the Civil Society and Indigenous People Mechanism (CSIPM) of the Committee on Food Security of FAO and of Nora Mckeon, Sofia Monsalve, Raffaele Morgantini, Patti Rundall, and Ted Greiner.

In a café in Madrid, I overheard this conversation, which showed great pessimism but no drama: One of the conversation partners said to the other:
"A mi, lo que más me gusta es perder a las barajas."
"¿Pero es que no te gusta ganar?"
"¡Coño! ¿se puede?"