The Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva, Michael Moller reviews the year 2017, during which the physical phase of the renovation of the Palais des Nations began. Construction of the new building will take two years.
Despite a few disappointments, such as the implementation of the Climate Agreement and the difficult management of persistent problems in the field of migration, the senior UN official considers that the great challenges of our era lie ahead of us. Nevertheless, he remains optimistic, and is already seeing positive changes in working methods, which are becoming more integrated and collaborative.
Capacity building for the SDGs
One of the positive elements of 2017 was the achievement, especially in Geneva, of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), brought together in the Agenda 2030. This instrument turned out to be much stronger and more successful than expected. These 17 goals defined by UN member countries in 2015 encompass all the problems we face on the planet today. They have really become the global roadmap that makes it so much easier to work and integrate many players who previously didn't talk to each other. That's why we're currently strengthening this tool. At the end of 2016, I created a unit within my office called the Sustainable Development Goals Laboratory to enable the exchange of information and best practices, to avoid duplication, and to set up sustainable conversations between players in International Geneva, but also between here and the rest of the world. The field is equally important, as it is the place where proof of the effectiveness of these objectives is demonstrated.
We are also seeing growing interest from the business world, which has realized that the SDGs can be lucrative. The same is true of young people, who understand the need for a sustainable lifestyle. Another positive element is the growing awareness among business leaders. They have taken on board the importance of being a good global citizen. This gives us hope for the days ahead.
" The best guarantee of success is when people start copying you ".
Language modification
In order to convince all individuals of the usefulness and impact of the system's work, it is important to change the way things are told. It is important that the activities of the United Nations and its partners, be they non-governmental organizations, civil society or the business world, which we are trying to involve more and more, are understood. In the academic field, we are busy creating collaborations to ensure that researchers are doing useful work for those who are implementing solutions. As evidence of this success, the 2016 Annual Report recently won the award for Best Annual Report in the USA. The children's storybook, a compilation of folk tales from different parts of the world, which aims to educate young readers about the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and how the United Nations and other international organizations are working together to achieve these global challenges is a great success. Several countries are looking into the possibility of distributing them to all their schools. Which is another guarantee of success. The book has already been translated into several languages, and one Latin American country is planning to translate it into an indigenous language.
Gender equality
In 2015, the United Nations Office at Geneva created the International Gender Champions of International Geneva (International Gender Champion/Geneva). The concept was taken up by headquarters in New York, where Secretary-General Antonio Guterres launched a new UN system-wide Gender Strategy in September this year. He is one of the Champions.
In a way, we're a victim of our own success: to ensure that the actions we've undertaken continue and are followed up, we'll soon have to rethink the initiative, which was originally launched with no financial means and now requires more and more human resources. We're happy to see that the principle works and is making a difference.
Peace, security and action
Over the course of 2017, the Palais des Nations witnessed numerous events linked to peace and security. In a fragmented world, full of confrontations and becoming more difficult every day, Geneva is more than ever the city of peace par excellence. Its history, its expertise and the echo system that exists there provide effective and operational support for peace efforts, whether in Libya, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan or Syria. Over the past two years, we've been trying to adapt to accommodate these growing activities.
The new understanding of the actions needed to achieve peace is much more sophisticated. Mediation is a job that began years ago. We now know that we need to anticipate events and get to the root of problems before they escalate. That's why we need to look at climate, trade and humanitarian issues in an integrated way. Fundamental change must take place not only within the UN system, but also in capitals.
Different dynamics
We're busy creating a new dynamic for collaboration between all the agencies of the United Nations system and the players based in Geneva. Through the SDGs, unimaginable collaborations are emerging. Everyone understands that you have to work together to achieve results, and I encourage this approach as much as possible. As financial resources are limited, we're using our imagination to find solutions.
The SDG Lab helps the various players to coordinate and facilitates organized interaction to ensure efficiency.
United Nations reform
To enable fundamental changes to be made to the UN system in order to amplify the impact of its actions, a very different attitude on the part of member countries is required. The same applies to political will, which must be able to see beyond the short term and give the UN Secretary-General much greater room for manoeuvre than he has today. Micro-management, which has grown over the years, will have to be set aside to provide the flexibility needed to change a cumbersome and rusty system. We're in a fast-changing world, and we have to keep up with the times. If we don't change, we'll die.
China's role
China is an essential country and a player in the new form of solidarity that is emerging. President Xi Jiping's speeches at Davos and the Palais des Nations (January 2017) kicked off a new Chinese policy that positions China as a defender of multilateralism, free trade and the United Nations. The country is going to be one of the driving forces of change in an increasingly multicentric world where several major powers are going to be forced to work together.
Priorities for 2018
We hope that 2018 will be the year when the reforms of the UN system are set in motion so that implementation can begin in 2019. Until then, we're going to make sure that the UN takes increasingly preventive action. We cannot accept that in a world where we possess expertise and resources, situations such as those in the Central African Republic, Mali or Yemen should exist. A new international solidarity, backed by political will, must be born. Given the incredible shifts in geopolitical tectonic plates, the players of the future will be different.